Socialite Basia Briggs recounts her eventful life including her mother's attempt to kill her own husband, her rise and fall among Britain's social elite and how her mother's affair ended her marriage - but gave her a new life

When I was just 13, my mother tried to murder her second husband, Stefan — and I helped her get away with her crime.

Her name was Camilla, and she was exceptionally beautiful. When Stefan first knew her, she could barely walk down the street without attracting attention; even shopkeepers would go misty-eyed when she spoke to them.

On the surface, Stefan had little to recommend him: he was glum, ugly and a man of few words. But he’d built up a huge property empire, becoming the richest Pole in Britain — so Mum married him for his money.

Inevitably, the thrill of wearing mink and getting her hair done daily began to pall. Worse, Stefan was always in a bad mood, and kept photographing Mum naked in erotic poses, then showing his favourite pictures to his friends.

I urged her to leave him, but the pull of his money was too strong. Mum didn’t see why she should have to leave her luxurious home for some other woman to enjoy.

Instead, she decided to kill him. One night, she crept into the kitchen and turned on all the gas rings without lighting them. Then she opened the connecting door to a small room where Stefan lay sleeping, and went upstairs to bed.

The following morning, I was woken by Mum saying: ‘Come and help, Stefan is almost dead!’

Downstairs, the overwhelming smell of gas made my eyes water and my nose run. Spluttering and choking, we dragged an unconscious, blue-faced Stefan out of his room and dialled 999.

After the ambulance had taken him away, Mum admitted she’d tried to murder him. Trembling with fear, she said the plan was to say that Stefan had accidentally gassed himself.

I was horrified. And even more so when we found two policemen standing outside Stefan’s ward.

'I urged her to leave him, but the pull of his money was too strong. Mum didn’t see why she should have to leave her luxurious home for some other woman to enjoy. Instead, she decided to kill him. One night, she crept into the kitchen and turned on all the gas rings without lighting them. Then she opened the connecting door to a small room where Stefan lay sleeping, and went upstairs to bed'

Mum was near to collapse, so I piped up and told them that her husband was drunk on a daily basis and often put the kettle on, then forgot to switch off the gas. ‘He’s very absent-minded,’ I said.

The police seemed satisfied. And, incredibly, so was Stefan when he discharged himself from hospital the next day. Our miserable life resumed, as if nothing of any great significance had ever taken place.

This grim tale may well come as a surprise to those who know me as a London socialite. But the truth is that I had a dysfunctional upbringing — by a mother who was not only silly but totally irresponsible.

My parents had separated the year after I was born. Mum hated me seeing my father, who was a Polish-born aristocrat.

'It didn’t help my mother encouraged me: she felt that having a wayward daughter at home would be damaging to her marriage, so she paid for a one-way ticket to Australia. Only days after arriving in the dreary Melbourne suburb where Graham (back, centre) lived with his parents, I realised I’d made a huge mistake. The bronzed Adonis had turned into a slob'

Whenever she spoke about him, her eyes would glisten with hatred. ‘Your father has only got one this size,’ she’d say, holding up her little finger. It was years before I had any idea what she meant.

When I was still very young, she met a rich widower called Mr Henryk, who was around 50 and had a face reminiscent of the actor Sid James. I adored him. On my weekends off from boarding school, he’d take me to the cinema or the Natural History Museum.

After we’d moved in with Mr Henryk, Mum started another affair with a man called Mr Kieconski, who was in his mid 50s and ran an antique furniture shop.

Then aged around 27, Camilla never did go for younger men. At least, not then. Somehow, she managed to keep two lovers on a string, and we seemed like one big, happy family with me at the centre. One summer, we all went to Italy for a week together.'

I knew each man was as desperate as the other to marry Mum. But she miscalculated: each died within six months of the other of a heart attack, leaving her alone for the first time.

'When I wrote in desperation to Mum, however, she told me that Stefan was against me returning. So, aged 18, I married Graham, vowing to myself that I’d one day escape'

I was distraught, and even more so when Mum wrote to me at boarding school to announce that she’d hastily married Stefan. The next time she wrote, she included a map to show how to get to her new husband’s home — where I’d live for the next six years. As Stefan didn’t like the fact she had a child, I was told to use a separate entrance and have meals in my room. For breakfast, I’d walk to a cafe in West London. I was effectively an intruder in what was supposed to be my home.

If you’d met me at 14 — a year after Mum tried to kill Stefan — you’d never have guessed I had such a difficult home life.

Masquerading as a 17-year-old, I flitted through London high society with a pack of public-school boys who drove E-type Jags or Aston Martins. Many were in line to inherit titles and they all had plenty of money. There were hunt balls in Wiltshire, house parties in Gloucestershire, clubbing at Tramp nightclub, dinners at the most fashionable restaurants — and I was an integral part of it all.

