Eccentric gun nut Sir Ben becomes a dad at the age of 75

ECCENTRIC aristocrat Sir Benjamin Slade, who once placed an advertisement for a wife who could provide him with two sons, has become a father at the age of 75.

The baby is, however, a girl, which means that his decades-long quest continues for a male heir who can inherit his baronetcy and 2,000-acre Somerset pile, Maunsel House.

‘It’s an awkward situation,’ one of his friends tells me. ‘He’s pleased to have had a child, but it’s not clear if he is still going out with her mother. She is now living in France with the baby.’

The mother is understood to be Sahara Sunday Spain, a poet/composer 46 years his junior.

Last summer, I revealed that Sir Benjamin, a keen shot who has 80 firearms on display in his bar room, was due to be married to Sahara, the daughter of Johnny Spain, a member of the Black Panthers who was jailed for murder.

‘It’s all top secret because Ben’s relations are furious,’ one of his friends told me at the time. ‘They’re very suspicious, because it’s all happened in such a hurry.’

The wedding is understood to have been called off at the 11th hour.

The usually talkative Sir Benjamin declines to discuss his fatherhood, but he confirmed in 2020 that he had embarked on an unlikely relationship with Sahara. ‘We’re sort of dating,’ Sir Benjamin told me. ‘When lockdown happened, one of the people that came to stay was Miss Sahara Spain. She’s still here.’

It’s a far cry from where she was brought up in the urban desolation of Dogtown in Oakland, on the east shore of San Francisco Bay. Her mother, Elisabeth Sunday, is a photographer while her father gained infamy as a member of the San Quentin Six, a group of prisoners who attempted a breakout.

His daughter had been helping deal with the legal problems of Sir Benjamin, who was ordered to pay more than £150,000 in damages in 2019 to two women forced out of their jobs because they were pregnant.

The baronet had expressed his determination to produce a male heir. ‘I would like to start a family,’ he said. ‘My relatives don’t want to take on the house. They’re very rich and would sell it.’