His sexual appetite was once described as “to Olympic gold-medal standards”, he had a pet dog named after Adolf Hitler’s mistress and once described Margaret Thatcher as having “dainty ankles”.

He also lived in a sumptuous 12th century castle in the Kent countryside, the moat of which he would swim in every summer (not to mention his occasional naked dips in the Channel at Hythe in a chilly November).

Friends with Port Lympne and Howletts creator John Aspinall, he once delivered a speech in the Commons late one evening having just attended a wine-tasting event which left him, as he admitted “muzzy” and was accused of being “incapable” - a euphemism for drunk - by an opposition MP. They were bang on the money, he would later admit (“It was a case of over-confidence and the tasting of many bottles”, he remarked).

An admirer of the hugely controversial right-wing politician Enoch Powell, he also found himself embroiled in a race row when alleged comments he made about “Bongo Bongo Land” went public.

And he was a key domino in an arms export licences scandal which would ultimately contribute to the undermining of John Major’s government.

Little wonder then that Alan Clark MP, who died 25 years ago today, was described in the obituary penned by the Guardian as “one of the most raffish, outrageous and boisterous Conservative politicians of his generation”.

A lover and collector of fast cars and fine wines, he was, it’s fair to say, something of a one-off.

“He was eloquent, literate, astringent and insolent,” reflected political writer and columnist Edward Pearce following Clark’s death in 1999. “His manner, languorous and throwaway and his accent, ostentatious old upper-class, both suggested a gent chippily entertained by the resentful rest of us.”

Yet behind the headlines he held a number of ministerial appointments during Margaret Thatcher’s terms in office, was a respected historian (one of his books inspired the play and 1969 film Oh! What A Lovely War) and wrote some of the most celebrated political diaries of a generation.

However, his reputation will perhaps always be focused on his tabloid-friendly exploits with the fairer sex.

He once famously had a 14-year affair with the wife of a South African judge - and, simultaneously, bedded her two daughters too (he referred to them as “the coven”). And, they, it’s fair to say, were the tip of a rather substantial iceberg.

The red tops couldn’t get enough of it. Clark responded by saying “I probably have a different sense of morality to most people” and sharing the judge’s opinion he should be “horsewhipped” for such behaviour.

The self-confessed womaniser also admitted to having sex on a train with a shop assistant from Folkestone after she entered his carriage as he travelled from Waterloo down to the Kent coast.

“Bonking on a train?” he would later say, “I honestly don't think the public would mind.”

Yet only one woman held a special place in his heart - his long-suffering wife Jane.

She continues to live in Saltwood Castle - a sprawling estate near that Hythe beach he enjoyed skinny dipping from. It was one of a number of homes the couple owned - which also included an estate in the Scottish Highlands and a chalet in the Swiss Alpine resort of Zermatt.

The pair wed in 1958. Alan was 30 - Jane just 16.

He noted in his diaries: “For me girls have to be succulent and that means under 25.”

On their honeymoon on the Amalfi Coast in Italy, one of his ex-girlfriends showed up. Awkward but a sign, for Jane, of what was to come.

She admits she has spent the 25 years since his passing living as something of a “recluse”.

Approached for this article, she revealed she “doesn’t do interviews” anymore. Not that it was always that way.

In 2008 she told one national newspaper of her husband’s rampant infidelity: “It’s all we ever rowed about.

“You know how pathetic men are. I think it was attention-seeking - he never really grew up. But he was great fun and attractive and clever and incredibly charismatic and women were always interested in him.

“I just knew that he loved me. Every marriage is different - people outside can only guess.

“Obviously, I minded very, very much [of his affairs], but I just took a much more long-term view on it. Nowadays, people don't do that, do they? They ditch things very quickly - you have to work at marriage all the time.”

In another, prior to his death, she said: “Al sometimes says to me, ‘Would you like to be married to an old buffer?’ And I say, ‘No, but I just wish you wouldn't have so many girlfriends’. And he says: ‘You should be more French - French politicians have girlfriends and mistresses’.

“I could quite cheerfully throttle him sometimes, but I throw things instead. I did actually throw an axe at him once. As it whizzed through the air, I hoped it would cleave his skull in two. But it missed and I was quite glad my aim was very bad - because I do still love him.”

And that love carried them through the rest of his life. He made her swear she’d not marry again after his passing - a promise she has kept.

Their life was dramatised in a BBC TV series, in 2004, based on his diaries - she portrayed by Jenny Agutter and he John Hurt.

The castle, a Grade I-listed building, was, so legend has it, the meeting point of the four knights sent to kill Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket by Henry II in 1170.

Hit hard and left inhabitable by the 1580 earthquake in nearby Dover - one of the biggest to ever hit the nation and felt as far away as London - by the 19th century work finally began on its restoration and it entered into the hands of ancestors of the acclaimed journalist and cabinet member, Bill Deedes, who would grew up in the castle (Deedes would go on to live his life in nearby Aldington).

By 1955 it was snapped up by art historian Kenneth Clark - Alan Clark’s father - whose fortune owed much to the success in the thread industry of his own father.