My entree had been accidental: Olga, a girl I’d known since childhood, introduced me to two of the boys, aged 23, at a coffee bar. it led to a party invitation — and soon I was one of the crowd.

'Every boy I met seemed to fancy me — though no one tried to seduce me; it was accepted that good girls didn’t. I felt I’d well and truly arrived'

Every boy I met seemed to fancy me — though no one tried to seduce me; it was accepted that good girls didn’t. I felt I’d well and truly arrived.

When it was time for me to marry, I decided, my husband would have to be titled — preferably a duke. Blimey, I thought, I might even get to marry the Prince of Wales!

My ambition in those days had few bounds. At 17, intrigued by my friends’ constant talk about sex, I decided that I ought to give it a try. But I wasn’t about to compromise my reputation, putting at risk my chance of a ‘top-drawer’ marriage.

So, idiotically, I decided to go to Spain to lose my virginity.

I travelled alone to a town called Javea, near Benidorm. And one balmy evening, as I was sitting in a bar, I noticed a handsome fellow observing me intently.

He was slim and muscular, with dark hair and fabulous teeth. Later that evening, he asked me to go for a drink with him. His name was Graham, he was 29 and he was an Australian ‘doing’ Europe. A few nights later, I lost my virginity to him in his campervan.

I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about, but at least I felt grown-up. And more to the point, no one need know; I could still marry well and get the house in Sloane Square that had always figured in my pipe-dreams.

When I got home, however, I was appalled to discover that I was pregnant. My mother, who’d probably had plenty of experience of abortions, volunteered to arrange everything.

Unfortunately, I ended up having a botched operation which left me convinced I’d never be able to bear a child. I was so tormented with guilt that all I could think about was getting pregnant again.

My old acquaintance Olga, meanwhile, had gossiped about my misfortune to all our friends. And that really marked the end of my dreams, because I knew I’d lost my chance of making a splendid marriage.

My only recourse, I decided, was to leave the country, marry Graham and try for a baby. Of course I was being irrational, but I was only a teenager.

These days Basia would rather be at home than mingling with the great and good over canapes and champagne. Pictured: Basia with her husband Dick and the Queen Mother

It didn’t help that my mother encouraged me: she felt that having a wayward daughter at home would be damaging to her marriage, so she paid for a one-way ticket to Australia.

Only days after arriving in the dreary Melbourne suburb where Graham lived with his parents, I realised I’d made a huge mistake. The strong, bronzed Adonis I’d met in Spain had turned into a slob with a beer gut.

When I wrote in desperation to Mum, however, she told me that Stefan was against me returning. So, aged 18, I married Graham, vowing to myself that I’d one day escape.

Within weeks, I was wretchedly unhappy. I don’t think Graham was interested in anything but women, drink and limbo dancing — having once won a prize for this in a drunken contest.

The more I had sex, the more I hated it. After ceaseless nagging, I’d anaesthetise myself with whisky, swallow two Mogadons and brace myself for a mauling. I even bought a chocolate-flavoured laxative and used it to doctor Graham’s puddings, which did wonders for suppressing his libido.

The one thing that kept me sane was the conviction that I’d one day be free. And then I got pregnant.

After my son Adam was born, I wrote to Mum again. She said a screaming baby would upset Stefan and she didn’t want anyone knowing she was a grandmother as she was only 40. Still, I was thrilled with my son and that made up for a great deal. I rocked him and sang to him, glorying in my extraordinary achievement.

I certainly wasn’t expecting Mum’s next move — a sudden announcement that she and Stefan were selling up for a new life in Melbourne.

When they arrived, I wept for the sheer relief of seeing her again. That hot summer, she and Stefan stayed with us while they looked around for a place of their own.

Basia's upper-crust accent betrays just a hint of her Eastern European heritage. Pictured: She meets the Queen

As Mum paraded around in her bikini, Graham would often put his arm around her waist and say: ‘What a lovely mother-in-law I’ve got.’

It soon became clear that both she and Stefan were drinking themselves into a stupor every day.

Bloody hell, I’m going to die out here, I thought. I’m going to grow old and ugly with overwork and unhappiness and eventually turn to drink and gulp Valium and die.

By now, I loathed Graham. But my lack of interest merely increased his desire. Not only did he nag me to join a local wife-swapping group but one night he hit me for refusing him, leaving me with a black eye.

Life limped on for another three years. I had another baby, whom I named Camilla after my mother. And Stefan’s liver began to fail.

Mum’s newest obsession was to find out when he was going to die. She also started an affair with a married man who lived next door.

Drawing on all my reserves, I took myself in hand. I had highlights put in my hair, started applying make-up and joined a model agency.

