Charles Tennant

Growing up with his two brothers and two sisters at The Glen, the family's beautiful mansion house near Peebles, Charlie Tennant enjoyed an idyllic childhood interspersed by holidays in the West Indies. Here, on the Caribbean island of Mustique, his fathe

r regularly entertained the international jet set, notably Mick Jagger, who retains a house there to this day. With homes in Scotland, Norfolk, and London, it seemed that nothing could possibly go wrong.

Educated at Clifton College, Bristol, then Frencham Heights, Charlie then went to London where he was co-founder of the Chelsea Scoop, an underground magazine. Those who met him were easily won over by his James Dean looks and friendly manner, and he was

photographed by Patrick Lichfield and Robert Mapplethorpe.

But during the 1970s, the music and drug culture of the previous decade had taken a harder turn. Charlie Tennant, in common with many of his generation, sought escape from reality through marijuana and LSD, leading to heroin. Surrounded by so much wealth

and privilege, the mystery is what was he escaping from and why he should have needed to escape. But with so many parallel examples from which to choose there are no easy answers.

Then, as now, drugs were easily accessible for those who knew where to look, and thus the golden boy was rapidly seduced and destroyed. As his addiction worsened, there came confrontation. In 1978 he stole some private photographs of Princess Margaret bel

onging to his mother and sold them to a dealer to buy drugs. Although relatively unsensational, they were published none the less, causing immediate embarrassment to the family.

Exasperated, his father decided to disinherit him of the Glen estate in favour of Henry, his younger brother who was married with a son and heir. Ironically, it was Henry's death a year later that decided Charlie that he must make an effort to pull himsel

f together.

In doing so he was ably assisted by Shelagh Scott, with whom he was having a long-term relationship. They married in 1993 and the following year their son, Cody, was born. A sunny, healthy child, adored by his father, Cody is now the heir to the Glenconne

r peerage.

It is easy to dismiss Charlie Tennant as yet another poor little rich kid who went wrong. The reality is that towards the end of his life he turned about. Having experienced first-hand the consequences of his own actions, he sought to help others, campaig

ning with dedication for a better understanding for those afflicted with drug addiction.

Although an essentially private individual, he regularly gave interviews to newspapers and spoke on the radio. Furthermore, he found the courage to appear on television chat shows where he talked with honesty about his failings. In this way he hoped other

s might be helped, or at best be warned off.

With a wry smile, and a cheeky sense of humour, Charlie never failed to win friends from all quarters. Although inherently shy, charm came easily to him. Sensitive and intelligent, he was staggeringly well informed with a deep awareness not only of his fa

mily's history, but of Scotland's story. The pale, gaunt figure of recent years, such a contrast to the god-like vitality of his youth, could adopt a touchingly professorial stance when expounding upon some academic theory he had just encountered.

Whatever he had been through, he had learned the kind of lessons which, hopefully, the majority of us will never have to endure. The outcome was a caring and endearingly good companion.

To some degree, Charlie knew that his time was limited. Hepatitis C, caught from a needle some years ago, finally claimed him on Saturday morning. But Charlie would have liked to think that even in death he had achieved something. Even if only to serve as

a terrible warning to all those children of the future tempted towards drugs as the answer to their problems.