Sir Ranulph Fiennes reportedly wrote a secret will at Everest base camp during what has been described as a severe crisis in his marriage.

Michael Kobold, the explorer’s friend of 30 years, told The Mail on Sunday that Sir Ranulph handwritten the document in his tent in May 2008, the night before making an unsuccessful attempt to reach Everest’s 29,000ft summit.

Sir Ranulph then sealed the will and handed it to Mr Kobold, who remains in possession of it. He reportedly instructed his friend to open the document only after his death.

In an exclusive interview, Mr Kobold, a German watch entrepreneur based in Switzerland, said Sir Ranulph had decided to divorce his second wife, Louise Millington-Cotes, two months earlier, shortly before travelling from Britain to Nepal.

The explorer allegedly asked Mr Kobold to locate both a law firm and a public relations specialist to manage the divorce proceedings.

However, Mrs Millington-Cotes is said to have discovered the plan. According to the claim, she confronted Sir Ranulph at their farm on Exmoor in Somerset, prompting a “much deflated” explorer to abandon the decision.

Mr Kobold said last night: “I don’t know what’s in the will, and I promised Ran that I would not open it until he died.

“I become emotional when I think about it because it was an incredibly difficult period for all of us. Ran was unhappy with the situation.

“I was present when he wrote it by hand and when he signed it. In Ran’s mind, it was an extremely bleak period in his life — probably the darkest up to that point — because he felt trapped.”

The remarkable allegation comes amid intense speculation over the whereabouts of the world’s greatest living explorer, who has not been seen in public for two years.

Sir Ranulph, now 82 and living with Parkinson’s disease, is reportedly believed to have been moved between care homes in London, Wales and Cheshire by Mrs Millington-Cotes. Friends claim his identity was concealed under an alias and that they were prevented from visiting him.

Mrs Millington-Cotes, a horse trainer from Cheshire, married Sir Ranulph in 2005, following the death of his first wife, Ginny, the year before.

At one London care home, she reportedly required visitors to sign non-disclosure agreements. At another facility in Wales, where he was registered as Robert Millington, she allegedly instructed staff to prevent him from socialising with fellow residents.

After an outcry from friends, who have urged police and the Office of the Public Guardian to investigate, Sir Ranulph is now thought to be back at his remote farm in Shropshire, concealed behind a 6ft security gate.

Mr Kobold, who is writing a book about Sir Ranulph’s disappearance, spent several weeks living with the explorer and his wife in 2008. He said he was shocked by what he described as Mrs Millington-Cotes’s treatment of his friend.

“Louise subjected Ran to a relentless stream of attacks, humiliating him repeatedly in front of me and other people. It was heartbreaking,” he said.

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‘I’ll never forget the first night. I went to sleep feeling awful for Ran and was very sad. The next morning I woke up and thought that today things will be better. Well, that day was just as bad.

‘The only time we had any peace from her was when we went on runs, which perhaps explains why they always took so long [two to three hours].’

Mr Kobold claims that Sir Ranulph told him of an incident in which Mrs Millington-Cotes took his passport and locked him out of the house where they were living in Cheshire.

Sir Ranulph is said to have been injured as he attempted to climb back in through a bathroom window.

Mr Kobold claims that over several weeks, during which he was acting as Sir Ranulph’s de facto chauffeur, he persuaded the explorer to divorce his wife.

‘This was a firm decision and because Ran did not know how the mechanism works I was asked to basically organise everything around the divorce and manage it for him.’

Mr Kobold said he met a law firm in London and spoke over the phone to a PR specialist, because Sir Ranulph feared the divorce would ‘get ugly’ and he didn’t want to ‘be the next Paul McCartney’ – a reference to the acrimonious split of Sir Paul McCartney and his second wife, Heather Mills.

Sir Ranulph and Mr Kobold were due to discuss the plan at the explorer’s office at Greenlands, his farm on Exmoor. 

But to Mr Kobold’s surprise, Mrs Millington-Cotes arrived and insisted on talking to her husband alone.

‘She shows up, kicks me out, slams the door shut and spends ten minutes with Ran,’ Mr Kobold said.

‘Afterwards he says, ‘Mike, I’ve got bad news. Unfortunately I’m unable to move forward with the divorce.’

Days later, after Mr Kobold arranged a new passport, Sir Ranulph flew to Nepal for his second attempt at climbing Everest. Mr Kobold, who joined him at base camp, had previously seen a copy of the explorer’s will and does not know why he wrote a new document on the eve of launching his climb.

