‍By CHRISTOPHER WISLON

‍“Fabulous knockers” sighed my so-called rival Nigel Dempster.

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‍I wouldn’t presume, though I did have a moment of longing when I saw the pictures of Lady Annabel Goldsmith this weekend. It took me back to her wedding day, and to the extraordinary courage of Bill Lovelace, formerly otp.

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‍Bill possessed the same fine qualities the other Express photographers had –  equally relaxed and at home in a fashion shoot or on a battlefront. John Downing, Harry Dempster, Steve Wood, Reg Lancaster, Dougie Morrison, Tom Smith – the list goes on and on – I learned something from every single one, they were dazzlingly good.

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‍I can’t thank them enough, and I wish they’d write more in the Drone — the ones that are left.

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‍Back to Annabel, staple diet of all gossip column readers during the 60s. 70s and 80s. Tall, patrician, slightly scatty but with an immense grandeur which doubtless came from being born Lady Annabel Vane-Tempest-Stewart, daughter of the mighty Marquess of Londonderry.

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‍Chum of Lord Lucan, wife of Old Etonian Mark Birley who named the nightclub after her, mentor of Princess Diana, blahdiblahdiblah — all the guff that used to pad out Hickey, Dempster, and their sad imitators most days.

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‍Marrying Jimmy Goldsmith, the lover with whom she already had a couple of kids, seemed the right thing to do since “they are going to Eton and I want them to bear their father’s name”.

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‍Only Jimmy wasn’t that keen.

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‍And that made Annabel mad.

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‍I never reveal my sources so I didn’t tell you the tip that she was secretly getting married in Paris to the financier came from Count Paolo Filo della Torre, a footloose and fancy-free journo from Rome who had to be stopped from dancing to a tune he liked at an official function: “Er Paolo, not just now old chap. That’s the National Anthem.”

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‍He came to London bearing an ancient title and an equally ancient pair of Gucci loafers. Other than that he was broke; but soon he sliced his way through London society with his engaging manner and bedroom skills. Annabel often wept on his shoulder.

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‍“That shit Jimmy,” she said. “He’s got to marry me for the children’s sake, but he’s living with his mistress in Paris. The only way it’s going to happen is if I turn up at his office at lunchtime and he’ll wheel me round the corner to the local mairie.”

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‍Minus some of these details (Paolo was choosy about what he passed on) I learned which Paris-bound flight she’d be on and grabbed a seat. And then an hour later, like a scene from Scoop, I lost her at the airport.

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‍I had no idea where she was staying, no idea where the wedding was taking place, no idea where Jimmy’s office was – nothing. So I did the only thing a chap who’s about to lose his job does – took a taxi to The Ritz, bought a big drink in the bar and counted the lucky breaks I’d had in journalism, because now it was all over.

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‍Then I went to the reception desk and said, “I’m sending some flowers to Lady Annabel Goldsmith – she’s getting married tomorrow. Can you make sure they get to her room?”

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‍The receptionist checked the register and gave me a gracious nod. In that one moment I discovered that there is, in fact, a God. Out of ignorance soaked in desperation I'd found her.

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‍Next morning Bill Lovelace, pictured, and I sat in the car in the Place Vendôme for a very, very long time waiting for the bride to make her appearance. Finally she obliged, and her chauffeur car slid off into the traffic, disappearing before our very eyes. There followed a Keystone Cops chase which ended finally outside Jimmy G’s office: the ogre had levered himself out of his mistress's bed that morning, gone to the office, was taking his lunch break to marry his next wife then – back to work.

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‍Then home to Mademoiselle Pussie.

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‍We parked the car and Bill got out to scout the building. I stayed at the wheel in case the couple were going to grab a taxi to wherever the knot was being tied.

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‍The wait took no more than seven or eight minutes. Suddenly Bill returned and tapped on the window. White-faced, tie under his ear, his spectacles broken and an anguished look on his face, he gave me the story.

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‍“The fuckers,” he gasped. “His henchmen got me inside the building, roughed me up, tried to break my camera then shoved me out in the street. And Jimmy just stood there looking on, enjoying every minute of it.” I was so angry I told him I was going to go back to the building, find Goldsmith, and thump him.

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‍But Bill had seen it all before, been there done that.  By the time he got back into the car he was cool as a cucumber and resigned to the fact the blushing bride wouldn't be having his pic of her on Page 1 of the Daily Express next morning.

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‍I’ve never forgotten it. Bill was treated abominably, disgracefully, illegally — but he just brushed it off, all in a day’s work. He was more interested in where we were having dinner. What a man.

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‍Was that the end of the story (Copytakers: “Is there much more of this?”).

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‍Not quite. A couple of years later I was in Annabel’s — as you do — and there was the lady herself standing at the bar in a shimmering long dress. And yes, Nigel Dempster was probably right when he said what he said.

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‍“You’re the man who sent me two dozen roses on the eve of my wedding,” she purred, giving me a hug and a kiss.

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‍“It's more than that bastard did. The bastard.”

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‍20 October 2025

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