the grounds of West Green House. One of these, a 50 feet high column topped by an elaborately carved design, bears a Latin inscription declaring that "this monument was built with a great deal of money which otherwise someday would have been given into the hands of the public revenue". McAlpine also constructed a classical triumphal arch topped with an obelisk that bears a plaque dedicating the arch to the "first lady Prime Minister of Great Britain". Other features in the folly garden include a trompe-l'œil nymphaeum, a smoke house, an "eye catcher", Chinese cow sheds and an island gazebo. Personal life McAlpine lived in several parts of the world including England, Western Australia, Paris, Venice and Southern Italy. In 1987 he had heart bypass surgery, which led him to relax his lifestyle and stop smoking. In 1999 he had further heart bypass surgery, which led to complications resulting in his having a tracheotomy and, as a result of that, difficulty in speaking. He was in a coma for a month on a life-support machine following his second heart operation, after which he experienced a deathbed conversion to Catholicism, emerged declaring that he felt "more casual about life". Marriages McAlpine was married three times. He married for the first time in 1964, to Sarah Baron. They had two daughters together and divorced shortly after McAlpine became the Conservative Party treasurer. His two daughters did not speak to him for many years following the divorce. McAlpine married his second wife, Romilly Hobbs, in 1980. She had been his political secretary and was a "glamorous and popular hostess" during Thatcher's premiership. McAlpine and Hobbs had a daughter, cook book writer Skye McAlpine, and divorced shortly after McAlpine's second heart operation, owing to his adultery. McAlpine said of his relationships that "I keep changing my life, houses and relationships. I reinvent myself every few years. My first marriage lasted 15 years and this one [to Romilly] 20. It's hardly into bed and out the other side. There was a great deal of love. But there comes a point when life is just a habit, and I'm rather against habits. I just didn't want to carry on." In early 2002 McAlpine married his third wife, Athena Malpas. She was born in Dublin of a Greek shipping family. The couple met when she was working for the youth wing of the Referendum Party, and married