Overlooking one of London’s most beautiful parks has many advantages for the residents of Kensington Palace, who include the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and their children, as well as Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank.
But there was horror last weekend when word got round that a body had been retrieved from the ornamental lake in front of the palace.
For the family of artist Endellion Lycett Green, granddaughter of much-loved former poet laureate Sir John Betjeman, the discovery was heart-breaking because they were told that the body was hers.
Endellion, 51, who is known to her friends and family as Delli, had been missing for a week and the Metropolitan Police had made public appeals for help in finding her.
Overlooking one of London’s most beautiful parks has many advantages for the residents of Kensington Palace (pictured)
However, the family’s grief turned to deep relief when Delli was found alive this week and the corpse turned out to be that of another woman. It had been a case of mistaken identity.
‘My sister Endellion is alive, safe and well,’ her brother John Lycett Green said in a message shared with grateful friends. ‘Thank you all for the support and love you showed for Delli and her family.
‘Sorry to all of you that, like us, were grieving for the wonder that is Delli. We were told a body was found and was her. It was not, and Delli was found last night.’
He added: ‘RIP the soul that was found in Kensington Round Pond on Saturday morning.’
The palace’s residents include the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (pictured) and their children, as well as Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank
Endellion is a distinguished artist and good friend of David Cameron’s wife, Samantha, and The Wire actor Dominic West.
She lives in Wiltshire with her film editor husband Rob Nagel and their two children.
A friend of the family tells me: ‘Delli went through a bad patch, but it’s a huge relief to everyone that she is safe and well. It’s been a traumatic week.’
The body found in the pond remains unidentified. A Scotland Yard spokesman tells me: ‘The death is being treated as unexplained at this time, but is not thought to be suspicious. Inquiries are ongoing.’
The spokesman says Endellion’s family were contacted ‘as part of inquiries to establish the identity of the deceased’.
The smart set’s talking about… Chocolate heir Jude Fry’s sweet little earner…
More from Richard Eden for The Daily Mail…
Back to school should lead to a tasty windfall for chocolate heir Cosmo Fry’s son Jude.
The Superdry model, 19, has set up a business with a fellow alumnus of £38,955-per-year Marlborough College called Pass It On, which sells second-hand private school uniforms.
‘We realised students leaving school were desperate to make money, and there was a huge market,’ Jude tells me.
‘Private school parents not only pay these incredibly expensive fees, but are also hit with a huge bill for uniforms.’
Jude, whose mother is former fashion writer Lulu Anderson, will start at Newcastle University this month. He spent summer in the South of France with his older brother, Orson, and Orson’s model girlfriend, Alexa Chung.
‘We aim to have 30 schools with a couple of thousand items to be doing very well, but we are happy at the moment.’
Having declared this week that she had no plans to retire, Dame Judi Dench (pictured in ITV’s Judi Dench’s Wild Borneo Adventure in 2019) has taken steps to shore up her finances
Having declared this week that she had no plans to retire, Dame Judi Dench has taken steps to shore up her finances.
I hear the Oscar winner’s appointed her daughter, Finty Williams, to be a director of the company which handles her ‘performing arts’ income, Smokey Oakey’s Mother Ltd.
Finty, 47, followed her mother and father, the late Michael Williams, into acting with roles in films such as Gosford Park.
Dame Judi, 85, is showing little sign of slowing down: this year alone she has five roles in production or post-production.