He never sought the spotlight yet, thanks to his unflinching stoicism and self-restraint – displayed each year at Wimbledon – became known to millions, while his loyalty and discretion endeared him to the Prince and Princess of Wales, and, particularly, to Catherine’s parents, Carole and Michael Middleton.
All are now mourning Tony Henman, who, I can disclose, died last Friday aged 84, and whose ‘magnificent, inscrutable calm’ while watching his youngest son, Tim, on Centre Court, became, in the words of the Mail’s distinguished late tennis correspondent, Mike Dickson, ‘one of the great British performances of the [Wimbledon] fortnight’.
The uninitiated thought that Henman senior, an Oxford solicitor, was incapable of expressing emotion. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Tony ‘suffer[ed] the tension more than anyone’, being ferociously competitive when playing tennis, squash or cricket for Oxfordshire – but perhaps most of all when on the hockey pitch.
Turning out for the England over-60 side, he earned himself ‘a certain reputation’, as one reporter put it, noting that, when he put his shin-pads on, he was ‘more hard-man than hen-man’.
‘I really can’t bear the thought of losing,’ acknowledged Tony after an England match in 2002. ‘I’ve been out of control on the pitch all my life. I’ve had 61 years to sort myself out, while Tim has done so much better in only 27.’
Thanks to his unflinching stoicism and self-restraint – displayed each year at Wimbledon – Tim Henman became known to millions
Stoic: Tony Henman and his wife Jane sit alongside the Middletons
Yet friends knew him as a relaxed and sociable companion. ‘He was a lovely guy,’ one of them tells me. ‘He had absolutely no side. Very, very friendly.’
The combination of affability and discretion was shared by his wife Jane, ensuring that the couple’s advice about how to contend with unsought publicity was immensely valued by the Middleton family – neighbours in Berkshire of Jane’s brother, horse trainer Tim Billington, who died in 2020.
The friendship between the two families flourished. Jane became Carole Middleton’s doubles partner, and she and Tony were guests at Catherine and Prince William’s wedding.
Those in the Henmans’ home village, Weston-on-the-Green, will mourn him, too. Known affectionately as ‘The Brigadier’, he headed a battle against developers who, in 2008, unveiled plans to dump a so-called ‘eco-village’ of 15,000 houses on a greenfield site. Two or three landowners would have pocketed £1.5million-an-acre – and abandoned the village. But the plans were rejected.
Game, set and match to Henman.
Only Connect host Victoria Coren Mitchell won more than £2 million as a professional poker player, but she urges people to avoid gambling of almost any kind.
‘I had a sponsorship contract with a big online poker firm, and I wore their logo on my shirt. They then launched an online casino and I quit because, for me, there’s a very important distinction between poker, which is a skill game. I’d advise people with every fibre of my being, ‘Do not play roulette, or dice, or fruit machines’. These are massive odds stacked against you.’
Only Connect host Victoria Coren Mitchell pictured on a episode of the show in 2023
That’s no way to treat a queen! Imelda Staunton, who played Queen Elizabeth in Netflix hit The Crown, has revealed the one actor who really got her goat.
‘I wouldn’t work with Steven Seagal again,’ she says of the actor whom she appeared with in Shadow Man and who attended Vladimir Putin’s inauguration as Russian president this week. ‘I played the U.S. ambassador and had four scenes. Before I left England, the producer said, ‘I just want to tell you, Steven does not do reverse scenes’. Which means he doesn’t do a scene unless the camera is on him. They got a poor Romanian student to read his lines. His stand-in was orange like Steven and slightly cross-eyed.
‘It took me all my strength not to get up and say, ‘This is not what I do’.
Davina ditches the Botox so she can ’emote’ on tear-jerker show
Davina McCall is laying off the Botox so that she can emote suitably on her ‘serious’ programmes such as Long Lost Family.
The presenter, 56, who admitted to having the jabs after her marriage break-up in 2017, says any cosmetic enhancements will have to wait until she’s not hosting tear-jerking shows.
‘I really can’t do too much 1715249830 because of the kind of shows that I do,’ she says. ‘I’ve got a frown line I’ve got rid of a couple of times but if I can’t frown, I can’t emote and it’s important that I’m able to do that, especially on Long Lost Family.’
She adds: ‘I’ve had Botox in the past, and I judge no one for what they do, and I would like not to be judged in return. I would and I will [have cosmetic surgery] when the time comes. I just don’t see what the big deal is about.’
Davina McCall is laying off the Botox so that she can emote suitably on her ‘serious’ programmes
The Royal Society of Portrait Painters is delighted to learn that King Charles has agreed to become its new patron, following in the footsteps of his mother, who held the role for 38 years.
‘It is a joyful breakthrough,’ the society’s president, Anthony Connolly, tells me at the opening of its annual exhibition at the Mall Galleries near Buckingham Palace. ‘I have just received a prosaic letter from the King’s staff, which made no mention of Charles’s own love of painting, but I’m looking forward to meeting and discussing how he can help us.’