EDEN CONFIDENTIAL: Family heartbreak for David Cameron as wife Samantha’s brother splits from partner

David Cameron’s family are proud that he has been asked to return to government as foreign secretary, but there is a secret heartache among the relations of the former prime minister’s wife.

I hear that Samantha Cameron’s brother, Robert Sheffield, has split with the mother of his child.

Sheffield, 39, heir to their father Sir Reginald’s baronetcy and a fortune estimated at £20 million, had been dating Gucci model and actress Ellen Francis Gibbons, 31, for more than three years. Their daughter, Clementine, is due to be born next month three.

“They’re not together anymore,” a friend tells me. In that quintessentially modern confirmation of the end of a relationship, the pair have both ‘unfollowed’ each other on photo-sharing website Instagram, having previously barely mentioned each other in their respective posts for months.

The pair would not comment, while Ellen’s mother Jane, a sociology teacher from Lincoln, would only say: “It’s a private matter.”

Ellen seems to spend most of her time in London, while Old Harrovian Sheffield stays in Sutton Park, his family seat in North Yorkshire – Sam Cam’s childhood home. In 2019, he took over management of his family’s beautiful Georgian estate.

Ellen, who has posted online about finding a new home in fashionable Kensal Rise in west London, shared an image last weekend with the tagline: ‘You start by sinking into his arms and end with your arms in his sink’ , apparently describing a woman’s disillusionment with a man she once found romantically attractive.

Art dealer Sheffield is a playful character who has always enjoyed shocking friends with his penchant for cross-dressing. He once pranced around London in a sparkling Union Jack mini-dress and stilettos.

Until earlier this year, the couple had documented their relationship extensively on social media and in interviews for glossy magazines such as Tatler, where they spoke about their idyllic life in Sutton Park, which they have transformed in recent years.

In June I announced that Sheffield had been banned from 5 Hertford Street, the fashionable private members’ club in Mayfair. “Robert was kicked out, his membership revoked because he was a bad boy,” a fellow club member told me. Sheffield said: ‘It was a temporary ban. It was a minor violation and the ban has now been revoked.’

King’s final farewell to Earl of Airlie

Traditionally, monarchs avoid non-family funerals and memorial services, but there may be exceptions.

One of them was the Earl of Airlie, former Lord Chamberlain, and the man behind the most radical restructuring of the Royal Household in a century.

Yesterday, both King Charles and Queen Camilla attended his thanksgiving service at the Royal Hospital Chelsea.

The life of David Airlie, a former banker and Scottish farmer, stretched over many fields, as his cousin, the Marquis of Salisbury, recalled in his speech.

During his days in the palace, Airlie’s reforms ranged from saving the royal finances and creating the Royal Collection Trust to calculating the exact cost of producing a lettuce at Balmoral: 93p.

However, the earl was equally proud of his earlier career as a soldier, serving in the Scots Guards. The King and Queen left for a lively organ recital of the regimental quickstep, Highland Laddie.

Voice of an angel ‘still not forgiven’

Charlotte Church has revealed that her mother, Maria, still hasn’t forgiven her, more than 20 years after moving out of her family home.

“I left home when I was 16 because it was difficult at the time to travel with your parents all the time during adolescence,” says the 37-year-old singer, known for his “voice of an angel.”

“They had so much control over my life, I had to break away… and my mother still hasn’t forgiven me.”

Church, who is married to musician Jonathan Powell, says her parents had hoped she would marry into a royal family. On the Changes podcast with Annie Macmanus, she adds: ‘I dated a boy from the [Cardiff] docks who was a drug dealer, and they said, ‘You can’t do this. We thought you might be staying with Prince William.’

Don’t look back angrily, Gene

With his gruff expression and brown messy hair, there’s no disputing that Gene Gallagher is the spitting image of his father, Oasis singer Liam.

However, 22-year-old Gene, the son of the rock star and his ex-wife, former All Saints singer Nicole Appleton, has taken issue with being called a ‘nepo baby’.

The term refers to people who have benefited from nepotism thanks to their parents’ careers.

“I don’t notice when people call me a nepo baby,” the aspiring model tells me at AIR MAIL’s The London List launch party at Upstairs At Langan’s in Mayfair.

“I’ve developed a thick skin and I just am who I am and have my own identity,” he adds.

Palin is reading Fifty Shades Grandpa

Known for his television travel shows, Monty Python star Sir Michael Palin has found exploring his family history to be even more eye-opening.

He recently read the sex-obsessed diary of his great-grandfather, 19th-century Oxford University lecturer Edward Palin.

He says Edward was ‘officially celibate’, as was required of an Oxford don at the time, but his entries were ‘littered with ladies’.

Sir Michael, promoting his book about another ancestor, Great Uncle Harry: A Tale Of War And Empire, adds: ‘Worse than fifty shades of grey.’

Happy Barbie Day to you

The Barbie mania may be fading, but Dame Natalie Massenet and her daughter Isabella are determined to stay in pink for a while longer.

Dame Natalie, who brought high-end fashion to the masses with the successful retail website Net-a-Porter, and her daughter, a DJ and model, both wore pink dresses to Isabella’s 24th birthday celebration in New York City.

With a nod to her year of birth, Dame Natalie, 58, quotes singer Prince’s lyrics: “Tonight I’m going to party like it’s 1999.”