When Kenneth - perhaps best known as TV producer, writer and presenter of the pioneering documentary series Civilisation on the BBC, a huge hit on both sides of the Atlantic - died in 1983, it passed into the hands of his son Alan.

Alan was used, from an early age, to the finer trappings of life. He attended Eton and then read modern history at Oxford - during which time he was a member of the infamous Bullingdon Club. He then embarked on a career in law before abruptly abandoning that to focus on becoming an author of military history.

His first book The Donkeys, published in 1961, provided a fresh take on the strategy deployed at the start of the First World War by British forces. Fiercely critical of the generals - its name derives from the phrase ‘lions led by donkeys’ - it catapulted Clark into the limelight. It would go on to inspire Oh! What A Lovely War - a satirical look at the Great War (but not one Clark was particularly fond of).

The book prompted Field Marshall Montgomery to later reflect to Clark: “You have done a good job in exposing the total failure of the generalship.”

Opposed to the Common Market, he joined the Conservatives in 1968 - despite at one point being blacklisted for being too right-wing - and by 1974 was elected as an MP for Plymouth.

Despite his best efforts, it was not until 1983, under Margaret Thatcher, that he finally secured a ministerial posting - albeit a junior one.

But, three years later, he secured the position of Minister for Trade and then Minister for Defence Procurement.

“He ached to be a cabinet minister,” reflected Edward Pearce, “for the vanity and panache of it, and to kick all sorts of bottoms. But nothing would make him trim, amend, dilute, tack or muffle the glorious freedom with which he actually enjoyed politics.”

It was when he gave “a nod and a wink” to providing licenses for the sale of equipment which could be used for arms to Iraq - then under the rule of Saddam Hussein - by the engineering firm Matrix Churchill and in breach of export controls, that his political career was served a damaging blow.

After Iraq’s short-lived invasion of Kuwait in 1990 - which sparked the first Gulf War - an investigation began into the role Matrix Churchill had in supplying equipment to the regime. A high-profile court case in 1992 saw the directors of the firm face charges of dishonestly supplying licences to export materials for military use to Iraq. They had protested at the time of arrest, pointing to Clark’s tacit approval. Quizzed by police he denied everything.

But the case collapsed in dramatic style when Clark admitted he had been “economical with the actualité”. An inquiry into the whole debacle reflected poorly on then-John Major’s administration and was another nail in its coffin.

That same year, Clark stepped down as MP for Plymouth before the election and spent five years outside of Westminister before standing as Tory MP for Kensington and Chelsea in 1997 and making his return.

He had developed a new reputation by then - as the author of one of the most acclaimed political diaries ever published. His first volume - charting his time in government between 1983 and 1992 (all entries were written on the day they describe) - proved an almost instant best-seller, with his candid views on everything from his politics to personal life. The broadsheets were amazed at the insight into Westminster it gave - the tabloids were equally amazed at his bed-hopping hijinks.

Some five volumes have been published - two posthumously.

Writing about the IRA bomb attack on the Tory conference in Brighton in 1983 - which he did not attend - he writes: “What a coup for the Paddys. If they just had the wit to press their advantage; a couple of chaps with guns in the crowd, they could have got the whole government as they blearily emerged.”

Of sitting next to Margaret Thatcher - then PM - in the Commons he wrote: “I radiated feelings of a protective nature - and indeed, feelings of another kind. She has very small feet and attractive - not bony - ankles.”

He would, however, spend just two years as MP for his new constituency.

On September 5, 1999, Alan Clark passed away within the confines of his beloved Saltwood Castle. He was 71 and had been suffering from a brain tumour. He continued to write future volumes of his diaries - which would later be published - during his final weeks, his wife assisting in the final days.

Then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, led the tributes saying: “We will all miss him.“

Not that his passing was mourned by all.

Writing some years after his death, the journalist Dominic Lawson - son of former chancellor Nigel Lawson - said: “Alan Clark was not wonderful. He was sleazy, vindictive, greedy, callous and cruel. He was also a thorough-going admirer of Adolf Hitler, although his sycophants persisted in thinking that his expressions of reverence for the Fuhrer were not meant seriously. They absolutely were.”

His body is buried within the grounds of Saltwood Castle, marked by a huge rock transported onto the estate by a forklift truck, and surrounded by his beloved dogs - Rottweilers Eva Braun (named after Hitler’s long-time romantic partner), Leni (named after Leni Riefestahl, a Nazi film-maker) and Hannah (a name taken from Nazi pilot Hannah Reich, one of the last people to see the Fuhrer in his bunker before his death in 1945).

Said one obituary writer: “The Diaries transformed him, not perhaps into a national figure, but certainly into the best-known, most easily recognised Conservative of the 1990s apart from Margaret Thatcher and John Major.”

Concludes BBC political documentary maker Michael Cockerell who made a film about the politician: “I remember the very last interview I ever did of Alan Clark, shortly before he died. We were talking about what kind of people reached the top in politics. 'Nice guys always finish last, don't they?' he drawled. 'That's what makes politics so irresistible.'

“No-one ever accused Alan Clark of being a nice guy.”