She lived a remarkable life, marrying three times, flying over the Himalayas and speaking her mind with a candour quite beyond the more orthodox of her fellow aristocrats. Now, ten months after her death aged 88, Princess Diana’s aunt, Mary Roche, has bequeathed a whiff of mystery in her will, which has just been published.
Mary and her younger sister Frances, Diana’s mother, came from a family which had been massively enriched two generations earlier when her grandfather, James, 3rd Lord Fermoy, married an American heiress.
But Mary did not leave an immense fortune. Far from it: after taxes and other costs had been paid, her total estate amounted to £425,983 – a decidedly modest sum for a woman who, at one stage, owned an airline taking passengers on safari around Kenya and who, early in the first of her three marriages, bought a house in Wilton Crescent, Belgravia, always one of London’s most punishingly expensive addresses, where houses today effortlessly sell for more than £20million.
But, more intriguingly, Mary, whose father, Maurice, 4th Lord Fermoy, was shooting with George VI at Sandringham the day before the King’s death, decided against leaving anything to two of her four children.
Ten months after her death aged 88, Princess Diana’s aunt, Mary Roche, has bequeathed a whiff of mystery in her will
Mary and her younger sister Frances, Diana’s mother, came from a family which had been massively enriched two generations earlier when her grandfather married an American heiress
Instead, she stipulated that her estate was to be shared equally by the eldest of her three daughters, Alexandra, and her only son, Edward.
The two younger daughters, Antonia – known as Anya – and Jo, were omitted. Until recently, both lived modestly in Frome, Somerset. Jo remains there, in a property on a 1980s housing estate which she bought for £170,000 in 2016; Anya was on a neighbouring estate but appears to have sold up for £220,000 in 2020.
Like Edward and Alexandra, Anya accompanied their mother, then married to her third husband, to Diana’s wedding.
Mary was already convinced that the marriage was ill-starred, after seeing her niece, with whom she’d formed a close bond during Diana’s childhood, looking ‘unhappy’ at a Buckingham Palace reception.
‘They were at very different stages of development,’ Mary later reflected. Describing her niece as ‘very natural and prone to giggles, a lot of fun’, Mary added: ‘Diana was young and had limited life experience, and Prince Charles was already a great thinker.’
Her son, Edward, tells me that his mother’s judgment about her will was similarly assured.
‘My mother gave various things to my sisters at different times and, in the interests of fairness, that’s how it ended up,’ he explains.
Home Office minister Chris Philp has grown a beard. Did he do so to keep up with his boss, James Cleverly, or perhaps to make himself look older? When clean-shaven, the 47- year-old Philp had a slightly gulpy, jejune look. He now resembles England football manager Gareth Southgate.
BBC man: Staff were told how to avoid tax
Michael Cole, the BBC reporter who became Mohamed Al Fayed’s PR mouthpiece, recalls the good old days at the broadcaster.
‘I was on the staff for 20 years,’ he writes in a new book, How Do We Pay For The BBC After 2027?
‘Throughout that time there was a whole department helping secretaries find affordable accommodation and another that was tasked with advising foreign correspondents and others working overseas for the BBC about how to hide their salaries from the taxman by opening bank accounts in Jersey and how to claim the maximum sums in allowances.’
Still a better use of licence-fee payers’ money than stuffing Gary Lineker’s mouth with gold, perhaps?
No Davina McCall or Lorraine Kelly-style mature bikini shots for TV presenter Anthea Turner, who believes more is more when it comes to clothing.
The former Blue Peter host, 63, says: ‘As I’ve aged, I’ve come to the realisation that I look better with my clothes on than off, so the more clothes I need to wear, the merrier — especially those black opaque tights that make my legs look like they used to before something happened to my knees.’
Trinny’s made up as cosmetics firm turns tidy profit
Trinny Woodall may appear to have the blues — but she’s actually feeling rather pleased with herself.
For the What Not To Wear presenter- turned-beauty entrepreneur, 59, who is pictured beating the winter cold in an electric blue fluffy coat and crushed velvet trousers, is celebrating some impressive figures at her make-up brand, Trinny London.
Trinny Woodall may appear to have the blues — but she’s actually feeling rather pleased with herself
Newly published figures disclose the company earned more than £153,000 a day last year as she sold more than £56 million worth of cosmetics.
The news must have pleased the firm’s many investors — who include her ex- boyfriend Charles Saatchi as well as Unilever — as Trinny London turned a profit of £1.9 million, reversing a loss of £2.1 million the year before.
He is a top chef in the United Arab Emirates, where he cooked for royals and famous visitors at his restaurant, Gaia Dubai. Now, Izu Ani, who was raised in Tottenham, North London, has returned to the capital to run Gaia Mayfair, opposite The Ritz.
It’s already attracting stars such as actor Luke Evans and model Sabrina Elba.
However, Ani is alarmed by soaring crime in Sadiq Khan’s London.
‘I always leave my phone everywhere in Dubai and it always finds me,’ he tells me.
‘But, here, you never know.
‘My colleagues said to me, ‘Chef, can you just give us your stuff to keep in a locker?’
Flower power for Prince on Sri Lanka trip
Princess Anne was praised last week for her typically no-nonsense visit to Sri Lanka, where she carried her own bags from a commercial flight. But she is not the only member of the Royal Family to visit the south Asian island this year.
Prince Michael of Kent, 81, and his wife, Marie-Christine were welcomed in the capital, Colombo, where they were decorated with flowers at Sri Lanka’s Tourism Promotion Bureau
Queen Elizabeth’s first cousin Prince Michael of Kent, 81, and his wife, Marie-Christine, who turned 79 on Monday, were welcomed in the capital, Colombo, where they were decorated with flowers at Sri Lanka’s Tourism Promotion Bureau.
It’s not clear if they were on holiday or business. In 2008, Princess Michael, then reportedly charging £25,000 for public appearances, opened a villa in Sri Lanka.