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Stephen Sebag-Montefiore was the son of Colonel Eric Sebag-Montefiore and Audrey Haldin. His father, nicknamed Colonel Blood for his irrepressibly expletive laden stentorian boom (and for once chasing a fellow officer around the mess with a naked sword), was a landowner, soldier, and Master of Foxhounds. Stephen and his sister Sonia spent his first years in India but were brought up in a rare hybrid of Jewish and English traditions.
Born into the so called cousinhood of Jewish banking families, Sebag-Montefiore was a great great nephew of Sir Moses Montefiore, the Italian born Victorian baronet and philanthropist, who was the brother in law and partner of N M Rothschild; and great grandson of the banker Sir Joseph Sebag-Montefiore. His maternal grandparents were Sir Herbert and Lady Leon, who lived at Bletchley Park, where he often stayed as a boy.
Sebag-Montefiore typically went his own way. At school he developed blood poisoning from a rugby cut. The operation that saved his life also left him with a leg he...