She is destined to be Britain’s first black marchioness — but Emma McQuiston will need all the charm and finesse of a diplomat to repair the relationship between her future husband Viscount Weymouth and his father, the Marquess of Bath.
Chef Emma, 27, will marry Ceawlin Thynn in June at the orangery of the family’s 10,000-acre Longleat House in Wiltshire, where father and son now live in separate wings and, I am told, have not spoken to each other since last summer.
Ceawlin, 38, was handed the responsibility of running the estate, including its safari park, more than six years ago.
But Bath, 81 next month, and his son became estranged last year after Ceawlin decided that his father Alexander’s life work — erotic murals which cover many of the internal walls of Longleat — had to be removed.
According to one of Bath’s ‘wifelets’, father and son have not spoken since August.
‘It’s terribly sad. They live in totally separate parts of house but now neither makes any effort to speak to the other,’ she tells me.
‘When he was told his paintings were going into storage, Bath was a broken man. It’s like part of his joie de vivre has died. He sits at his desk in his room all day watching old films.
‘Ever since Ceawlin took over the running of the estate, it’s become clear they have a very different way of going about things.
'Whereas Bath has always kept his way of life relaxed, Ceawlin doesn’t share his informal attitude.
'For example, when Ceawlin is at home, the table is laid properly and the butler waits on him. When it’s Bath, he prefers people to serve themselves.
Emma, whose father is Nigerian, has known Ceawlin since she was four. She was a bridesmaid in 1989 when Ceawlin’s aunt, Silvy Thynn, married Emma’s half-brother Iain.
Building bridges: Emma McQuiston will need all the charm and finesse of a diplomat to repair the relationship between her future husband Viscount Weymouth, left, and his father, the Marquess of Bath, right
‘Alexander absolutely adores Emma — he thinks she is delightful and will make a perfect wife for Ceawlin — but he has been very upset about his murals,’ says Bath’s friend for the last 40 years, actress Sally Farmiloe.
‘I think it would be a tragedy if they were taken down — some have already been removed, I hear — because a lot of visitors request to see them.’
None of Lord Bath’s wifelets has received an invitation to the wedding. In the past Ceawlin has admitted: ‘I don’t have a relationship with them.
‘You have to learn to live with it — but you don’t have to condone it.’
'Desperate' Sophie ditches lover
Mistake: Model Sophie
Just as it seemed unlucky-in-love Sophie Anderton was finally ready to settle down, her latest romance with financier David Storey has, alas, bitten the dust.
‘I thought David was the one, but I now realise I was mistaken,’ says model Sophie, 35, whose long list of suitors include Old Etonian Robert Hanson, to whom she was engaged, footballer Mark Bosnich, businessman Simon Jordan and internet entrepreneur James Simpson.
She hooked up with former Citibank executive David, 37, last year, but just five months later she admits: ‘I’ve had to call it a day.’
Sophie, who is running in the London Marathon, says things started going wrong at her Christmas party. ‘I spent most of the evening away from David because I was the DJ,’ she says.
‘I think he got fed up and bored. On top of that, he’s got lots of baggage: he’s been married and has children.
'I began to realise it wasn’t ideal for a woman like me who, as I get into my late 30s, is desperate for a family of her own.’
Agony of train tragedy family
As the fourth anniversary of his wife Julia’s death looms, Spencer Canning — brother-in-law of Ruby Wax — faces the heart-breaking task of trying to justify her value in a long legal battle.
Julia, 55, sister of the comedienne’s husband Ed Bye, was killed walking the family dog at an unmanned level crossing 800 yards from their home at Little Bedwyn, Wilts.
Network Rail was ordered to pay over £350,000 in fines and costs after a criminal prosecution. Julia’s three children, aged between 22 and 28, have never used the crossing since.
‘They won’t even travel past it on the train,’ says Spencer, who in a bid to expunge the memory of the tragedy has bought a house six miles away so they need never cross the line again.
‘I myself have been back there to “front it up”, so to speak, but the children understandably can’t bear the thought of it,’ says Spencer, eldest son of the 5th Baron Garvagh.
He tells me that to build up a case for his wife’s ‘value’, he is listing mundane jobs such as how often she did the washing, housework and the shopping.
‘It is ludicrous and heart-breaking,’ he says. ‘She was a freelance editor and I have had to pick through all her paperwork to try to assess how much she would have earned until she retired. How can you know? It is all a horrible process.’
Throughout her time in Downing Street, Margaret Thatcher enjoyed the use of £2 million-worth of exquisite Georgian silver — including a full dinner service for 50 — thanks to the generosity of landowner Lord Brownlow.
That kindness was never forgotten and Edward Brownlow, 77, a godson of the Duke of Windsor, will be among mourners at St Paul’s.
As for the silver, it was loaned for the duration of Maggie’s premiership and returned to the National Trust, which took over Old Etonian Brownlow’s Lincolnshire pile, Belton House, when he moved to Jersey as a tax exile.
The silver was loaned to Mrs Thatcher after she called on the peer on a visit to her home town of Grantham in 1980.
Within hours of John Major moving in to No. 10, the Trust wrote to ask for the silver. It took a further nine months before the last 22 pieces were returned.
£2million dinner service: Margaret Thatcher
Tory MP Graham Stuart has not given up on the day job as he recuperates at home from a serious skiing accident in France.
He broke his pelvis, fractured several ribs and punctured a lung in a fall during a weekend trip with friends in Chamonix last month and is now on crutches after almost five hours of surgery.
But he’s tackling his parliamentary work from his constituency home in Beverley, East Yorkshire.
‘I have been able to stay pretty much on top of things,’ he says. ‘Focusing on other people’s problems is rather therapeutic.’
Despite her noisy grandstanding about being a 21st-century woman, perhaps there is a more practical reason behind Sally Bercow’s boycott of Lady Thatcher’s funeral.
As long as she was going, there was the delicious prospect of the attention-seeking Speaker’s wife bumping into Lord McAlpine.
She is being sued by the Tory peer over Twitter comments she made linking him to a false allegation of child abuse.
Society snapper John Swannell — he took the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee portrait — has fond memories of Baroness Thatcher, whom he photographed in 2001.
He recalls: ‘She was incredibly polite and congenial until I asked her to clear her desk of everything on it — computer, paperwork, a bust of Churchill and some framed family portraits.
'She wasn’t happy about it, but I told her I wanted the reflection of the window behind her on the leather surface of the desk.
'I said I would help her, but she raised her voice saying, “Don’t touch a thing!” and proceeded to roll up her sleeves and clear it herself. I got my picture and was very touched she was so helpful.’