How would you feel if your daughter was having a baby with Russell the Reptile?
That’s what’s happening to golf legend Bernard Gallacher who insists he’s ‘very happy’. Read on and decide if you believe him
On a Sunday in november last year an intriguing scene unfolded within the exclusive confines of a swish private members’
a well-heeled crowd had gathered at Wentworth Golf Club to attend a memorial service for popular local GP Dr Michael Loxton, and champagne glasses clinked as members of the golf-playing middle-classes paid their respects.
among them, however, was a rather more unexpected face. It was that of comedian-turned-professional-agitator Russell Brand, a man who often likes to rail against the trappings of capitalism, but who mingled freely with the other mourners apparently at ease in this scene of prosperous conformity.
Then again he had a gold-plated reason to be there: by his side was Laura Gallacher, the 28-year-old daughter of the ex-Ryder Cup captain Bernard Gallacher.
a close friend of the GP, Bernard Gallacher made a warm-hearted speech, and could also be seen happily chatting with Brand as the afternoon wore on. at that point, his daughter’s relationship with Brand, who at 41 is 13 years her senior, was in its infancy, the couple’s romance having been reignited a few months earlier.
For this is the fourth time the couple have embarked on a relationship, following a series of on-off romances stretching back to 2006.
During that time, Russell had even chalked up a marriage — and divorce — with american pop star Katy Perry.
This time, however, it is hoped that the comedian’s liaison with the golf star’s daughter will have a degree of longevity. This week it emerged that Laura is five months pregnant with Brand’s baby and is permanently ensconced at his newlyacquired £3 million property on the banks of the Thames near Henley.
It will be a first child for both of them, and certainly a change of direction for a man who has previously been known for a spectacularly dissolute love life.
There have been countless one night stands as well as well-publicised liaisons with fellow celebrities including Kate Moss and Jemima Goldsmith. now fatherhood beckons, a prospect that has apparently delighted Brand.
‘It’s all about Laura and becoming a dad now. They have been living as a couple for the past six months and are determined to make a go of their relationship,’ a friend said earlier this week.
‘It feels like a new chapter in their lives and the couple are enjoying every moment, including discussing baby names. Russell is absolutely made up. Most of his closest friends have children and he was desperate to start a family.’
Laura’s family, meanwhile, are also said to be delighted — on the surface at least.
AT THeIR £1 million semi-detached home in ascot, Bernard – the Bathgate, West Lothian, golfer who captained the Ryder Cup team to victory over the americans in 1995 – this week told the Mail that he and wife Lesley, 63, were ‘very happy’ about the ‘positive’ news.
It is fair to say however, that Bernard has not always been so enchanted by the match, which started ten years ago in the winter of 2006 when his daughter was still a teenager.
Back then, news of their relationship broke when the couple — their hair styled in matching messy topknots — were spotted walking along a beach together in Mauritius.
By early 2007, however, they had split, apparently at the behest of Bernard, who was concerned about the age gap and his daughter’s relatively tender years. ‘He begged her to end it,’ a friend revealed at the time.
It would be hard to blame him. along with her older sister Kirsty, 40, the successful television presenter, and brother Jamie, 39, a property surveyor, Laura was raised in middle-class comfort on the Wentworth estate, a leafy, luxurious enclave where neighbours include Bruce Forsyth and — when they are in Britain — elton John and Sir Cliff Richard. Laura attended the exclusive St George’s School in ascot, where contemporaries included Princess Beatrice.
By all accounts a popular, bright and loving girl with a talent for catering and design, it’s little wonder that, against this backdrop, her father was unimpressed by her choice of man.
as one who knows him well told the Mail: ‘Bernard is a very straitlaced guy, with no side to him. So in that sense he and Brand are chalk and cheese.’
In fact, it did not take long for Brand and Laura to rekindle their relationship: a year after they had dipped their toes in the Indian Ocean, Brand whisked Laura, now 20, to a luxury five-star resort nestled in the atlas mountains close to Marrakech. Friends spoke of the then 32-year-old comedian being ready to settle down.
again it didn’t last. By early 2008 the couple had separated once more, although a year later, in april 2009, Laura was spotted leaving Brand’s east London home several times in the space of a fortnight. ‘Try as she might, Laura can’t get Russell out of her system,’ one friend explained. alas, she had to. Within a week Brand was spotted strolling hand in hand around Siena, in Tuscany, with another young blonde — this time Cambridge graduate emma Lees.
