Vroom, vroom! Motor racing has witnessed some breath-taking comebacks, none more extraordinary than when the late, great Niki Lauda roared off the grid at the Italian Grand Prix just six weeks after he’d been given the last rites following a catastrophic crash at the Nurburgring.
This time, I can disclose, it’s the turn of the Duke of Richmond and Gordon, who, at the age of 65, has wrenched the Goodwood Festival of Speed back on track after it had seemingly fallen victim to the coronavirus, like so much of this summer’s sporting action.
Fans, who travel from around the world to watch the festival at the Duke’s 12,000-acre West Sussex estate each July, had been bitterly dismayed by its cancellation.
The Goodwood Festival of Speed is back on track after it had seemingly fallen victim to the coronavirus
Charles Gordon-Lennox, 11th Duke of Richmond and owner of the Goodwood estate has rearranged the sporting calendar to ensure the event will go ahead
But I can reveal that the Duke, who initiated the festival in 1993, has rearranged the sporting calendar to ensure that it will eventually go ahead after all.
‘Despite everything, it’s going to happen,’ a friend tells me. A spokesman for the Duke confirms: ‘It is going ahead, but in October rather than July.’
But it is not a complete victory for fans hungering to see past masters, such as Mario Andretti — a world champion both in Formula One and IndyCar — and to watch vintage single-seaters steam up Goodwood’s famous hill-climb course. ‘It will be behind closed doors,’ adds the spokesman.
Fans will, though, have the consolation that the action will be televised.
It’s a vital factor — for the estate as much as for the fans. ‘You’ve got the sponsors to consider,’ an aficionado explains. ‘If you don’t go ahead, they might not come back next year.’
The Duke acknowledges as much via the festival’s website, which candidly states: ‘As we rely so heavily on our headline events, their absence places not only future events but even the long-term future of the estate under considerable strain.’
The chequered flag can’t come soon enough.
A nice little earner for Florence
Little Women has led to big money for Florence Pugh.
Florence Pugh (pictured) has seen her fortune rise to more than £400,000 on the back of her first major Hollywood role
I can disclose that the Oxford restaurateur’s daughter, who now lives in Los Angeles, has seen her fortune rise to more than £400,000 on the back of her first major Hollywood role.
The 24-year-old’s funds at Flo Pug Ltd are up by almost £200,000 from £229,000 the previous year, according to her latest accounts.
She was nominated as best supporting actress at this year’s Oscars for her role as Amy March, and can expect to see her coffers swell further.
007 daughter’s beach role? Live and let fry
James Bond star Daniel Craig set pulses racing in Casino Royale when he emerged from the sea wearing tiny blue trunks (pictured).
But his actress daughter, Ella Loudon, admits she’s yet to master the art of looking cool on the beach.
James Bond star Daniel Craig set pulses racing in Casino Royale when he emerged from the sea wearing tiny blue trunks (pictured left), but his actress daughter, Ella Loudon (pictured right), admits she’s yet to master the art of looking cool on the beach
The 27-year-old, who is staying in New York, lamented her lack of sunscreen when she shared this snap of herself on the sands.
‘I went to a beach and left looking like a lobster and went and ate one,’ says Ella, whose mother is Craig’s ex-wife, Scottish actress Fiona Loudon.
However fed up Prince Philip is at Windsor during these restricted times, he won’t watch The Crown, admits Tobias Menzies, who plays the Duke of Edinburgh in series three and four of the hit Netflix drama.
‘I’d love it if [Prince Philip] watched it, but I don’t think he does, sadly,’ says Menzies. ‘He probably watches documentaries and has no time for fiction.’ Isn’t The Crown meant to be factual?
She used to make her own clothes as a teenager growing up in North-West London before hitting 1960s modelling fame, and now Twiggy has gone back to her sewing machine over the past few weeks.
‘Sewing has always been a passion of mine. I’ve made a pair of curtains from some lovely fabric which I’ve had for years. I listen to music and sew and it takes me into another world, plus you get something nice at the end of it.
‘I’ve also been doing knitting. I knit for the grandchildren.’ Maybe she could add curtains to her range at Marks & Spencer?
‘Mini Mick’ really is a chip off the old rocker
There’s no mistaking which famous rock star fathered this child.
Mick Jagger’s son Deveraux (pictured left) bears an uncanny resemblance to his father (pictured right)
Sir Mick Jagger’s American girlfriend, ballerina Melanie Hamrick, was flooded with comments about their similarity when she shared online this picture of three-year-old son Deveraux — one even called him ‘Mini Mick’.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree for art mogul Jay Jopling and his ex-wife, Fifty Shades Of Grey director Sam Taylor-Johnson.
Their 23-year-old daughter, Angelica, is also making waves. Jopling, who founded the White Cube gallery in London, reveals his daughter has ‘not only graduated [from] Stanford with honours, but also came away with the Lorenz Eitner prize for art history’.
Boozy star thought lockdown hangovers were coronavirus
My Family star Robert Lindsay admits he resorted to drinking heavily to cope with lockdown, to the point where his hangovers were so bad that he would mistake them for symptoms of Covid-19.
‘The first two weeks of lockdown, I got very down about the whole thing — my son was doing A-levels, I was in the middle of a production that’s been shelved, and I went into a bit of a downer,’ he says.
‘I started drinking a bit, and finding myself drinking at 4pm and doing things I’ve never really done. I would wake up in the morning thinking I’d got the dreaded Covid-19, and my wife had to keep reminding me I had a hangover.’
He is married to a singer 38 years his junior, but Sir Patrick Stewart seems to be finally embracing senior living. The Star Trek actor, 79, whose wife is Sunny Ozell, has become obsessed with jigsaw puzzles. ‘I’ve discovered I’m much better at jigsaws than I thought I was,’ he says. ‘I’m actually having them framed. They’re works of art.’ Make it so!