Tamara Ecclestone: the millionaire earth mother

Contrary to popular rumour, Bob Dylan is delighted about receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature. For two weeks after the award was announced, Dylan made no public appearance or comment, leading to speculation that he might turn it down. But in fact, he told Edna Gundersen in The Daily Telegraph, he is quietly thrilled. “Amazing, incredible. Whoever dreams about something like that?” The argument still rages over whether his song lyrics qualify as poetry, but Dylan doesn’t care to weigh in. “I’ll let other people decide what they are,” he drawls. “The academics, they ought to know. I’m not really qualified. I don’t have an opinion.” He is certainly quite a Renaissance man: as well as writing songs, Dylan paints, writes, sculpts, acts and makes films. But there are some dreams he knows are beyond him. “I’d like to drive a race car on the Indianapolis track. I’d like to kick a field goal in an NFL football game. But you have to know your place. There might be some things that are beyond your talents.”

Tamara Ecclestone’s £70m Kensington mansion has 57 rooms – which is, she admits, a trifle excessive. “There are definitely rooms I haven’t been in for ages,” she told Louise Gannon in The Mail on Sunday. “I don’t use the swimming pool and I haven’t been in the bowling alley for a long time. I generally just use four rooms. But I like to have the space for when people come round.” One of the richest women in Britain (thanks to the largesse of her father, Bernie Ecclestone), Tamara is used to outlandish luxury. Her wedding to former City trader Jay Rutland cost £7m. Her bath is hewn from a giant lump of crystal, and cost £1m. And now her two-and-a-halfyear-old daughter, Sophia (known as Fifi), has every toy under the sun, including a £10,000 playhouse modelled on their home. But Tamara is more of an earth mother than you might expect: she is still breastfeeding, and shares a bed with her daughter. “I can give her anything she wants, but I know the biggest gift is nothing to do with money, it’s just to be with her. I chose not to have a nanny; to be the one changing her nappies, taking her to the park, putting her to bed.” Motherhood is now her raison d’être. “My ideal number is three. I had a caesarean with Fifi because I was terrified of the pain, but next time I want a natural birth. Being a mother is the best thing that has happened to me and I’m doing it as well as I can.”