John Paul Getty Jr with his second wife, actress Talitha Pol, after their Rome wedding (Keystone)
In a dark room in the London Clinic, J Paul Getty Jr slid from his bed and moved to the window sill. I had expressed an interest in his passion for medieval books, an era when monks sat in rooms not much smaller than his and wrote and illuminated literature by hand.
He was smiling for the first time in an hour. “Yes, I’ve one or two things here,” he said as he searched the line of books with his fingers. “Perhaps you would care to look at this.”
A box was withdrawn from the sill and placed in my hands. Inside was the Paris Psalter (AD 1230), which Getty recently acquired. It is a wonderful work of art.
Getty took obvious pleasure in watching