On the face of it, she was born into immense privilege – the daughter of an ebullient peer who was in possession of an almost unrivalled Ferrari collection, a splendid family seat and a wife of such glamour that she regularly graced the pages of Vogue.
But Antalya Nall-Cain, the second of Lord Brocket’s children, was just eight years old when the whole glorious facade disintegrated in a blaze of headlines as her father received a five-year sentence for insurance fraud.
By then, her parents’ marriage had already ended in divorce – a bleak chapter in the family history which, I’m sorry to say, looks destined to be repeated by Antalya, 37.
She has, I can disclose, parted from her husband, Prince Alexander von Preussen, less than five years after their marriage at St John’s church, Lemsford, in Hertfordshire, from where it’s scarcely possible to get into top gear before you’re at Brocket Hall.
Although the house and estate had been leased to a Hong Kong corporation while Charlie Brocket was detained at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, Antalya, a professional photographer, was able to hold her wedding reception there – to her father’s evident delight.
‘Antalya grew up there, so there were a lot of happy memories,’ Lord Brocket, a former I’m a Celebrity contestant, told me afterwards, adding that staff at the hall had been ‘brilliant’ when a new, abruptly announced lockdown had forced Antalya and Alexander to change their wedding date at a moment’s notice.
The pair were married at St John’s church, Lemsford, in Hertfordshire less than five years ago
Antalya Nall-Cain (pictured with her father) is the second of Lord Brocket’s children
That might have seemed a heartening augury that, together, they could cope with life’s ups and downs – and with each other.
But it hasn’t turned out that way.
‘Antalya desperately tried to make it work,’ a chum tells me, adding that she ‘decided to walk away because she was profoundly unhappy’.
Antalya’s past paramours include Old Etonian bullfighter-turned-author Alexander Fiske-Harrison, 13 years her senior, and Axel Loughrey, who’d already acquired the tattoos and piercings of the rock star he was striving to become, one of his songs being entitled Deafening Howl.
Alexander, 40, a descendant of Queen Victoria, also had a romance with a high-octane performer – soul singer and former EastEnders star Mica Paris, 15 years his senior, with whom he mixed business and pleasure, becoming her manager as well as her lover.
The couple confirm that they have separated, but decline to say any more.
Lord Charles Brocket with his daughter Antalya Nall-cain in September 2009
Antalya, at least, may be heartened by the romantic trajectory taken by her father, who, in 2006, married – at the third time of asking – Harriet Warren, 23 years his junior, in the south of France.
It was a high-spirited affair – so high-spirited, in fact, that, at 1am, Brocket plunged into a swimming pool fully clothed, as did his new brother-in-law, John Warren, and Brocket’s cousin ‘Christo’ Bective, who’s since succeeded his late father as the Marquess of Headfort.
By the time the trio emerged from the pool, the blameless Warren was sporting a black eye. ‘It was that sort of party,’ reflected Brocket.
He and Harriet have bumped along together happily ever since.
Sadie swaps models for mods
Having produced critically acclaimed documentaries about 1960s icons Mary Quant and Twiggy, Sadie Frost is moving on a decade.
The ex-wife of film star Jude Law tells me her next project will be about Quadrophenia, The Who’s ‘rock opera’ album about amod written by Pete Townshend.
Sadie Frost’s (pictured) next project will be about Quadrophenia, The Who’s ‘rock opera’ album about amod written by Pete Townshend
It was turned into a cult film starring Phil Daniels, Sting and Ray Winstone among others.
‘I’m thinking about doing a documentary about Quadrophenia and what was in Pete Townshend’s head,’ she tells me at the Twiggy premiere in London’s Leicester Square.
‘I want to move into more of a male territory, something again which is a trip down memory lane, but more of a male-dominated documentary.’
Felicity claims young actors are hiding Jewish faith
Felicity Kendal says she’s heard of young Jewish actresses not wearing their Stars of David at auditions due to fear that these may cost them roles.
‘That’s the reason I wear it, because I’m older now, and it doesn’t really matter,’ says The Good Life star, 78, who converted to Judaism in the 1980s.
‘I don’t have to be afraid [of her career suffering].’
Felicity Kendal says she’s heard of young Jewish actresses not wearing their Stars of David at auditions
Sarah Beeny’s battle with bats
Little stops TV’s Sarah Beeny in her tracks, not even being diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after the launch of New Life In The Country, charting her creation of a ‘mini Downton Abbey’.
But, though now free from the disease, the exuberant Beeny is unable to dazzle everyone into submission.
The 53-year-old, who has four sons with husband Graham Swift, 51, had appealed to a government planning inspector after Somerset Council denied her permission to add a single storey extension – and a first-floor balcony – to a 1970s farmhouse on the 220 acres she and Graham bought in 2018.
The exuberant Sarah Beeny, 53, is unable to dazzle everyone into submission
Beeny appealed to a government planning inspector after Somerset Council denied her permission to add a single storey extension – and a first-floor balcony – to a 1970s farmhouse on the 220 acres she and her husband bought in 2018
The plans, said the council, might harm bats… and the government inspector agrees, ruling that he ‘cannot be satisfied’ that the development wouldn’t have ‘an adverse effect on the protected species’.
Bats before Beeny? Surely Sarah should be a protected species?
