EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Duchess of Bedford becomes a New Zealand citizen at the age of 84 because ‘England doesn’t feel like it used to’

Her beauty propelled her to Country Life magazine as one of its “pearl girls” and to the threshold of a film career, only to give up “lights, camera, action.” she favored marrying the future 14th Duke of Bedford, owner of Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire, with its 24 priceless Canalettos, not to mention a safari park.

But, now 84 years old, the Dowager Duchess of Bedford has undertaken her latest transformation. Henrietta became a Kiwi and gained New Zealand citizenship.

The duchess found the initiation ceremony a special pleasure. “I didn’t realize she was going to have to pay allegiance to King Charles,” she says. “What a lovely feeling.”

Explaining his reasons for emigrating, he says: “It seems like it used to be in England. England is not like when I was a child.

As a debutante in 1957, her parents threw her a party at Claridge’s in a room converted into a nightclub, its walls studded with silk butterflies.

Perhaps not exactly what the duchess was referring to.

very modern manners

Thank goodness Abbey Clancy and former English footballer Peter Crouch can afford airline excess baggage fees.

When the Liverpool model, 38, and her husband, who has four children, were asked if they had any plans for the next fortnight after returning from a recent holiday in Dubai, he turned to his wife and asked : “You just leave. You won’t have to unpack for two weeks, right?”

Lumley’s Candlelight Beauty Secrets

Evergreen Dame Joanna Lumley is fed up with bad lighting in hotel bathrooms.

“What women hate is an overhead light in the bathroom because you can’t put on makeup,” laments the 78-year-old star of Absolutely Fabulous and The New Avengers.

“So sometimes I come out looking a little weird because I’ve done my makeup by candlelight or torchlight – it’s interesting and a challenge.”

Dame Joanna adds of her television appearances: “I’m so grateful to viewers who say good things even when I’m a little down.”

Following her father into comedy was always a challenge for John Cleese’s daughter Camilla, but now she is trying to use it to her advantage.

“He’s written a comedy called Nepo Baby,” the 84-year-old Monty Python star reveals. “It’s very funny”.

The term ‘nepo baby’ refers to the children of famous people who are considered to have used their family connections to succeed in careers similar to those of their parents.

Who says you can’t make money writing books these days?

Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train, has managed to amass £18.5 million.

Newly released figures from her company, Paula Hawkins Ltd, into which she channels her profits, reveal that she acquired £320,000 worth of artwork last year.

The purchases take the value of the art he owns through the business to £2.3 million.

The professor’s daughter, 51, has also invested her royalties in properties worth £1.7m, plus £9.9m in other investments, as well as retaining £4.4m in cash on hand.

Is Van the Man or just a taxi driver?

Sir Van Morrison enjoyed recording at Wool Hall so much that he eventually bought the studio near Bath in Somerset.

During one of his many sessions there, the staff mentioned that they were having a party that same evening and that he would be welcome to join them.

“No one really expected the famous grumpy musician to show up,” reports Robin Askew in his new book, The West’s Greatest Rock Shows. But that’s what he did.

‘Unfortunately, when he rang the doorbell, the door was opened by someone who had no idea that the man standing in front of him was the world’s most unstarred rock legend.

“So he turned around and shouted into the room, ‘Did someone order a taxi?’

Live West End Show for Naked TV Attraction?

This is a sign of how much the West End has changed since 1968, when many viewers walked out after the cast of the musical Hair appeared from behind a sheet completely naked, singing the words: “Beads, flowers, freedom and happiness.”

Now a stage is going to be filled with naked bodies… and there will be no sheet.

Anna Richardson, presenter of Naked Attraction, says discussions have begun about a West End version of the Channel 4 dating show, in which a clothed singleton is presented with a gallery of six naked potential partners and chooses a date on depending on its attributes.

She tells me: “We’re in talks to do Naked Appeal Live as a theater show, which would be amazing.”

Jeremy Clarkson is unlikely to raise a glass this weekend to James May, his The Grand Tour co-star.

May owns the Royal Oak, in Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire, but says he will not serve Clarkson’s Hawkstone beer.

“The brewery that brews their beer is over 80 miles from the pub and we have a policy of trying to use local beers for the same reason that Clarkson’s store is only supposed to use products within a 12 or 15 mile radius,” Explain.

Instead, it serves beers brewed by film director Guy Ritchie.

“It doesn’t really make sense for us to suddenly have a boutique Cotswolds beer in a south Wiltshire pub when we have the Guy Ritchie brewery a few miles up the road producing very good beer for us.”

Clarkson is said to be considering his own pub, the Grade II listed Coach and Horses, near his Hawkstone brewery in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire.

Andi Oliver, who replaced Prue Leith as a judge on BBC2’s Great British Menu, is fed up with the trend of drinkers becoming pompous eaters.

“Many pubs are now essentially restaurants,” he tells me at the Fortnum & Mason Food and Drink Awards at The Royal Exchange in London.

The chef, who turns 61 this month, explains: ‘You often have to reserve a table, which drives me absolutely crazy. They need to stop it.

You should be able to come in, play pool, drink and laugh. The author of The Pepperpot Diaries cookbook used to run the award-winning Andi’s restaurant in Stoke Newington and is the former creative director of the Birdcage pub in the East End.

He adds: “I tried to keep my restaurants very public.”