Flamboyant painter and lover of life

WITH her colourful appearance and personality Molly Parkin embodied the “Swinging Sixties” and was a true renaissance woman of the decade and beyond.

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She achieved success as an abstract painter and award-winning London fashion editor, published 10 “comic erotica” novels and two volumes of memoirs, and was always a popular guest on TV chat shows.

She married twice — to art dealer Michael Parkin and artist Patrick Hughes — but was equally known for her string of famous lovers, including blues singer Bo Diddley, writer John Mortimer and actor James Robertson Justice.

Her friends included the likes of Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol and George Melly.

Born in Pontycymer in the Garw Valley, Glamorgan, Wales as Molly Noyle Thomas, she came from a deeply religious family of preachers, teachers and miners.