Artist, fashion designer, broadcaster and writer Molly Parkin, who has died aged 93, was one of Wales’ most colourful personalities.

Born in Pontycymer, she embodied the “Swinging Sixties”, embracing it with flamboyance and unique style.

But she also achieved success as an abstract painter and later award-winning London fashion editor.

Parkin gave up alcohol in her 50s but insisted her hedonism had been “a rejoicing in life”.

She was fashion editor of Nova and Harpers and Queen then an award-winner in the same role at the Sunday Times in 1971.

Parkin later published 10 “comic erotica” novels and two volumes of memoirs, while also being a popular guest on chat shows.

She was married twice – to art dealer Michael Parkin and artist Patrick Hughes.

But she also had a string of lovers, who included blues singer Bo Diddley, the writer John Mortimer and notably the actor James Robertson Justice. She turned down the advances of Louis Armstrong. Friends included Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol and George Melly.

The two-year affair with Justice was formative and he was described as “the love of my life”.

It was at the height of his fame. Best known as Sir Lancelot Spratt in the 1950s Doctor films, the actor had his own prodigious appetites – reputedly once drinking Ernest Hemingway under the table.

“I was 22, he was 52,” Parkin recalled in a BBC Desert Island Discs interview.

“My father died and I looked at James’s hands and his skin reminded me of my father and I didn’t want any reminders of my father and I thought what are you doing with a man as old as your father? He was very funny though.”

Born Molly Noyle Thomas in February 1932, she came from a Garw Valley family of preachers, teachers and miners.

Both her parents were alcoholics and later in life she revealed her father had abused her until she was saved by World War Two and moving away.

Her grandfather was a deacon and mother played an organ in the Presbyterian chapel.

“It was very religious,” Parkin recalled.

“We went three times on Sunday and in the week as well, we were living on the side of a mountain anyway and God seemed very close, just at the top.

“I wasn’t allowed to walk on the same side of the street as the pub.”

About her mother she said she was “the beauty of the valley – with strange navy blue eyes and the personality to go with it.

“She would have been an amazing concert pianist but the nervous system wasn’t there, there was great expectation on her with her looks. She was in and out of psychiatric wards throughout our girlhood.

“She’d be in the front room pounding Beethoven or some dramatic score with the door locked. I do have turbulent feelings when I go to concerts and hear that sort of music.”

Parkin was encouraged to paint and write by her grandmother, who she was closest to.

Her talents earned her a scholarship to Goldsmiths College of Art at 17 and by the age of 22 she was member of the Chelsea Arts Club.

Married at 25, she stayed at home to paint and earned “enormous amounts”, drove a yellow Rolls-Royce and had a house in Chelsea.

It also led to her opening her own fashion boutique, where she made hats and bags – and also a restaurant.

Alcohol only really became an issue when she moved into magazines.

“We were all drinking, you’ve seen that American series Mad Men,” she recalled.

“It became out of control. When I went into journalism drinking escalated because it seemed quite normal to go over to the pub.

“I didn’t have that when I was a painter.”

She hit rock bottom in the mid 1980s. One morning she ended up in a gutter at Smithfield, where she had been drinking in one of the market pubs.

Parkin slept for two days and then heard the voice of her grandmother telling her it was time to stop. She gave up drinking and cigarettes and said she also rediscovered her spiritual side.

“When I say I don’t harbour regrets, my mother and father were alcoholics, it runs in my family,” she told the BBC.

“But my grandmother was my role model, so I am a sublime grandmother.

“An alcoholic mother is not what I’d wish on anybody but those two girls of mine – Sarah and Sophie – we’re so close, I’ve made amends and we’ve come through any lingering resentment which I’m sure would have been there.”

After bankruptcy, Parkin spent her last years in a council flat in the World’s End estate in London, on the fringes of Chelsea, still painting and writing – including for music.

A retrospective of her work was held at a gallery on the King’s Road in 2017.

“I’m a typical product of my Welsh valley, I’ve also got Romany blood,” she said.

“The Celts are a nomadic race and I’ve actually had 54 homes in adult years and I’ve been blessed and made it my business to surround myself with larger than life characters, I’ve learnt a lot from them, especially those lovers.”

Her daughter Sophie confirmed her death, posting “Molly Parkin…extraordinary human, has left the building”.