Double tragedy for Churchills as Arabella dies and son is jailed
Last updated at 09:30 21 December 2007
Sir Winston Churchill's granddaughter has died just as her son was being jailed in Australia for his part in a multi-million pound drugs racket.
Arabella Spencer-Churchill, died at her home in Glastonbury, Somerset, aged 58.
Meanwhile her son Nicholas Jake Barton, 34, was sentenced to three years' jail after pleading guilty to drug dealing in Sydney.
The district court judge had spoken of allowing him to visit his mother before her death.
The double blow underlined how one of the greatest names in British politics has since the Second World War become a byword for a troubled family.
Mrs Spencer-Churchill, the daughter of the wartime Prime Minister's son Randolph and June Osborne, had led an unconventional life.
Although the reverence with which her grandfather was regarded after the war meant she met the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, she rejected the values associated with the family name.
The Deb Of The Year in 1967, in her twenties she ran away to join a group of hippies.
In Glastonbury, where she helped found the music festival in which she was still involved up to her death, she met her first husband Jim Barton.
Jake was born in 1973 on a sheep farm they were running in Wales. A year later Jim left them.
Wracked with the depression so familiar among the Churchills - Sir Winston called it his "black dog" - Arabella drank, took Valium and consulted a clinical psychologist.
When Jake was three they were living in a squat in Maida Vale and were later evicted by the GLC.
For a while they lived in a house in Kensington bought by her mother, who was later to commit suicide at 58 while suffering from cancer.
Arabella moved back to Glastonbury. With her second husband Ian "Haggis" McLeod, a juggler of some repute 14 years her junior, she had a daughter Jessica, now 19.
She devoted much of her energy to running her charity, the Children's World Charity, which provides entertainment to children from all backgrounds.
Mr McLeod said: "My loss is everywhere. She was one of the few people I would lay down my life for."
Mr McLeod said his wife was a Buddhist-and funeral arrangements would respect her faith.
Jake moved to Australia in his early twenties and later met his wife Kim. He was arrested at their Sydney home in connection with £6.5 million of ecstasy. He admitted supplying the drug.
Arabella's half-brother is the former Conservative MP Winston Churchill best known for having an affair with Soraya Khashoggi.
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