Devastated when her teenage daughter was tragically killed two years ago, Kate Rothschild has some joy in her life again.
I can disclose that the 39-year-old banking heiress has given birth to her first child with her entrepreneur boyfriend, Paul Forkan.
‘It’s incredibly happy news,’ Kate’s financier ex-husband, Ben Goldsmith, tells me. ‘Everyone is over the moon.
‘I’m so excited to meet the little boy tomorrow afternoon.’
Devastated when her teenage daughter was tragically killed two years ago, Kate Rothschild has some joy in her life again
Kate’s love knows all too well about living with tragedy: Forkan, 32, was 15 when both of his parents were killed in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami while the family was on holiday in Sri Lanka.
He and brother, Rob then 17, survived the disaster which killed more than 225,000 people. The pair have since set up the trendy ethical clothing brand Gandys.
‘Paul has been a tower of strength to Kate since Iris’s death,’ one of their friends says.
Iris, who was the eldest of Kate’s three children with Goldsmith, was killed in a ‘freak accident’ at the age of 15 when her off-road Polaris Mule buggy overturned at the Somerset farm owned by her father.
The 39-year-old banking heiress has given birth to her first child with entrepreneur boyfriend Paul Forkan
Ben’s film producer sister, Jemima Goldsmith, describes the birth as the ‘happiest day’ and has shared this picture of the baby, who has not yet been named, wearing a mini Queen’s Park Rangers kit (Forkan is a devoted fan of the West London football team).
The birth comes just over a year after Ben, the 40-year-old son of late billionaire Sir James Goldsmith, welcomed his third child with his second wife, model turned society caterer Jemima Jones, 34. They called their daughter Vita Iris, in honour of her late big sister.
‘We named her Vita, which means life, because she managed against the odds to cling on to hers after a very difficult start to life,’ he said at the time.
‘And her middle name is Iris, after her guardian angel big sister.’
Stage and screen star John Standing, who has appeared in hit dramas The Crown and Game Of Thrones, is welcoming a new cast member.
His actress daughter Tilly, 31, has become engaged to Sotheby’s car expert Felix Archer. ‘He’s a really fabulous man,’ the Old Etonian baronet tells me.
‘They’re a match made in heaven. I couldn’t be more thrilled.’
SW19’s latest star: Konta’s big sparkler
With Wimbledon little more than a week away, Britain’s No.1, Johanna Konta has lots to smile about — and it’s not just to do with the tennis.
Yesterday, she showed off the huge sparkler photographer Jackson Wade, 28, bought her after I disclosed that he had proposed to her last month.
Sharing with fans this close-up of the platinum diamond ring by City jeweller Taylor & Hart, Jo says: ‘A few weeks ago, I woke up 30 and engaged.’
Fingers crossed that she soon wakes up a winner, too.
Yesterday, she showed off the huge sparkler photographer Jackson Wade, 28, bought her after I disclosed that he had proposed to her last month
Sharing with fans this close-up of the platinum diamond ring by City jeweller Taylor & Hart, Jo says: ‘A few weeks ago, I woke up 30 and engaged’
Rewrite history? Soames goes on the woke warpath
Time to don tin hats! Winston Churchill’s grandson Sir Nicholas Soames is turning his sights on Oxbridge’s increasingly dominant ‘woke’ culture.
The former defence minister will take to the stage at an Oxford Union debate tomorrow night to oppose the motion: ‘This House Believes We Must Urgently Rewrite History’.
He tells me: ‘I think it will be a very lively debate — the livelier the better. It’s a very important subject that I care about and I’m going to oppose it with all my vigour.’
Last week, I reported rumours that Churchill College Cambridge was considering changing its name. However, the college denied this. And graduate members of Magdalen College, Oxford, had voted to remove a portrait of the Queen from their common room because she ‘represents recent colonial history’.
Arguing in favour of the motion will be Nazi Germany specialist Sir Richard J. Evans and playwright Bonnie Greer.
Zara shouts the odds at Royal Ascot
And she’s orf! Zara Tindall made an animated return to the social scene yesterday as she cheered on the horse she backed on the opening day of Royal Ascot.
It was the first time the Queen’s 40-year-old granddaughter had been seen out with pals since she gave birth to her first son, Lucas, in March.
Zara — who wore a £250 mini dress from the Duchess of Cambridge’s favourite label, ME+EM, and a £560 Juliette Botterill floral percher — has two daughters, Mia, seven, and Lena, two, with her husband, former England rugby captain Mike Tindall.
Zara Tindall made an animated return to the social scene yesterday as she cheered on the horse she backed on the opening day of Royal Ascot
Zara — who wore a £250 mini dress from the Duchess of Cambridge’s favourite label, ME+EM, and a £560 Juliette Botterill floral percher — has two daughters with her husband, former England rugby captain Mike Tindall
Letting go of a beloved nanny once your children have grown up can be hard, so Kate Moss has come up with a solution: don’t bother.
I hear Mary Davidson, who looked after the supermodel’s daughter Lila, now 18, has been living at Moss’s North London home throughout the pandemic. Davidson is the mother of Moss’s friend Sadie Frost.
‘It’s an arrangement that’s worked out very well for everyone,’ a pal tells me. ‘Kate has mainly been living at her Cotswolds home, so it made sense to have someone staying in London.’ Sounds like a model deal.
Jack puts aunt out of her agony
While some teenagers make prank phone calls to friends, well-connected comedian Jack Whitehall once amused himself by writing fake readers’ letters to upmarket agony aunt Mary Killen, who later found fame on Gogglebox with her husband, Giles Wood.
‘You know Giles and Mary with the lovely wallpaper, the posh couple — I went to school with their daughter,’ says Jack, an alumnus of £39,930-a-year Marlborough College.
‘Mary never got enough queries sent in, so she was always asking us and my parents to send in queries to The Spectator so she would be able to fill her column.’
Jack Whitehall once amused himself by writing fake readers’ letters to upmarket agony aunt Mary Killen
Hunger Games star Sam Claflin, who has two young children with his ex-wife, actress Laura Haddock, admits his career has taken a hit after becoming a father.
‘My work has suffered because I’ve been so focused on the kids and about being the best dad,’ says the Suffolk-born 34-year-old.
‘I’m looking forward to when they’re both at school so I can start focusing on myself a bit more.’