Curse of the King
threw herself into raising money for the Dream Factory charity run by Kim’s pal Avril Mills, 61, whose son Oliver died of leukaemia when he was just nine.
Ben and his mum even had a go at serving food from Kim’s fish and chip truck parked outside the pub.
Kim, who sold the pub in 2016 and now lives in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, adds: “I think they wanted to be normal, that is what it boils down to, and they liked us because we were ordinary working-class people.
“In LA they would be recognised wherever they went. But in England they could be anonymous and we treated them like we would anyone else. Ben was always upbeat and fun.
“He seemed happy and would never seem depressed or in a low mood. He was selective about who he would socialise with, he was a private boy.
“But in the pub he always seemed happy. When we’d go out, we’d have a good time and a drink. Priscilla was often there and it was clear the whole family was very close.
“Lisa used to talk to us fondly about Graceland and riding around in a buggy there. She did talk about her dad and it was all really positive.
“Her mum is an amazing woman, solid as a rock and an amazing mother. We took the whole family to Borough Market in London once and they walked round without anyone recognising them. But they knew it was temporary and they couldn’t escape who they were.” The Presleys liked their English friends so much that they invited them on holiday in 2011. Kim says: “We love golf and Lisa Marie said, ‘You must come to
Hawaii – I live on one of the best resorts in the world’. She flew us from LA to Hawaii in a private jet. We stayed at their house there for three weeks and had some great laughs.
“One night I told Ben I didn’t like Elvis’s music. I was being cheeky. He roared with laughter and said, ‘Neither do I!’”
Lisa Marie decided to move the family back to California when she separated from Michael Lockwood, her husband of 10 years, prompting a bitter custody fight for their 11-year-old twins Harper and Finley. Kim, meanwhile, can’t believe that Ben is gone. She is also struggling to make sense of reports that he had depression and drug issues.
Fighting back tears, she says: “He was never addicted to drugs as far as I knew. It was recreational, he was like any normal teenager.
“At the pub he would drink at a normal speed with everyone else. He really cared about his health.”
Kim’s husband Justin, 50, adds: “They were normal people and they wanted to be treated as normal and that’s why they came to the UK.
“The whole village protected them when they were here. I don’t know what this is going to do to Lisa Marie because Ben was the apple of her eye.”
Ben struggled. It was tough being a grandson of someone more famous than God...
■■Kim and Justin did not receive a fee for this interview but are appealing for donations to the charity the Dream Factory, of which Lisa Marie Presley is a patron. See yourdreamfactory.org
KIM SCALES PUB BOSS AND FRIEND OF THE PRESLEYS