The blonde 30 years his junior who’s left mother of Paxman’s children devastated
DURING a visit to the Orkney Islands in 2014, Jeremy Paxman travelled to Marwick Head, a dramatic clifftop spot with a wild, elemental feel to it.
It was one of those rare days in Orkney when the sun was shining, and Mr Paxman later wrote about this ‘glorious’ spot, where ‘fulmars, kittiwakes, guillemots and puffins swirl over the sea below’.
standing next to him, similarly captivated by the scenery, was an attractive blonde, very much younger than him.
Paxman was in Orkney to research an article about the sinking of the HMs Hampshire in June 1916. There was much to be done, archives and records to go through, local experts to speak to. What any meticulous historian needs on a project like this is a firstclass researcher.
And Jillian Taylor, whose abilities Mr Paxman had acknowledged as ‘amazing’ in his most recent book, was as good as they got.
That type of ferociously competent individual, perhaps a little irritating to less agile minds, who, if they don’t know the answer to something already, is able to locate it in a matter of minutes.
Naturally, she should accompany TV’s great inquisitor on this trip, which involved an overnight stay, and assist him in his research.
Presumably Paxman’s longtime partner, Elizabeth Clough, had no qualms about him spending a couple of days away with Miss Taylor.
After all, she was on very cordial terms with the younger woman, so much so that Jillian, 36, would come to stay at the family home in Henleyon-Thames, Oxfordshire, to assist 66-year- old Paxman when he was working on one of his books.
Today Ms Clough, 64, would be less than human if she didn’t look back at that visit to Orkney and wonder if there was anything else going on when the pair were not poring earnestly over historical documents. For it has been confirmed that Paxman and his researcher are in a romantic relationship.
As
THE Mail’s sebastian shakespeare Diary revealed on saturday, Ms Clough and Paxman — one of the most formidable and respected broadcasters of his generation — have parted after more than 35 years.
The former Newsnight presenter is now believed to be living with Miss Taylor at his £1.5 million flat in London’s Notting Hill.
The fact that Ms Taylor is not a nameless, faceless lover, but someone who was warmly welcomed into the family home, must make the betrayal harder to bear for Ms Clough.
Perhaps it’s not surprising that she no longer refers to her love rival as Jillian, Jeremy’s researcher — but simply ‘that b***h’.
A close friend of Ms Clough told the Mail yesterday: ‘ His family are devastated. They feel that Jeremy has behaved dreadfully in all sorts of ways.
‘Elizabeth welcomed Jillian to their family home. When Jeremy was writing his books, he would work from home and Jillian would come to stay. Elizabeth treated Jillian in a friendly way and she got to know their children. This is how she repaid them.
‘Having an affair with your young assistant is such a cliché. Elizabeth jokes that it is, at least, one up on a nanny or au pair, because Jeremy can speak to her as an equal.
‘As a TV personality, Jeremy became used to unstinting adulation and, clearly, Jillian is giving him what he wants.’
A newspaper report yesterday suggested that Paxman and Ms Clough separated last November. The family friend says, however, that any inference that the relationship started around this time is incorrect — the romance started a long time before.
‘ He [ Paxman] has told Elizabeth and friends that it has been going on much longer than that.
‘[ Jillian] was previously married, but it’s not clear if her relationship with Jeremy was the reason for the breakdown of her marriage.’
Inevitably, it is devastating for Ms Clough. Hugely well liked among her circle of friends, she is regarded as a devoted mother. In 2011, she gave up her highly paid job as a producer on the BBC’s faith and ethics programme, The Big Questions, after the Corporation relocated it to Glasgow. Uprooting her family was unthinkable.
she and the presenter have three grown- up children, Jessica, 26, and 19-year- old twins, Jack and Victoria.
Elizabeth Clough was one of 25 girls who made history by ending the all-male tradition at the £ 35,280- per- year Marlborough College and joining 800 boys.
After leaving Marlborough, she read history at somerville College, Oxford, then joined the BBC as a trainee.
she worked on Panorama, Watchdog and Newsnight, where she met Jeremy Paxman, who was to become the BBC’s star inquisitor. Women liked him, and he was nicknamed the ‘ thinking woman’s crumpet’.
Rumours surfaced in 1990 that Paxman was considering getting married, but it didn’t happen then or anytime afterwards. The couple decided rather late on to have children. Elizabeth was 38 when she had Jessica and 45 when she gave birth to the twins. And what of the bright young woman who has turned Jeremy Paxman’s head?
According to the friend, Jillian Taylor began working for Paxman 12 years ago. It was her first job after leaving university.
Ms Taylor was employed as a researcher and editorial assistant at Penguin books and living in a flat in North London.
LITTLE is known about her early life. According to one report, she was born in Canada. In 2010, Ms Taylor assisted Jeremy Paxman with the research for his bestselling work, Empire: What Ruling The World Did To The British.
Paxman was lavish in his praise of her in the acknowledgment section of the book.
‘I have been very fortunate indeed in the people who have helped me: I no sooner asked a question than had it answered, wherever she happened to be in the world at that moment.
‘Jillian Taylor is the best researcher a writer could wish for — conscientious, imaginative and astonishingly industrious.’
In 2011, Paxman and Ms Taylor were photographed in a London street. Paxman’s praise for Jillian was just as gushing in the acknowledgements of his next historical work, Great Britain’s Great War, published in 2013.
‘Most of all I thank Jillian Taylor, whose stakhanovite capacity for research continues to amaze. I had no soon asked a question than she had answered it.’
A stakhanovite, of course, is someone who works exceptionally hard — a description which evolved in the former soviet Union in the Thirties after a man of that name mined a prodigious amount of coal in a single day. Ms Taylor perhaps appreciated this neat historical reference.
Paxman wasn’t finished. ‘she is probably the perfect researcher — bright, resourceful, cheerful and indefatigable.’ Just the sort of person you need around for a visit to a remote island at the tip of scotland to unlock the secrets of a wartime tragedy.
Mr Paxman was investigating the sinking of HMs Hampshire and the death on board of the most famous soldier of World War I, Lord Kitchener, for an article for the Financial Times.
He and Ms Taylor painstakingly went through the records at the Orkney Archive and the pair travelled to Marwick Head, where a memorial to Kitchener was erected, overlooking the sea.
The next day, the pair met a couple of locals for lunch at Julia’s Cafe & Bistro in stromness, where specialities include roast Orkney beef and Orkney salmon fish cakes.
It must have been refreshing to unwind after all the vigours of research.
One of those who dined with the pair, who declined to be named, told the Mail: ‘We had a lovely lunch, a lovely chat.
Paxman splits from his love of 35 years
He [Paxman] was nothing like he used to be on Newsnight — where he could appear a bit unkind — in real life. As far as we could see at that point they were just in a professional relationship.
‘Jillian is an attractive woman — quite a bit younger than him. She arranged to get two signed copies of his book sent to us.’
The following year, in May 2015, Ms Taylor was promoted to the position of editor at the Penguin offshoot, Michael Joseph, which specialises in women’s fiction, crime, thrillers, cookery, memoirs and lifestyle books.
Jeremy Paxman, of course, became one of the BBC’s highest paid presenters, signing a four- year deal with the broadcaster in 2010, worth £3.2 million. In 2014, he announced he was to leave Newsnight.
As well as his more high-profile career as a presenter, he was writing prolifically, and this is, of course, how his friendship blossomed with Ms Taylor.
Now they are officially a couple. On Friday evening, Paxman’s agent confirmed: ‘Jeremy Paxman and his partner separated last year.
‘They retain a mutual respect for each other and a deep love for their children.’