‘She’s dreadful’: Why royal pal Tamara is boycotting Meghan
It’s not just members of the Royal Family who are unlikely to watch the new Netflix series by Meghan Markle, or ‘Meghan Sussex’ as we must now call her. Their friends are avoiding With Love, Meghan, too.
‘I won’t be watching any of it,’ says Tamara Beckwith, a friend of the Duke and Duchess of York and their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.
Like the royals, former ‘It girl’ Tamara was upset by her previous Netflix series, Harry & Meghan, in which the former actress performed an exaggerated mock curtsy when recalling her first meeting with the late Queen Elizabeth.
Tamara Beckwith, a friend of the Duke and Duchess of York and their daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, says she will not be watching Meghan’s new show
Tamara was upset by her previous Netflix series, Harry & Meghan, in which the former actress performed an exaggerated mock curtsy when recalling her first meeting with the late Queen Elizabeth
‘I don’t understand how you can disrespect my Queen, and there’s no way you can convince me that wasn’t blatant disrespect,’ she tells me at a Mumble Forum charity gala in aid of the Lady Garden Foundation.
Property developer Peter Beckwith’s daughter adds: ‘It’s just dreadful and she’s dreadful. I don’t want to be mean, but she’s just not my people.’
Live And Let Die Bond girl: I’d dearly love a lusty man!
In Live And Let Die, Sir Roger Moore memorably used a magnetic watch to unzip her dress.
At the age of 75, Bond girl Madeline Smith seeks a new man to undress her.
‘I’d dearly love a lusty man to come home to,’ declares the actress, whose husband David Buck, died in 1989.
At the age of 75, Bond girl Madeline Smith seeks a new man to undress her
In Live And Let Die, Sir Roger Moore memorably used a magnetic watch to unzip her dress
‘I’ve buried two men. What have I to lose? Perhaps my emotions are more intense now I’m inevitably running out of time.’
She admits: ‘I’m currently behaving in a ridiculous fashion towards the male object of my desires. I write [on WhatsApp] like a teenager in love and lust; like a bitch on heat. I simply don’t care.’
Trousers should ‘naff orff’ says Mike
Princess Anne memorably once told photographers at the Badminton Horse Trials in the 1980s to ‘naff orff’.
Her son-in-law, Mike Tindall, used even ruder language when she suggested that the former England rugby captain would look good in a pair of tartan trousers.
Mike Tindall used rude language when it was suggested that he would look good in a pair of tartan trousers
The Yorkshireman, 46, who’s married to the King’s niece Zara, 43, says at a charity event in the City: ‘We got married in Scotland and Zara was schooled in Scotland. Obviously, my mother-in-law is patron of Scottish rugby.
‘They keep on that they need to get me a pair of trews. I am, like, ‘F*** off’. I have spent my whole life trying to kill a Scotsman. I don’t want to wear their trousers’.
Gugu lifts the lid on Tinseltown tantrums
Actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw, whose illustrious career has seen her appear alongside Hollywood’s Will Smith, Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Aniston, admits she’s worked with some ‘terrible’ co-stars who have thrown tantrums on set.
‘I’ve worked with one or two people where – and you can see how it happens – people get surrounded by other people who never say no to them – and they are given a sense of grandiosity,’ explains the Oxford born actress, 41.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw (pictured) admits she’s worked with some ‘terrible’ co-stars who have thrown tantrums on set
‘And they’ll be tired or ready for lunch and suddenly snap and it will be in front of a child actor or something.
‘And you think, “How can you not realise that that child is absorbing everything you’re doing and idolises you, and you have just had a tantrum in front of them?”‘
Gugu, who stars in the new Apple TV series, Surface, adds: ‘If you allow a certain kind of energy or behaviour, it trickles down from the top in that way, and I’ve seen it happen.’
Kelly puts the boot into sport sexism
Lioness Chloe Kelly scored the winning goal against Germany in the Women’s Euros 2022 final – but the England football star is crying foul over how she and her team mates have been criticised for ‘looking good’ on the pitch.
Lioness Chloe Kelly is crying foul over how she and her team mates have been criticised for ‘looking good’ on the pitch
‘If we were wearing makeup, it was deemed that we weren’t focused or concentrated on our sport,’ Chloe, 27, tells me at the International Women’s Day event at the Jack Barclay Bentley showroom in Mayfair.
Kelly, who is on loan at Arsenal from Manchester City, adds: ‘I know girls in my team who had to cut their hair short, so they look like one of the boys, and that is so disappointing to know some girls had to look a certain way to step on the field and be comfortable.’
(Very) modern manners
The Princess of Wales’s favourite interior designer, Kelly Hoppen, admits she struggles these days to navigate the new sartorial code when visiting friends in the country.
Kelly Hoppen admits she struggles these days to navigate the new sartorial code when visiting friends in the country
Queen of taupe Hoppen splits her time between London and the Cotswolds.
‘In the ‘old country’, people literally just wore jeans and sweaters,’ says Hoppen, 65. ‘Now, if you go to someone’s house for dinner, you have to ask what to wear.’
She adds on the Style DNA with Amanda Wakeley podcast: ‘I’ve made that mistake where I’ve gone in that chilled, sloppy, almost-slippers-but-not-really [look], and people are, like, properly dressed up.
‘So you have to ask these days.’
