Baronet, 70, splits with lover ‘too old for babies’
WHEN the aristocracy’s most colourful singleton, Sir Benjamin Slade, began courting glamorous businesswoman Bridget Convey, friends hoped he had finally found the lady of his dreams.
He was said to have taken to referring to her as ‘my fiancee’ and the couple were a fixture at the most select soirees.
Sadly, however, the multimillionaire landowner, 70, has now split up with Bridget.
‘She is 50, so too old to have children,’ Sir Ben explains at the Bath and West Show, which he attended with his Jack Russell, Bully, and Labrador, Gerald, named after the late Duke of Westminster. ‘We are still friendly, but no longer together. She’s now engaged to a 46-year-old called Alister Robens.’ Baronet Ben, who lives at 13th-century Maunsel House, where Chaucer wrote part of The Canterbury Tales, is somewhat unlucky in love.
‘My last girlfriend, Kirsten Hughes, went off with my handyman in 2011, but was already showing signs of madness.’
Before Kirsten, he courted Fiona Aitken, who went on to become the second wife of the Earl of Carnavon. So Fiona’s marital home is Highclere Castle, where Downton Abbey was filmed. ‘I rescued her from the back of a car, set her up in business and made her a millionaire in 18 months,’ he claims of the Countess of Carnarvon.
‘She was very difficult to live with. Good riddance to her.’
So acrimonious did their split become that he took her to the High Court in a custody battle over their dog Jasper. He won.
Sir Ben is pulling out all the stops to find a young bride. ‘I am interviewing hard. I have had a few proposals, but sometimes the women are past their sell-by date and have been over the guns a few times.
‘They have to be fit — I have two castles [he also owns Woodlands Castle in Somerset]. I am like a feudal prince when it comes to throwing parties.
‘I’ve bought a back stretcher and hang upside down on it for five minutes every morning. It works wonders for the chin and neckline. I also have some “sky boots” with a hook in the top so I can hang upside down.
‘I have some Traynor pinhole glasses, which I wear for 20 minutes a day and they have really improved my eyesight.
‘I am also on the Genghis Khan diet, which is recommended for young lotharios and involves eating sweet potato, sunflower seeds and horny goat weed.
‘It was recommended by my French nephew, who is 70 and hasn’t a single grey hair. And Genghis had 2,000 children.’