The SEYMOUR'S Room The third of Sir
John and Leonie Leslie's four sons, Seymour loved chinoiserie
and the very latest inventions. The most social and romantic
of the brothers, he suffered crippling tuberculosis as a child
and spent his youth lying on his back. With nothing better to
do, he became fluent in French, English and German literature.
As a joke he applied for a job at Queen Charlotte's Maternity
Home demanding three times the salary and a huge office. The
interview board were impressed and offered him the job. He turned
out to be a brilliant appeal secretary, raising millions to build
the then ultra modern hospital in Hammersmith, and invented the
famous 'Queen Charlotte's Birthday Ball'. He married happily
and was due for a knighthood for his hard work, but instead was
kicked out with a tiny pension by the new National Health Service.
Undeterred, he returned to Dublin and did for the Adelaide Hospital
what he had done for Queen Charlotte's.
He retired to Castle Leslie in 1962 converting the west wing
into a separate residence and remained ever youthful in mind
and spirit. 'Whenever Seymour Leslie walks into a room, there's
an instant party'. He died aged 86, and preferred to be buried
under a weeping willow in Glaslough churchyard to the damp family
vault. |
