Sydney Gibbes was appointed tutor to the children of Tsar Nicholas II in 1908. Over the next ten years he became deeply attached to the Imperial family – and they to him.
Frances Welch draws on a wealth of unpublished material to throw new light on the Romanov story, telling it from the English teacher’s point of view. The tragic events of the Russian Revolution devastated Gibbes, turning him into an obsessive Russophile, who was to go to extraordinary lengths to remain faithful to the old order…
Frances Welch has written for the Sunday Telegraph, Granta, The Spectator and the Financial Times. She is co-author of Memories of Revolution: Russian Women Remember (Routledge, 1993), The Romanov & Mr Gibbes (Short Books, 2003) and A Romanov Fantasy: Life at the Court of Anna Anderson (Short Books, 2007) She is married to the writer Craig Brown, and has two children. She lives in Aldeburgh, Suffolk.