‘At base camp, for whatever reason, he created a new will. Something must have come into his mind. I just remember we were sitting in his tent and he wrote it out longhand and he signed it and he gave it to me.’

The legal status of the document is unclear because under English law, wills have to be signed by two witnesses. Mr Kobold said he may have signed the document, although he has no memory of doing so.

Sir Ranulph, then aged 65, was unable to reach the summit of Everest because of exhaustion, although he achieved the remarkable feat the following year, the oldest Briton to do so.

Mrs Millington-Cotes was approached for comment.

Some photographs linger in the public mind—and this has quickly become one of the most striking images of 2026.

Yet the picture of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor marking his 66th birthday in February may soon be replaced by a more relaxed scene. In that unforgettable image, his expression is one of disbelief and indignation, starkly illuminated by a flash as he was driven away from Aylsham police station after spending 11 hours in custody.

I understand that some of north Norfolk’s leading figures have decided the former Duke of York should not be excluded indefinitely, as though he were an outcast from another age.

‘The view is that things have gone too far,’ says one society source.

The source points to an incident three months after Andrew was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, when he reportedly had to escape a would-be attacker. The man, wearing a balaclava, had parked close to Marsh Farm, Andrew’s home on the King’s Sandringham estate.

‘The feeling is that Andrew needs to be welcomed back, at least to some extent.’

Among the so-called ‘Turnip toffs’ said to be setting the tone are the Earl and Countess of Leicester. Their Holkham estate covers 25,000 acres—making it larger than the King’s property—and Holkham Hall’s Palladian grandeur arguably outshines Sandringham’s pseudo-Jacobean style.

‘Tom and Polly [the Earl and Countess] have had Andrew to dinner,’ my source tells me.

The Leicesters are close to the Royal Family. Queen Elizabeth was a regular visitor to Holkham, where her corgis were often seen on the nearby beach.

The Earl, a former Scots Guards officer, has declined to comment. However, he has a long record of being prepared to take the lead.

‘Tom and Polly won’t be fawning over anyone,’ a friend says. ‘It was probably a very informal kitchen supper.’

The friend believes others—including ‘the Buxtons, the Barclays and the Buscalls, all the north coast lot’—are likely to follow their example.

Trinny Woodall once made a career out of telling women what to wear as co-host of the 1990s fashion series What Not To Wear.

Now the make-up entrepreneur is offering advice to women building careers later in life: turn to AI.

Some may regard that as taking a shortcut, but Woodall, 62, says: ‘Look at your job application and ask Claude and ChatGPT, “Tell me the things that are really crucial to bring out in me, that will give me the opportunity to sit in front of those people.” You want to beat the system, and the system is using AI.’

Lila’s Throne another posh party…

Was it Lila Moss or Lila Lannister? Kate Moss’s lookalike daughter attended a Game Of Thrones-themed party last week, taking on the persona of a member of House Lannister—one of Westeros’s richest and most influential fictional families.

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The model was joined at the dinner by influencer Olivia Neill, model Stevie Sims and Stella Jones, the daughter of Clash guitarist Mick Jones. The celebration took place at the fashionable members’ club House of Koko in Camden.

The guests arrived in a bright pink limo, donning gold crowns and jewelled dresses and spent the evening fighting over the Iron Throne.

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton is looking forward to sharing a pint with his godson Prince George… when he comes of age, of course.

The former SAS man, who was private secretary to Princes William and Harry between 2005 and 2013, reveals: ‘I really enjoy being godfather to people but I like it when you can have fun with them, which is about 18 or 19 as far as I’m concerned.’

So Jamie will have to be patient as George only turned 13 in July. ‘The time will come when I’ll have a lot of fun, I think,’ Jamie says.

Guitarist’s new pick!

This newspaper revealed that Friends star Courteney Cox had split from musician Johnny McDaid in June – and now the Snow Patrol guitarist has moved on with glamorous finance executive Rosanna Konarzewski.

While collecting the BMI President’s Award last week, he doted on his new girlfriend: ‘Rosie, thank you for all your support and I love you.’

Meanwhile, Cox sparked dating rumours by dining with US actor Geoff Stults.

David Walliams was dropped by his publisher HarperCollins amid harassment allegations against him last year – which he denies – but that hasn’t stopped the comedian raking in a hefty profit. 

Accounts filed for his TV production company, King Bert Productions, reveal that the star, 55, made £500,000 last year. 

