SEBASTIAN SHAKESPEARE: Jilly Cooper’s Riders hero set to marry again at 81

Five-and-a-half years after the tragic death of his wife, Candida — daughter of national treasure and Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman — Rupert Lycett Green has been blessed with unexpected happiness.

At the age of 81, he is, I can disclose, about to marry again.

His bride is Julia Dawson, some 25 years his junior, who has two children by a previous marriage and lives close to Rupert and Candida’s old home in South Oxfordshire, where Rupert still lives.

‘It’s wonderful,’ a family friend tells me. ‘It would certainly have Candida’s blessing.’

Lycett Green, who is said to have partly inspired Jilly Cooper’s fictional hero Rupert Campbell-Black in her bonkbuster novel Riders, refrains from commenting.

But no one is more delighted for him than one of his oldest friends, interior designer Nicky Haslam, who has known him since their schooldays together at Eton.

‘I am absolutely thrilled for him,’ he tells me. ‘Just goes to show that all the sport he has played for years has done wonders for him.

‘We’re glad he’s found someone as sparkling as Candida. Julia is very popular — all the neighbours love her. I haven’t met her yet but hope to next week as Rupert has invited me down for drinks.’

Candida, a close chum of the Prince of Wales and the Beatles, and Rupert, whom she married in 1963, were at the throbbing heart of Sixties London.

David Hockney painted her portrait and Ossie Clark designed her dresses, while Rupert founded Blades, the most fashionable gentlemen’s outfitters of its day. Candida’s biggest regret, she said, was ‘not going the whole hog with Mick Jagger’.

In homage to her wit, the couple, who went on to have a large and lively family of two daughters and three sons, became known as ‘Tailor and Cutter’.

Candida succumbed to cancer aged 71 after a 15-year battle, but not before sending a valedictory tweet to friends, urging them to sponsor her daughter, Imogen, and grandson, Ivo, on a bike ride to raise money for Pancreatic Cancer Action.

Love is in the heir for Lord Bristol 

The Marquess of Bristol, scion of one of Britain’s most colourful aristocratic families, has secured his family dynasty and the possible future of his title.

For I can reveal that his wife, American art consultant Meredith Dunn, 37, is expecting their first child next month — two years after their wedding at Brompton Oratory.

‘They’re really looking forward to becoming parents. They’re so happy,’ Lord Bristol’s sister, Lady Victoria, tells me. Due to the law of primogeniture, the baby will inherit the family title only if it’s a boy. But it all hangs in the balance, as the prospective parents don’t know the gender yet.

Lord Bristol, aka Freddie, 40, inherited the title in 1999 from his half-brother, John, who squandered £30 million on drugs and died aged 44.

Iris lays down the Law on dressing up

They’re both celebrity offspring, but Iris Law — daughter of film star Jude Law and ex-model Sadie Frost — upstaged fellow model Kaia Gerber when she turned up to the LOVE Magazine party in London this week sporting a sheer £1,559 Mugler rainbow bodysuit and ruched skirt.

The 19-year-old Burberry Beauty campaign star, whose godmother is Kate Moss, says of her sartorial choices: ‘I use my clothes to project how I want to feel that day. My parents were eccentric and free. I like to channel that feeling.’ 

Beside her, 18-year-old Kaia, daughter of supermodel Cindy Crawford and Rande Gerber, looked positively demure in a £671 Alexander Wang black minidress.

Chrysalis record company mogul Chris Wright, a Caribbean regular, is ‘staggered’ that Boris Johnson and Carrie Symonds were able to stay in a Mustique villa for £15,000 over New Year. ‘Close to £50,000 would be a more accurate price,’ he says. Well done, Boris’s pals, on getting a bargain.

Sir Derek Jacobi says his reputation as ‘a sort of classical, posh, well-spoken, Shakespearean actor’ is misleading. ‘I’m a grown East London boy and I’m as common as muck,’ he says.

Comic Ben Elton takes issue with the idea we are living in an era of peak TV. ‘We’re calling it the Golden Age of Television, but I’m not sure. The one area that I feel is under-respected is the studio sitcom with a live audience,’ he told me at the opening night of his play Upstart Crow at the Gielgud Theatre.

‘I’ve always worked with the style of Dad’s Army, Blackadder and Only Fools And Horses, which were made with a live audience. The laughter was not recorded, it was real laughs and now it feels television isn’t as funny without it.’ 

Imelda’s marriage secret

Imelda Staunton says the secret behind her 37-year marriage to fellow actor Jim Carter is that they haven’t spent too much time apart from one another.

‘I think the most time we’ve spent away is five weeks,’ she tells me, ‘because if you’re lucky enough to work, and work away, you have to make decisions — do you want to be married or give more to the world? We decided we would like to be married.’

Staunton, 64, who will play the Queen in the fifth series of The Crown, is happy that roles for older actresses have improved.

‘I do think things have got better for older actresses because, since we’ve had Judi [Dench] and Maggie [Smith], parts in general have got better for older women and men.’

Becker ex’s surprising soap role

Boris Becker’s estranged wife Lilly has come out as a lesbian — in her debut acting role.

The 43-year-old Dutch model, who split from the Wimbledon champion in 2018 after nine years of marriage, reveals she’s launching a career as an actress. 

Last week, she was on the set of Bavarian TV soap Dahoam Is Dahoam (Home Is Home), in which she guest-starred as a lesbian friend of a main character. The episode will air in April.

‘It was an exciting day. I really enjoyed it,’ says the mother of one, admitting she had problems with the Bavarian dialect. ‘I have to listen to everything three times before I understand it.’