Duchess Camilla’s son has paid a touching tribute to his late uncle.
Food critic Tom Parker-Bowles has been left devastated by the passing of Mark Shand – who died aged 62 after a fall outside a nightclub in New York City last week – but says he feels "lucky" to have had the conservationist in his life.
He began the tribute by writing: "Uncle Mark is dead. Four words I never thought I’d write. It never even crossed my mind that Mark would cease to be."
He closed by saying: "Father, brother, uncle, friend. We’re a very close family. And devastation doesn’t begin to come near describing how we feel. Just the same as anyone losing a loved one.
"The fact we’ll never see that stubble again, hear that rich voice, get the usual lippy text message ended with a million kisses. It’s all those tiny things; the smell of his Trumper’s aftershave. None of us has grasped he’s gone. We won’t for some time. There was no one like him, never will be.
How lucky we all were to have had this giant, magnificent figure in our lives. My keyboard’s glistening with tears. His death leaves a massive, gaping hole that will never be filled."
In his piece for the Mail on Sunday newspaper, Tom admitted he thought his uncle would have been amused by the way he died.
He wrote: "Here was a man who’d brushed off cyclones, tsunamis, earthquakes, shipwrecks, pirates, bandits and malaria.
"He would have relished the irony of his demise. Not by poisoned arrow, or furious bull elephant in must, rather the cold, hard, mundane pavement of the New York night.
"He found humour in everything, however morbid. Nothing was off-limits, including himself. Especially himself."
Tom also recalled how Mark infuriated his sisters by supplying him and his cousin Ben with cigarettes and alcohol when they were just teenagers.
He wrote: "My cousin Ben and I worshipped the man. We’d do anything for him. He’d buy us cigarettes and booze and take us to the pub at 14. What other uncle would arrive back for Christmas with supermodel girlfriends – supermodel girlfriends who would come down to breakfast in tight silk negligees?
"My mother and aunt were less than impressed. Ben and I, in the first blushes of adolescence, were so excited we barely knew where to look. When we were aged about 12, he would sneak us into 18 certificate films. I say sneak – actually he would just stride in, pushing us ahead of him, ignoring the protests of any staff."
Tom Parker-Bowles remembers Mark Shand
