Ephraim Hardcastle
PRINCE Charles tours Canada next week. It was the setting for an unusual tryst. Janet Jenkins, a staffer at the British Consulate in Montreal, met him in 1976 after his ship HMS Bronington docked there. He was 26 and she was 30 and they started exchanging letters. In one he proposed a tryst, writing: ‘I would have thought your apartment is the quietest place… much love and a big anti-lonely “hug” from Charles.’ The silver-tongued rogue.
PRESIDENT Joe Biden’s sister Valerie says Meghan Markle ‘might make a good US president’, inviting the duchess to join the Democratic Party. Might this explain why Meghan is keen to keep her profile high by attending the Jubilee celebrations next month, having shown little interest in royal life for the last two years?
THE application by Stanley Johnson, pictured, to become a French citizen is being considered by Paris officials. Their view is that the request by the father of our Brexiteer-in-chief PM ‘is not without foundation... it seems anchored in a genuine desire to renew links with a French familial past... and also a way of reconnecting with a European citizenship, thereby standing at a symbolic counterpoint to Brexit.’ My source says: ‘He means, “Sorry about what my son did, but please can I still come in?”’
STAR luvvie Simon Callow confesses: ‘Restaurants were nearly my undoing. I had a good year once and I said to my accountant, “I have not made a profit this year.” He said, “You have eaten it.” I am a very greedy person.’
HOME Secretary Priti Patel’s under-secretary Kevin Foster, 43, is husband of Torbay councillor Hazel Foster, 71. They’re known as ‘the Macrons of Torbay’ due to their age difference. Hazel is accused of bullying a council officer. She says: ‘I will be sending a sincere letter of apology to the clerk involved.’ Less glam than Brigitte Macron but more accommodating than Miss Patel.
NOW that Finland is expected to join Nato, the Queen is amused to recount the 1969 state visit of president Urho Kekkonen and his wife Sylvi. The latter managed to muddle up her pills on the morning of the official welcome. Instead of taking heart medication, she took a sleeping pill and had to be propped upright by Prince Philip and Princess Anne for the duration of the carriage procession.
HAVING embarked on a new tour of America, The Who’s Roger Daltrey (estimated worth: £60million) complains: ‘By the time we hit the road, we were £1.5million in debt because we’d got rehearsals to pay for, all the air tickets, all the stuff you have to do to get the show on the road [but] the only thing now left for musicians is touring. There’s no money in making records.’ Poor lambs!
ANNA Firth, making her maiden speech as Tory MP for Southend, recalls a magistrate who, when having to fine a habitual flasher, suggested: ‘Surely it’s time to give it up.’ He replied: ‘I’ll stick it out for a little longer.’