This is the life story of the much-married and sexually-adventurous Idina Sackville, notorious in the 1920s and 30s for her decadent lifestyle. Part of the drink and drug-fuelled 'Happy Valley' crowd in Kenya, she associated with many of the people who created scandal at the time, including the murdered Joss Hay, Earl of Errol, who has been written about extensively elsewhere. Frances Osborne is her great-granddaughter, but Idina had been kept a ghastly family secret from the younger generations, as if connection with her would tar everyone's reputation. Indeed, the two branches - stemming from Idina's two sons by her first husband and much younger daughter by her 3rd (Joss Hay) barely knew of, let alone knew, each other, which, in a family of diminishing children and a great many early deaths, seems rather sad.