Subtle they were not. She was the archetypal ‘thumping great Sloane’, snorting with laughter as she charged around the paddock with a black velvet bow in her flowing red hair. He was the quintessential rake, a silver-tongued playboy nicknamed ‘The Toad’ for his unremarkable looks and slightly slimy manner.
Back in the early 1980s, Sarah Ferguson was a virtual unknown outside the world of Formula One. She had yet to meet her future husband, then known as Prince Andrew. Instead she was a fun-loving former chalet girl who was going out with Paddy McNally, a failed racing car driver who found himself at the forefront of the burgeoning F1 hospitality business.
It would be a business that ended up making McNally the 238th richest man in Britain, with a £600million fortune by the time of his death last week at the age of 88.
When the sad news broke, it led many to speculate that McNally, a widower before he met Fergie and who never remarried, could solve the disgraced ex-duchess’s financial woes for good.
After all, they had stayed friends for over four decades, through Fergie’s marriage and divorce from Andrew and her years of profligate spending and debt.
