The life of Bryan's boys: meet the charming (and scandalous) Ferry brothers

As Merlin,the youngest, is sentenced for carrying a knife, Susannah Butter looks at the four 'feral Ferrys'
p34 p35 LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - NOVEMBER 04: Merlin Ferry, Tara Ferry, Otis Ferry and Izaac Ferry attend the UK launch of Moncler at Moncler Store on November 4, 2010 in London, England.
wire
21 March 2013

Their life is a Jilly Cooperish mix of horses, country houses and rock’n’roll. This week, the boys known as the “feral Ferrys” are in the news again.

The youngest of Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry’s four sons has been told by a judge that his privileged upbringing does not place him above the law after he was caught carrying a knife for the second time in two years. Merlin Ferry, 22, pleaded guilty to possessing a bladed article in Chelsea last September after he was pulled over in his uninsured silver Saab. This week he was given 100 hours community service and paid £500 in costs. A friend said he has “been very silly”.

Merlin Ferry grew up in Little Bognor, West Sussex, where his parents “tried to keep the boys down to earth, but I’m not sure how good on discipline they were,” says the same friend. Their mother is the “gorgeous and lovely” aristocratic model Lucy Helmore, who is 14 years younger than Bryan, 67, a contemporary of David Bowie. They divorced in 2003 and have both remarried — Lucy to Robin Birley, half-brother of Jemima Khan and owner of the private members’ club 5 Hertford Street, and Bryan to Amanda Sheppard, a party organiser. The boys “have always been good-looking” and another friend says they “seem to be constantly crashing cars”. So here are those Ferry naughty lads.

Otis, 30, ‘the jailbird’

A family friend remembers Isaac and Otis “locking me in Bryan’s recording studio in their Sussex house when I was little. But they’re very charming now”. The eldest Ferry is “a proper country bumpkin”, happiest in the countryside, with his five horses, 60 hunting hounds and three pet dogs. When he was younger, he chose to accept a place at £31,350-a-year Marlborough College on the basis that he was allowed to take his labrador with him. He is joint master of the South Shropshire hunt and dating model Edie Campbell, 22, who is a big name in the equine world. She won the inaugural All Ladies Horse Race at Glorious Goodwood in 2011 and is currently on the cover of Vogue. The pair were at the VIP launch of the V&A’s David Bowie exhibition last night, where Otis, dressed in a white, Gatsby-style suit, held hands with Campbell all night.

Otis has become famous for his pro-hunting political activities and was convicted of a public order offence after leading an intrusion into the House of Commons chamber in 2004 and disrupting a parliamentary debate into hunting. He spent four months in Gloucester prison, including his 26th birthday, where his father visited him on Christmas Day. While there he got letters from more than 400 well-wishers and afterwards said, “prisons are full of people who have simply made a bad decision at some point in their lives.”

Now Otis’s activist days are behind him and he lives in a two-bedroom cottage in Shropshire, occasionally selling horses, although he would never sell Woody, his favourite, and driving an old green Mercedes estate.

When the family were onboard a hijacked plane flying from Kenya to London, a friend says Otis started using bad language only to be told by his calm father: “This isn’t the time to swear.”

Isaac, 27, ‘the tearaway’

One of Isaac’s contemporaries at Eton tells me, “he was one of those kids who always tried to get in trouble. Rebellious. But a nice chap, although a little bit manipulative and mildly slimy. I remember him cajoling me into helping him carry all his belongings downstairs while his father stood watching, not lifting a finger, just leaning on the banisters like a cool cat. Isaac was similar. He didn’t show enthusiasm for anything and was in the bottom set.” In the school leaving book he chose The Grinch as the cartoon that most summed him up, with the caption, “sly”.

Isaac made his modelling debut aged 16 at Hedi Slimane’s Summer 2002 menswear show for Christian Dior in Paris and went on to work with Kate Moss in a Burberry campaign. These days he is based in London and spends his time DJing and doing graphic design, often for Roxy Music tours. A colleague says, “he’s very talented and good at technical things”. He is also known for being “fiendishly good at tennis” and usually travelling with two heavy speakers. It was Isaac who introduced Bryan to his new wife, Amanda Sheppard, 30, a party organiser.

Isaac also puts his fondness for animals above any rules and regulations. He was suspended from Eton in 2002 after sending hate mail to an anti-hunting campaigner, leaving teachers “deeply shocked”.

Tara, 23, ‘the runaway’

The two younger Ferrys are so close in age that they often get mixed up. There’s a story about Tara “nicking his mum’s car and driving to the South of France. He was grounded when he came back”. Tara studied at Chelsea College of Art and Design and is now in the band Rubber Kiss Goodbye, who had a successful American tour. He played drums on his father’s most recent album, The Jazz Age, and has performed live with him.

Burberry is a fan of this Ferry too. Tara did an Acoustic set for them in April 2011. Like the rest of the family he has modelled, and has been shot by Mario Testino. “These boys always have lots of girls interested,” says a friend — Tara was most recently seen with his arm around actress Alicia Vikander.

Merlin, 22, ‘the serial offender’

Friends who were at Marlborough College with Merlin say he was “wild”. “He’s very intelligent and clued up but got fed up with rules.” When police arrested him for having a knife, he reportedly said: “You can just unarrest me now.” Currently at Manchester University, he lives on an allowance of “just” £100 a week. He spent his gap year travelling around America and is keen to go back to New York, where his father has a flat, and make films.

Merlin is also musical and has “an enviable record collection”. He played guitar on his father’s The Jazz Age album. There’s no girl on the scene at the moment but like his father and brothers, Merlin has that Ferry family charm — although clearly he should lose his predilection for knives.

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