ON THE phone Sir Antony Buck says he wants to be paid for talking to me. No chance! So he taunts that he may sell his story elsewhere.

He sounds like a conceited thespian, with the comic tones of a Hermoine Gingold, says a mid-morning interview would be gruellingly early and eventually demands nothing more than copies of The Sun and Daily Telegraph so he doesn’t have to go out.

Sir Antony, 65, the distinguished former Tory MP and navy minister, talks about his sex life, his 34-year marriage to Judy and his infidelities; of meeting the notorious Bienvenida Perez-Blanco when he was 61 and she 33 (‘Any chance of a Buck?’ was one memorable headline) and marrying three weeks later; and of his most recent marriage to Tamara Norashkaryan, the Russian tourist who turned up on his doorstep bearing a press cutting about him.

We meet at Sir Antony’s rented Kennington flat. Tamara ‘dislikes publicity’ and has gone out. But today Bienvenida has revealed in The Sun that she was a £1,000-a-night prostitute. ‘I don’t think Bienvenida was a hooker. Darling, I know her better than you,’ says Sir Antony, later. ‘She’s just behaving irrationally.’

Sir Antony wears longish hair, a grubby navy cardigan and has an unlit cigar in his mouth. His hands shake and he’s absent minded, asking four times how I take coffee. He breathes raspily and has a smoker’s cough. ‘I don’t cough,’ he says, after one outbreak. His tiny drawing room has grimy whitewashed walls, fake flowers and a collection of silver Lucifer boxes, red ministerial box and a picture of his hero, Winston Churchill. Since Sir Antony shot to notoriety – when Bienvenida, who had an affair with Chief of Defence Staff Sir Peter Harding while she was married to Sir Antony and then colluded in Sir Peter’s entrapment by a newspaper – we’ve been treated to a glut of increasingly preposterous and sordid stories. Sir Antony, for example, introduced Bienvenida to Judge Harkess; and then she introduced the family to public relations man Max Clifford to help them purge themselves publicly of their torrid ‘Alan Clark’s sex coven’ scandal. But last week Sir Antony won the award for vainglorious behaviour when he went on television to talk about his new-found happiness and to take ‘custody’ of his beloved King Charles spaniels while wives numbers two and three kissed and Tamara stormed off saying she’d leave for ever because she heard Sir Antony call Bienvenida ‘darling’.

Why on earth has Sir Antony encouraged the chronicling of these absurd goings on? ‘You can’t stop the publicity when photographers and reporters are stacked up outside the house.’ But did he have to take charge of his dogs on camera? ‘Well I’ve got to go out.’ He maintains that years in politics taught him that it’s best to co-operate with the Press. Isn’t his publicity-seeking simply excessive vanity? ‘What’s it got to do with vanity?’ he stumbles. ‘I don’t want this.’

HE claims he hasn’t made money from the stories. ‘Darling, I’ve made nothing.’ But last week he spoke to Max Clifford. What did the king of kiss ‘n’ tell suggest? ‘That’s a matter for me and him.’ Suffice to say that it was Sir Antony who approached Max.

Sir Antony fits the Max mould. He talks enthusiastically about his sex life. ‘I’m not a sex maniac,’ he says. ‘I’m a perfectly normal heterosexual with healthy urges. I’ll have sex until I stop feeling like it. Some men continue into their 80s.’ Is he a good lover? ‘I’m average. Never had any complaints.’ Well, what of Bienvenida’s allegation that he took two years to consummate their marriage? ‘Absolute nonsense. We consummated it at once.’ The younger son of an agricultural merchant (father) and founder member (mother) of The Royal College of Nursing, he joined the army and served in Berlin during the blockade. Next he went to Cambridge, where he read history and law and was chairman of Cambridge University Conservative Association and college captain of swimming. ‘I got a first-class degree in my first year, second in my second and third in my third. It wasn’t the rake’s progress.’

In 1961 he became MP for Colchester, holding the seat for 30 years. He’s particularly proud of his time as navy minister. (He has discussed the Bienvenida revelations with his political friend Sir Geoffrey Howe. ‘I don’t ask his advice.’) His first marriage ended in divorce after three decades. ‘Judy fell in love with somebody else. The strains of political life didn’t help,’ he says, leaning forward on his tatty sofa. Was he faithful? ‘For a very long time, yes.’ Did his infidelity contribute to their break up? ‘She wasn’t keen to come to London, so one got lonely.’ Now they rarely communicate. (They have a daughter, Louisa, sometime radio presenter. The recent revelations have also put a strain on his relationship with her.) Sir Antony’s downfall has also been financial. ‘I have very little money.’ He lived with Judy in a Georgian house with a swimming pool, but sold it when the marriage dissolved. Later Bienvenida took a ‘substantial’ sum; he refuses to disclose the figure. ‘I might claw it back, but you can’t get blood out of a stone. I have very little money.’

WE come thus to Bienvenida. He deems her revelations ‘sad and sordid’, but doesn’t regret the relationship. ‘I don’t know why we married so quickly. Mutual attraction, I suppose.’ Was she attracted to his title, charm or good looks? ‘I’m not particularly any of those things. We just got on and had a rapport.’ He denies her claim that he abused her physically. ‘The only time was when she attacked me. It was in self-defence after she’d had too much to drink.’

Sir Antony doesn’t feel that Tamara, last seen in a fury on television, heralds more trouble. ‘There’s a stability in her and intellect.’ Doesn’t he find it suspect that she hunted him down after reading about him? ‘No, she saw a picture of me with the dogs and thought she’d like to meet the dogs.’ Sir Antony’s nemesis is shocking. He tries very hard to present an optimistic front. He looks uncomfortable when I ask whether he suffers from depression – ‘we all have periods of depression. But I’m not a depressive, I don’t get bitterly depressed’ – claiming he’s phlegmatic. He denies that his drinking habits are excessive. ‘Nonsense. I don’t drink three bottles a day. Just a bottle of wine a day. I’m not an alcoholic.’