Described in "The New Statesman" as "a charming ne'er-do-well", Boyle, who was six years older than Baldwin, became his lifelong partner. Boyle and Baldwin set up home together in a farm in Oxfordshire owned by Boyle's brother in law, Lord Macclesfield, and living in what the biographer Christopher J Walker describes as "gentle, amicable, animal-loving, primitive, homosexual socialism". Though the two had to be careful and corresponded in code, they employed good-looking male staff and held weekend parties attended by vetted friends such as Harold Nicolson and Beverley Nichols.