EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Head groom for the late Queen Elizabeth is to be installed as a knight at Windsor Castle
This would have pleased our late Queen: her head groom is to be installed as a Military Knight at Windsor Castle, meaning he can spend the rest of his days at his old boss’s Berkshire home.
Terry Pendry, 72, could always be seen by Queen Elizabeth’s side (pictured) as she rode through the estate.
He took part in one of the most moving aspects of her funeral, taking her favourite horse, Emma, to say a final farewell to her. Pendry will be created a Military Knight at St George’s Chapel today.
The position is unpaid but comes with a home in the Lower Ward of the castle, which will be his for as long as he can carry out his duties. For most Knights this takes them to the end of their days.
A source says: ‘Her late Majesty would see this as fitting and be comforted.’
Honour: Terry Pendry (pictured), the late Queen’s head groom, is to be installed as a Military Knight at Windsor Castle
Lord raises hackles over plan to charge for walkies
Lord Ivar Mountbatten has proved so adroit at handling his eventful private life that his ex-wife, Penny, agreed to give him away when he married airline cabin services director James Coyle.
His business affairs present more of a challenge. I hear the aristocratic TV personality, who became the first member of the extended Royal Family to have a same-sex wedding, has upset locals by announcing that he plans to charge them to walk their dogs on his 100-acre Devon estate. A £60 annual fee is rumoured.
‘The rise in living and operational costs in the past 12 months means our maintenance, management and operational obligations have spiralled far higher than the return of coffee, cake and community events can cover,’ he writes in the parish magazine.
‘James and I are left with some tough decisions for the year ahead.
Cost-of-living pressures: Ivar and James
‘I want to continue to offer access to the Orangery and Parkland across seven days a week.
‘But if we’re going to remain open, we need our guests and visitors to support us a bit more if they can.’
However, one dog walker tells me: ‘As you can imagine, people are not very happy. It is one thing charging non-locals a day fee to visit but quite another exploiting what is really a captive audience. I don’t think people will pay it.
‘It is a pleasant enough park, but you have to keep your dog on the lead because of all the deer roaming around and all the water birds on the lake.’
Lord Ivar, who was a first cousin, once removed, of Prince Philip and a third cousin, once removed, of Queen Elizabeth, opened Bridwell Park, in Culm Valley, to the public during the pandemic.
He and Coyle launched the Orangery cafe to supplement their income after their lucrative wedding business was hit by Covid restrictions.
It featured in the ITV programme Keeping Up With The Aristocrats.
Lunch can be a rather basic affair for Dame Prue Leith.
Asked if she can imagine banana with cheese as a palatable combination on toast, The Great British Bake Off judge says: ‘Oh, I can. Sometimes, if I’m in a hurry for lunch, I’ll have a banana in one hand and a chunk of cheddar in the other and I’ll eat a mouthful of one and then a mouthful of the other.’
I hope they don’t teach that at Leiths School of Food and Wine!
In a daring flash Gigi takes a bow
While Liz Hurley made her name in a dress held together by safety pins, Gigi Hadid relies on three bows to protect her modesty.
The model, 27, wore a grey pencil skirt by Valentino, with a daring thigh-high split, for a media appearance in New York.
Hadid — who has a daughter with her ex-boyfriend, former One Direction singer Zayn Malik — also wore Princess of Wales-style long gloves.
Daring: Gigi Hadid is seen arriving at the ‘Good Morning America’ Show in New York
King Charles is to create the greenest of gardens — with climate change at its heart.
Work starts in the coming weeks to transform an area inside the formal gardens at Sandringham, Norfolk.
The area to the west side of Sandringham House, now a large lawn, is to be transformed into a climate-friendly Topiary Garden.
It will bring naturalistic planting to the area to improve biodiversity.
Mick and Diane ‘still kicking’
Sir Mick Jagger rarely gets satisfaction from women his own age, but he seems to have a soft spot for Diane von Furstenberg.
The Belgian fashion designer, 76, known for inventing the wrap dress, shared this selfie of herself with the Stones singer, who turns 80 in July. Von Furstenberg says: ‘Two old friends, many decades later, still kicking and, most important, grateful.’
Von Furstenberg is married to U.S. businessman Barry Diller, 81, while Jagger has a six-year-old son, Deveraux, with girlfriend Melanie Hamrick, 36.
Even ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton, the veteran DJ snapping up former Radio 2 listeners at new rival Boom Radio, is fearful of woke cancel culture.
‘I used to be known as the “cheeky chappie” at Radio 1, but I am careful what I say on air now,’ Hamilton, 84, tells me.
‘I don’t want to be bland, but people take offence very easily these days.’
He adds: ‘I have been cancelled — it was during the pandemic and I was booked on Pointless Celebrities, but they said I couldn’t go on at my age because of the health insurance.
I said to my wife: “I think it’s all over for me.” Two weeks later Boom Radio rang . . .’
Buy Cushing’s house of horror
Would you dare live in a house once owned by Peter Cushing, the Hammer Horror star who played Baron Frankenstein in six films and Doctor Van Helsing in five Dracula movies?
The two-bedroom property in Whitstable, Kent, where the actor lived for 25 years until his death in 1994, aged 81, has gone on the market for £1.4 million.
The house bears a blue plaque dedicated to Cushing, who played Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars. Such was his popularity in the town, there is even a local pub named after him.
I reported last year that fans were spitting blood because of the seafront house’s increasingly dilapidated state. But it has since been completely refurbished.
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