Lorna Cecilia Garman Wishart (1911–2000) was the youngest of the seven daughters (and two sons) of Walter and Margaret Garman, an eccentric Victorian doctor, led notoriously high profile lives within mid 20th century artistic circles.

Having grown up in the bleak surroundings of the ‘Black Country

Black Country

The Black Country is a loosely defined area of the English West Midlands conurbation, to the north and west of Birmingham, and to the south and east of Wolverhampton. During the industrial revolution in the 19th century this area had become one of the most intensely industrialised in the nation...

’ at Oakeswell Hall, Wednesbury

Wednesbury

Wednesbury is a market town in England's Black Country, part of the Sandwell metropolitan borough in West Midlands, near the source of the River Tame. Similarly to the word Wednesday, it is pronounced .-Pre-Medieval and Medieval times:...

, in England they were prominent in London's Bohemian

Bohemianism

Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...

 Bloomsbury set, between the two world wars.

The complex lives of the dazzling beauties Mary

Mary Garman

Mary Margaret Garman Campbell was the eldest of seven sisters known for their glamorous, bohemian lifestyles and their many love affairs with famous artists, writers and musicians of interwar London...

, Kathleen

Kathleen Garman

Kathleen Garman, Lady Epstein was the third of the seven notorious Garman sisters, who were high profile members of artistic circles in mid-twentieth century London, renowned for their beauty and scandalousness. She was the muse and longtime mistress of Jacob Epstein, the famous British/American...

 and Lorna included affairs and friendships with writer Vita Sackville-West

Vita Sackville-West

The Hon Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Lady Nicolson, CH , best known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author, poet and gardener. She won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927 and 1933...

; composer Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni

Ferruccio Busoni was an Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.-Biography:...

, painter Bernard Meninsky

Bernard Meninsky

Bernard Meninsky was a figurative artist, painter of figures and landscape in oils, watercolour and gouache, draughtsman and teacher. He was born in Karotopin now in the Ukraine but raised in Liverpool where he attended the Liverpool School of Art in 1906 after initially attending evening classes...

, sculptor Jacob Epstein

Jacob Epstein

Sir Jacob Epstein KBE was an American-born British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British citizen in 1911. He often produced controversial works which challenged taboos on what was appropriate subject matter...

; poet Laurie Lee

Laurie Lee

Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter, raised in the village of Slad, and went to Marling School, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie , As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and...

 and the painter Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud

Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...

.

Her character may be summed up in this quote:

“Lorna, the baby of the family, was perhaps the most flamboyant of the fabulous Garmans. She wore beautiful and unusual clothes and smelled of Chanel No. 5, went riding on her horse at night, drove a chocolate-brown Bentley, and would strip naked to swim in inviting lakes or rivers or 10-metre waves. At 14 she seduced the man who would become her husband when she was 16, the publisher Ernest Wishart.”

Ernest Wishart owned Lawrence and Wishart

Lawrence and Wishart

Lawrence & Wishart is a British publishing company formerly associated with the Communist Party of Great Britain. It was formed in 1936, through the merger of Martin Lawrence, the Communist Party's press and Wishart Ltd, a family-owned liberal and anti-fascist publisher.It publishes the journals...

, the anti-fascist publisher which became the publishing house of the British Communist Party in collaboration with Douglas Garman, the party's Education Secretary.

Throughout the marriage she had affairs with, among others, writer Laurie Lee

Laurie Lee

Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter, raised in the village of Slad, and went to Marling School, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie , As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and...

, who fathered her third child Yasmin and the painter Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud

Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...

 for whom she modelled in many of his paintings, and for whom she brought objects such as a dead heron and a zebra head. She was renowned as the heartbreaker of her long-suffering husband and anguished lovers alike. Remarkably, Lee and Freud each went on to marry her nieces, Kathy Polge and Kitty Epstein.

Lorna’s quixotic

Quixotic

Quixotic may refer to:* Quixotic, an adjective deriving from the novel Don Quixote* Quixotic, an album by Martina Topley-Bird* Quix*o*tic, a Washington D.C. based rock band* DJ Quixotic, a Los Angeles-based record producer...

 character is crystallised in her comment to Laurie Lee when he announced his intention to fight in the Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

, “…you don’t need a war because you’ve got one here.”

She ended her days a pillar of the Roman Catholic community around Arundel

Arundel

Arundel is a market town and civil parish in the South Downs of West Sussex in the south of England. It lies south southwest of London, west of Brighton, and east of the county town of Chichester. Other nearby towns include Worthing east southeast, Littlehampton to the south and Bognor Regis to...

, in West Sussex

West Sussex

West Sussex is a county in the south of England, bordering onto East Sussex , Hampshire and Surrey. The county of Sussex has been divided into East and West since the 12th century, and obtained separate county councils in 1888, but it remained a single ceremonial county until 1974 and the coming...

.