Lord Bath's son fathers secret child

Last updated at 12:00 AM on 30th September 2009

New to fatherhood: Viscount Weymouth, pictured in younger days

While the eccentric Marquess of Bath shares his life with a harem of 75 'wifelets', his gentle son Viscount Weymouth is rather more discreet about his relationships.

At 35, Ceawlin Thynn has been linked with barely a handful of ladies since the tragic death of a girlfriend in a Delhi bomb blast 14 years ago.

Even when he was spotted stepping out with troubled fashion guru Trinny Woodall, he insisted they were 'just good friends'.

So acquaintances will be shocked to learn that the millionaire businessman - heir to his father's beautiful 9,000-acre Longleat estate - has secretly fathered a child by a young Russian beauty living in England.

The woman, who is in her early 20s, gave birth to a daughter, named Eloise, in a London hospital two months ago.

A closely guarded secret until now, the baby is the result of a brief romance the Viscount enjoyed with her mother last year. But although no longer in the relationship, the first-time father has accepted the baby as his, and taken responsibility for providing for her upbringing.

'Despite the unexpected nature of the situation, I am delighted,' the Cambridge-educated Thynn tells me, while insisting that although the child's surname is still undecided, he will be a hands-on father.

'I will be very much involved in Eloise's upbringing,' he says. 'We mutually chose her first name. The question of her surname has come up. I have discussed it with her mother but we haven't reached a conclusion as to what it will be yet.'

Eloise's mother is a banker and a British national, who is now bringing up her daughter at her mother's Buckinghamshire home.

'I have promised not to reveal her name or who she is,' says property developer Thynn, who divides his time between London and Moscow, of his child's mother.

A friend of Thynn tells me: 'This was something that happened quite by accident.

'This was not a love affair and there is no talk of a marriage. But the mother is very happy.

'Ceawlin has kept Eloise's arrival very quiet - only a few close family know. But he has fully acknowledged the baby as his.

'He is taking full responsibility for the little girl and, although she will be brought up by her mother, he will be providing for her. He has even made a friend of her godmother.'

First-night fright for Friel

Ghost of Hepburn? Anna Friel says she saw the phantom of the Theatre Royal

If actress Anna Friel was more than a little nervous for her official West End debut as Holly Golightly in Breakfast At Tiffany's last night, there may be an explanation.

For Friel - who strips for the new stage adaptation of the role made famous by Audrey Hepburn - has confided to friends she believes there is a ghost haunting the Theatre Royal Haymarket.

'Anna has told pals in the production team she feels she is being observed and followed to the wings by people that she cannot see,' says my spy. 'She has even joked it could be Truman Capote [the story's late author].

'But she is not scared as the atmosphere is warm and not at all unnerving. In fact, she said it was quite nice to have the support.'

Fellow thespian Patrick Stewart says he too saw an apparition while starring in Waiting For Godot at the same theatre in August.

While William Shawcross's official life of the Queen Mother nudges its way up the bestseller list, there is one person close to the author who has yet to complete the magnum opus - his hotelier wife Olga Polizzi.

At a Daily Mail literary lunch at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London, Olga tells me: 'No, I haven't read the book from cover to cover. But then I have been living with the Queen Mother for the past six years.'

Kate's effortless good look

Last-minute preparations: Kate Middleton at the charity auction

Admirers of Kate Middleton's appearance at a charity auction, when Prince William joined her parents Michael and Carole at a public event for the first time, might like to know how much effort went into it.

The answer is not very much. Just hours before the weekend's event at the Saatchi Gallery, Kate strode into the nearby Chelsea salon of hairdresser Richard Ward - whose royal clients include Sophie Wessex - sansmake-up and sans fuss.

'She sat down to wait like any other customer, leafing through the magazines,' says a fellow client.

'There was no VIP room treatment or diva demands. She had her hair cut, washed and blow-dried by Richard, and asked only for a glass of water to drink.

'She was in and out in just over an hour. Even in jeans and no make-up she looked fabulous.'

Junkie-turned-rock-climbing TV star Jack Osbourne showed admirable restraint to defuse a potentially ugly confrontation when a heckler accused him of 'cretinous behaviour' at a Q&A to launch an adventure film festival at the Vue cinema in Leicester Square.

Asked by a member of the invited audience what loss to the human race it would be if he and his celebrity co-climbers fell to their doom, Jack maintained a cool not always evident in Ozzy Osbourne's family.

'You obviously weren't hugged much as a child, were you?' he quipped.

Pure invention! Dysons deny split

Vacuum-cleaner tycoon Sir James Dyson and his wife Deirdre have been astonished over unfounded rumours that they have separated.

'Contrary to popular belief, we haven't split-up,' insists rug designer Lady Dyson as she launched her latest butterfly-themed floor coverings - alongside her husband - at her Chelsea showroom.

'In fact, in December we will have been married 43 years, so I don't understand where all this silliness has come from.

'I even had a letter asking if I would tell the full story of our marital difficulties - but we don't have any!

'I suppose the rumours are the price of being in the public eye. A lot of bad feeling erupted when we moved our Dyson assembly plant from Wiltshire to Malaysia.

'But despite the move we have created more jobs locally than there were before.'

Meanwhile, her inventor husband remains angry at the Government's decision to reject his plan for a national engineering academy.

'They instead chose a scheme by that Dragons' Den chap Peter Whatshisname for a school for entrepreneurs,' says Dyson, referring to Peter Jones's National Enterprise Academy.

'That's all very well, but what this country needs isn't more entrepreneurs, it's more engineers.'

PS

Actress Maureen Lipman says her decision to pull out of an Oldie magazine cruise was not because she has fallen out with editor Richard Ingrams over his views on Israel.

'Richard does have obsessive views, and they are becoming more obsessive the older he gets, but that had nothing to do with it,' she says.

'I've been on two previous Oldie cruises with him.'

She cancelled, she insists, because operators Swan Hellenic used her name to promote the cruise.

'You can't just use someone's name to sell tickets. I would have told them to see my agent.'

Yet the operator's ploy seems to have worked - all 350 berths for the cruise have sold out.

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