The couple split, and by September that year Brand was ensconced with american singer Katy Perry after meeting her at the MTV video music awards. The couple married in October the following year, although the union ended 14 months later when Brand sent his wife a text asking her for a divorce (he has not spoken to her since, the singer revealed in an interview last year).
In the wake of the end of his marriage there has been no shortage of other women, an eclectic list ranging from Geri Halliwell to heiress Jemima Goldsmith.
Laura, meanwhile, has lived a more low profile life, forging a career as both a cookery blogger and restaurant manager. Her portfolio includes a stint as general manager for a new restaurant, the Moral Fox, as well as work for the fashionable club and restaurant chain the Soho House Group. She has also worked at The Box, a notoriously louche nightclub in London.
THIS lifestyle which, although largely under the radar, has brought her a slew of well-known friends, including radio DJ Fearne Cotton and her husband Jesse Wood, son of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, and Otis Ferry, son of singer Bryan Ferry.
In 2013, however, came a seismic event that transformed the outlook of the entire Gallacher family. In august that year, Bernard suffered a heart attack as he was delivering an after-dinner speech in aberdeen.
Hotel staff acted swiftly, deploying a defibrillator, but his life hung in the balance for several days while his family kept a vigil at his bedside. Discharged after two weeks, he acknowledged that life had taken on a new meaning.
‘each day is a bonus. I feel blessed, I suppose, lucky that I’m still around,’ he said.
‘My family are the ones that have actually been affected more than
me because I was out of it. It’s probably been hardest for them, the people closest to me,’ he added.
It was a sentiment echoed by eldest daughter Kirsty when, less than a year after her father’s heart attack, she split from Paul Sampson, her husband of four years and father to their two young children, after 14 years together — a decision she attributed to her father’s illness.
‘My dad’s experience taught me that life is short and realising that changed me as a person,’ she said.
She embarked on a relationship with man-about-town rugby player Danny Cipriani, 28 and 12 years her junior, a relationship that ended last month amid claims he was unhappy with the age gap. Perhaps both sisters have a predisposition to ‘bad boys’.
Either way, Laura certainly seems to have been unable to get her own ‘bad boy’ out of her system: last summer, she and Brand were spotted walking arm in arm in the village of Baltonsborough in Somerset.
The difference this time is that, after a decade of shilly-shallying, events moved swiftly.
By Christmas, Laura was secreted at the Henley mansion into which Brand moved in the autumn from the bachelor pad he previously called home in Shoreditch, a fashionable part of east London.
As the new year dawned, she was pregnant. In fairness, the pair certainly appear to have settled down in preparation for parenthood.
Though Laura has all but disappeared from social media in recent months, she has posted a number of bucolic pictures on her Facebook page capturing life at her new home, from a snapshot of a newborn lamb on the lawn to idyllic sunsets over the Thames.
There are signs, too, that Brand may have tired of his life as a professional dilettante. Where once he could be found surrounded by fawning acolytes, these days he is keeping a lower profile. Six months ago he shut down his YouTube channel The Trews (sic), on which he published weekly tirades, saying he was ‘disappearing for a while’.
He has also turned down the volume on all his social media, removing himself from Facebook, although he maintains a presence on Twitter and Instagram, where he has taken to running an online book club ‘The trewLit book club’. Perhaps then, he cuts a more sympathetic figure for his prospective father-in-law. After all, in an interview after his recovery, Bernard told how his brush with death put the highs and lows of his golfing career into perspective.
‘If things don’t run smoothly, you shouldn’t worry about it too much. I think I’m learning that,’ he said.
Back at that Wentworth reception in November, a guest approached the couple and told them he was a divorce barrister. ‘Oh, we won’t be needing your services,’ Laura said with a smile. ‘No, we are planning to stay together a very long time,’ added Brand.
What ‘a very long time’ means in the world of Russell Brand, of course, is a matter for speculation.
Either way, we must hope for everyone involved that he is as good as his word.