Keeping up with the Fulfords, the foul-mouthed clan who put on a show
As the heir to the Fulford estate joins ‘Big Brother’, Guy Kelly asks what became of his family?
More than a dozen years have passed now since the Fulford family, or to give them their full title, “The F------ Fulfords”, effed and jeffed their way into the public’s consciousness in a 2004 fly-on-thewall Channel 4 documentary.
In that programme it was Francis, the Lord of the Manor of Great Fulford in Dunsford, Devon, who commanded centrestage, turning the air bluer by the second. While he pottered around, his four children – Matilda, Arthur, Edmund and Humphrey – generally tore about the place scrapping, as their mother, Kishanda, looked on helplessly.
“The Osbournes in tweed” returned in 2014. BBC Three’s Life is Toff caught up with the family.
And now, the Fulfords are back, swearing on screen once again. Or one is, at least. Monday night saw Arthur, the eldest son and heir to the 3,000acre family estate, enter the Big Brother house live on Channel 5.
Now 24 years old, Arthur (whose real name is also Francis) seems only slightly calmer than when we first met him. Striding in with the same floppy hair, ruddy cheeks and crumpled Oxford shirts as his father, he lived up to expectations by cursing within just 13 minutes, with a resounding
“f------ hell!”. “I had a wild upbringing, I was pretty much allowed to do whatever I wanted,” he admitted, before mournfully adding: “Although this now means I’m 24 and virtually unemployed.” He was also charged with drink-driving last year.
So we know where he is (in a garish compound at Elstree Studios) but what are the other Fulfords up to? Well, they may have a wedding to plan. Earlier this year, the engagement between “Francis Arthur, eldest son of Mr and Mrs Francis Fulford, of Great Fulford, Devon, and Sally, only daughter of Mr and Mrs Thomas Melville, of Lenox, Massachusetts” was announced in this very newspaper – though no mention has been made on Big Brother yet.
If all goes ahead, Great Fulford, the family seat since 1190, is a handy wedding venue. Francis and Kishanda still live there, rattling around its 80-odd rooms. Francis writes a highly entertaining blog (sample opening line: “When will the Germans ever learn?”) documenting his daily goings-on, approval of Trump and despair at Ukip’s decline. Kishanda appears to have been writing the same book for more than 13 years.
All the children have left home. Matilda, Arthur’s twin, works as a marketing manager; Humphrey, 23, spent some time in the Army Reserve before winding up in client services at Savills estate agents; and Edmund, 21, is trying to crack the film and TV business. Other than Arthur, then, all have kept out of the limelight. All have kept things clean.
There’s always one, eh?