For my first job, I had to stand next to a fridge for a local paper advert. Not exactly the cover of Vogue — but I vowed to save every penny for my running-away fund.

Then three momentous things happened. First, Stefan died. Next, I asked Mum to honour her promise to take me home, but she insisted she wasn’t ready.

And some months later, she came to me with a funny look on her face and said: ‘There’s something I must tell you.’ She and my husband, she revealed, were having an affair.

I thought she was joking — until she added: ‘My goodness, hasn’t he got a big one!’

Mum’s expression reminded me of a snake’s — cold and watchful, waiting for my reaction. It took all my strength to ask her calmly to leave.

Afterwards, I realised I was free. I had money saved up, and my loyalty to Mum had been the one thing keeping me in chains.

I stole Graham’s passport to stop him following me. Then, with a child under each arm and just one suitcase, I headed for the airport.

'I was on a mission to change everything about Dick, from how he dressed to the way he behaved and what he ate. I persuaded him there were better things to do each evening than lurch to the pub — like reading books or going to the opera'

In London, my old friend Olga took us in. But I knew Graham might come after me, and I had to find a male protector as quickly as possible. As it turned out, I met him two days after arriving. Olga was doing her make-up when the doorbell rang, and I opened the door to find a beefy, dangerous-looking man leaning against the frame.

He was dressed like a spiv in a bomber jacket and a half-undone shirt. Nestling in his chest hair was a large scorpion medallion. When he said his name was Dick, I detected a strong Cockney accent.

We chatted for 20 minutes, and he told me he was a builder who’d once been a nightclub bouncer. As I listened to him talking about how to control fights, I thought: Golly, this alarming man is just what I need.

He invited me for lunch at his flat, a musty basement in Paddington with smelly dustbins at the front. Later, he took me to a pub, where I met his friends — a jovial bunch of small-time crooks, builders, plumbers and electricians.

On learning my name was Basia, they all hooted with laughter: if we ended up getting married, they chortled, I’d be ‘Basher Briggs’.

Dick drove me home, stopping on the way for cod and chips. He was hardly the entree I needed to high society, and yet there was something special about him: I’d detected a sharp mathematical brain.

Basia Briggs is habitually remembered as a socialite, friend of the royals and thrower of some of the capital’s most lavish and celebrity-studded parties. She is pictured at the Old Royal Naval College

I moved in with him three days later. We both felt we were above each other: Dick looked down at me for having Polish parents, and I looked down at him for being a small-time, drunken Cockney builder who lived in a Paddington basement.

But somehow it worked — and to show my gratitude for his support, I decided to make him prosperous.

He just needed a few introductions to the rich people I’d known in my teens, I thought, and then he’d get better contracts.

I was on a mission to change everything about Dick, from how he dressed to the way he behaved and what he ate. I persuaded him there were better things to do each evening than lurch to the pub — like reading books or going to the opera.

My friends didn’t like him but were usually too scared to be rude, though, as his temper was, by his own admission, ‘volatile’. A well-known estate agent in Bayswater made that mistake once. Dick picked him up, punched him and hurled him through the air. The hapless agent landed in the gutter.

Under Dick’s rough exterior, however, was a man with the raw materials to make something of himself. He knew I was trying to remould him, and he wasn’t averse. In fact, his business soon began to boom.

After my divorce from Graham came through, we got married. I’d have preferred a wedding reception in Claridge’s, but the manager of his local pub had insisted on giving us a spread as a wedding present.

None of my friends approved of the marriage. My best girlfriend told me: ‘You won’t be able to bring yourself down to his level and he’s not capable of rising to yours.’

I look at Dick now, in his habitual attire of a three-piece pinstripe suit from Savile Row, with a stiff-collared shirt and gentleman’s brogues, and laugh at her beastly comment.

After my divorce from Graham came through, we got married [to Dick Briggs, pictured] . I’d have preferred a wedding reception in Claridge’s, but the manager of his local pub had insisted on giving us a spread as a wedding present

As for my treacherous mother, she’d returned to London after two years. I don’t know how her affair with Graham ended, but it continued for some time after I left Australia.

My son later mentioned that when he stayed at his grandmother’s house, he found it confusing to see his father emerge from her bedroom in the morning.

She wasn’t yet 70 when she died from sepsis in 2004. Her former lover — my ex-husband — died in the same year from cirrhosis of the liver.

I sat with Mum all that final day, holding her hand. To ease her passing, I told her she’d been a very good mother. And although she was unconscious, I saw a large tear trickle down her cheek.

When her will was read, she had left everything to her final lover.

Adapted from Mother Anguish by Basia Briggs, published by Quartet Books on December 5 at £20. To order a copy for £16 (offer valid to December 14, 2017; p&p free), visit www.mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640.