Jilly’s Riders hero to marry again at 81

Five- and- a- half years after the tragic death of his wife, Candida — daughter of national treasure and Poet laureate Sir John Betjeman — Rupert lycett Green has been blessed with unexpected happiness.

at the age of 81, he is, i can disclose, about to marry again.

his bride is Julia dawson, some 25 years his junior, who has two children by a previous marriage and lives close to Rupert and Candida’s old home in South Oxfordshire, where Rupert still lives.

‘ it’s wonderful,’ a family friend tells me. ‘it would certainly have Candida’s blessing.’

lycett Green, who is said to have partly inspired Jilly Cooper’s fictional hero Rupert Campbell-Black in her bonkbuster novel Riders, refrains from commenting.

But no one is more delighted for him than one of his oldest friends, interior designer nicky haslam, who has known him since their schooldays together at eton.

‘i am absolutely thrilled for him,’ he tells me. ‘Just goes to show that all the sport he has played for years has done wonders for him.

‘We’re glad he’s found someone as sparkling as Candida. Julia is very popular — all the neighbours love her. i haven’t met her yet but hope to next week as Rupert has invited me down for drinks.’

Candida, a close chum of the Prince of Wales and the Beatles, and Rupert, whom she married in 1963, were at the throbbing heart of Sixties london.

david hockney painted her portrait and Ossie Clark designed her dresses, while Rupert founded Blades, the most fashionable gentlemen’s outfitters of its day. Candida’s biggest regret, she said, was ‘not going the whole hog with Mick Jagger’.

in homage to her wit, the couple, who went on to have a large and lively family of two daughters and three sons, became known as ‘ Tailor and Cutter’.

Candida succumbed to cancer aged 71 after a 15-year battle, but not before sending a valedictory tweet to friends, urging them to sponsor her daughter, imogen, and grandson, ivo, on a bike ride to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer action.