Me and Prince Charles? I was never going to be Queen.. but TV show’s told me I need to date again
SHEILA FERGUSON ON LOVE AT 69
and vice versa. What I am trying to do now is find what’s missing in my life. I need physical contact with people. And also the mental and emotional stimulation.”
At 40, Jon was more than 20 years younger than Sheila. Her latest date, on TV’s Marigold, was with a man aged 62.
Sheila reveals with a mischievous glint: “I was asking a man at the yacht club about the dating scene for single women like me and he said: ‘ Would you consider spending the rest of your life with an Indian gentlemen?’ He is brave – because no man comes up to Sheila Ferguson! I think I giggled, I was so embarrassed.
“I said: ‘ Well can we have dinner first?’ I thought it was a wind-up until he called the next day. We got on very well at dinner. His wife died a few years ago so he understood my loneliness.”
Sheila, who hails from Pennsylvania, hasn’t ruled out meeting the man during a visit to the US, where his daughter lives. “We email and we’re in touch,” she says with uncharacteristic coyness. But she’s also keen to find out what the dating scene is like back in the UK, where she lived for more than two decades – and where she plans to spend more time in the future.
She adds: “I have realised no one is going to come to Majorca, knock on the door and say: ‘I love you, let’s go for dinner’.
“Whereas in the UK I have a social network that I’ve built over the years. Now I am touching base with these guys and we’re gonna hook up! I can’t wait to date.”
DATING
Sheila says the show also made her come to terms with her age – including her sex life, which she says hasn’t changed since she hit the menopause.
Sheila sees herself as no different to the 30-year-old wearing a cut-out dress as she danced on stage with Prince Charles.
She goes on: “Dating now is no different to dating in my thirties, forties or fifties.
“So many people think you get older and you don’t have sex. We do have sex. Even if it’s with ourselves! That’s not changed.
“I have been on hormone replacement therapy since I was 44 but nothing’s going to change my sex drive. I have been assured that it will wane – but that hasn’t happened yet.”
Sheila jokes that her sex drive will only diminish when she gets “older older” and, with her 70th birthday in autumn, she doesn’t see that happening any time soon.
She adds: “I still don’t get it, I don’t understand why people get old.
“I only really addressed it when I went on this show. It must be genetic. My mother is in her nineties and hasn’t got a wrinkle on her face. I stay young by working.”
Sheila lived in Berkshire during a 22-year marriage to businessman Chris Robinson. They have twins Alexandria and Alicia.
And, since Donald Trump’s election as President, Sheila prefers to call the UK home rather than the US.
But what of India? Sheila admits: “I went open-minded but sceptical. So I gave myself up to the activities, the experience of India.
“It helped me learn so much about myself. Would I go back? Not unless it was for love.”
The Real Marigold Hotel begins on Wednesday at 9pm on BBC1.