No way to treat The Lady: Son’s £12m sale sparks mother’s fury
WITH its ads for butlers and maids, and illustrious past contributors who included Nancy Mitford and Lewis Carroll, The Lady occupies a unique place in society.
But now, Britain’s oldest women’s magazine is the setting for a very un-ladylike battle between two generations of the family which has owned it since 1885.
The war has been sparked by Ben Budworth’s sale this week of The Lady’s splendid HQ in London’s Covent Garden for £12.4 million.
‘It’s scandalous,’ his mother, Julia Budworth, tells me, aghast that the family mansion was sold off so suddenly at an auction. ‘It’s a story good enough for Dickens — the very worst type of family disaster.’
Some estate agents claim the building could have fetched twice the price.
Julia, 86, handed control of the magazine in 2008 to Ben, 54. He took out a loan last year for £7.4 million which, he claimed, would pay for urgently needed renovation work at The Lady’s offices.
Instead, they went under the hammer on Tuesday. ‘Ben’s three brothers are shattered — disgusted and traumatised,’ says Julia, whose grandfather founded the magazine. ‘The family has owned the building since 1891. It’s a terrible thing he’s done. We’re desperately angry.
‘If he’s going to make this sort of money he ought to share it with his brothers, and say, “All right, I’ve made a bit of a mess this time, but you must have equal dos.”’
The Lady was the subject of a memorable TV documentary when Boris Johnson’s sister Rachel was editor. It laid bare the tension between her and Mrs Budworth.
Ben lives with Helen Robinson, The Lady’s managing director, at Bylaugh Hall in Norfolk, which he bought for £1.9million in 2014.
He is unrepentant, telling me that his family ‘only have themselves to blame — and that’s it’. He says: ‘The magazine has been there for a few years, but the building has never been owned by The Lady; it’s been owned by family members.’
Until recently, the owner was Mrs Budworth’s brother, Tom, who sold it to Ben for £6.2million.
‘There is an awful lot of kit that The Lady’s office is just not suitable for,’ says Ben, explaining why he decided against renovation.
Staff are understandably anxious. ‘Ben handed out voluntary redundancy notices to a lot of them,’ I’m told, ‘including the whole editorial team, the cleaners and the 80-yearold telephonist.’ Ben does little to allay their fears, saying The Lady will ‘be partly based in Norfolk and partly in Covent Garden’.
Mrs Budworth despairs. ‘My poor father and grandfather struggled when The Lady was really bankrupt. They kept it together somehow because they were so worried about the staff.’