The gilded family that’s had its share of shame

BEFORE last Tuesday, the gilded Matthews clan’s lowest moments normally came courtesy of their younger son, Vogue Williams’ new fiancé Spencer.

To his family’s mortification, Spencer has boasted of drug use, orgies and having 1,000 sex partners. He was labelled reality TV show Made In Chelsea’s resident idiot.

But set against the scandalous allegations now facing his father, black sheep Spencer’s gaucherie seems almost mild.

Enveloped by his family and looking supremely relaxed, David Matthews must have seemed as though he had it all. And who could blame him? The son of a Yorkshire coal miner, he is a self-made man who enjoys the title Laird of Glen Affric (his 10,000-acre Scottish estate) and has homes in London, France and on St Barts.

He started off working as an apprentice mechanic for his

father, before taking up motor racing in his early 20s and marrying pioneering female racing driver, Anita Taylor, a renowned beauty and gossip column darling.

Before splitting three years later, they had a daughter Nina, who now lives on Jersey with husband Adam Mackie, whose family electrical business is worth £456m (€518m) – more than the Middletons and Matthews combined. Their four children are Rosa, Tristan, Lily and Yasmina.

Mr Matthews’s glamorous second wife Jane, 70, enjoyed a privileged childhood in Harare, capital of Zimbabwe. Sporty and popular, she was voted carnival queen at university and rode through the streets on a gold throne.

At 21, she graduated in Fine Art and won a scholarship to the Rijks Academy in Amsterdam. When her ferry stopped in England, she hopped off on a whim and ended up staying for good.

It was then she met David Matthews, recently divorced, who had spotted an old photograph of her in a yearbook belonging to his sisterin-law. They married in the early 1970s, a low-key register office affair to which Jane wore an old brown sweater and a skirt. A celebration in Zimbabwe followed, where her bohemian father turned up two hours late, riding a donkey.

If Spencer inherited her wild streak, then James – whom Pippa Middleton married in May last year – is the steady one. He has quietly accrued a fortune, having set up his own hedge fund.

Of the family, a friend once noted: ‘They have everything in abundance: good looks, oodles of money and all the trappings of their exalted status.’