The firm, which specialises in comedy, children’s and family programming, has produced shows including Gangsta Granny Strikes Again! and Malory Towers. 

Last month, Walliams’ entire children’s book catalogue was dropped by HarperCollins and the physical copies are being phased out of bookstores.

Full Fat fire

A-listers were aghast when their beloved Chiltern Firehouse went up in flames last year.

Now another haunt almost suffered a similar fate: the restaurant at The Fat Badger in Notting Hill, where the King has dined, was evacuated last month when it ‘filled with smoke’ from a chimney fire. Abandon cocktails!

Police cars, ambulances and buses could be vulnerable to remote disruption because Britain relies heavily on Chinese electric-vehicle technology, security sources have warned The Mail on Sunday.

The warning comes as intelligence officials express growing concern about the Government’s cautious approach to Beijing and China’s potential ability to interfere with vehicles remotely.

The alleged threat centres on so-called ‘kill switches’ embedded in Chinese-made components used in electric vehicles, transport systems, hospitals, the power grid and renewable-energy equipment, including solar panels.

The Metropolitan Police alone has around 1,600 electric and hybrid vehicles powered by lithium batteries. The vehicles contain Chinese cellular devices that connect them to mobile communications networks.

Security specialists say that, without coordinated safeguards, remote actors could potentially gain access to a vehicle’s electronic systems and force it to stop or even cause a crash.

Whitehall sources told the MoS that some emergency vehicles using Chinese technology have therefore been dismantled and effectively rebuilt, with components removed to eliminate any possible capacity for remote sabotage.

The sweeping review of Chinese-made components comes amid several wider security concerns:

A forensic examination in 2022 of a hybrid car used by the three prime ministers who served that year reportedly uncovered a tracking device suspected of transmitting information to China.

Chinese manufacturers have also rapidly expanded their position in Britain’s car market. Their share doubled over the past year to almost one in five new vehicles sold.

Investigators have likewise found alleged kill switches in the power inverters that connect solar panels and wind turbines to the national electricity grid.

The components did not appear in the installation plans supplied to engineers. They were discovered only after security experts inspected the energy equipment and compared it with the manufacturer’s official documentation.

Similar concerns have emerged over Yutong electric buses currently operating on British roads.

Norwegian bus operator Ruter, which first identified the alleged kill switch, found that the vehicles contained a SIM card connecting them to a Romanian mobile provider.

The connection is designed to monitor the battery remotely and help prevent overheating. However, experts say a software update issued from another country could potentially be enough to disable the buses.

Experts have cautioned that the Chinese chips are so sophisticated that removing or disabling the SIM cards may not be sufficient to stop the vehicles being remotely shut down. Despite those concerns, the Department for Transport has ordered more Chinese-built buses, reportedly against the advice of security specialists.

Electric vans and heavy goods vehicles are also raising alarms. One source said: ‘If China gets into electric vans and HGVs it poses a serious threat. They could switch them off, crash them, block roads or bridges. They would have control of our entire logistics network.’

Chinese electric-vehicle manufacturers, like other supposedly private companies in the country, operate under the Chinese Communist Party’s National Intelligence Laws. Those laws require organisations and individuals to ‘support, assist and cooperate with state intelligence work’.

The concerns have also cast a shadow over Uber’s plan to introduce driverless taxis in London next year in partnership with Chinese technology giant Baidu. Experts fear that foreign agents could exploit the vehicles’ infotainment systems.

Driverless vehicles in San Francisco were halted during a recent city-wide power failure, leading to blocked roads.

It follows the revelation in this newspaper last month that Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband was regarded with suspicion by Whitehall security officials over his doveish approach to Beijing.

One source accused Mr Miliband – who pledged to go ‘further and faster’ on replacing gas and oil with renewable sources such as solar power while in his previous job as Energy Secretary – of ‘appeasing’ China.

This is despite the risks it poses to British security because the UK is so reliant on Beijing for the supply of solar panels, with two-thirds of our stock coming from China.

John Hemmings, the inaugural Director for the National Security Centre at the Henry Jackson Society, said the so-called ‘Made in China’ hacking strategy had been driven by the certification of Chinese universities as ‘world-class cyber-security schools’.

The strategy focuses on embedding secret components into Chinese electronics to bypass firewalls and establish a direct back-channel to Beijing’s battalions of state-backed hackers.

The hacking is the result of more than a decade of investment by China’s president Xi Jinping, including state-sponsored ‘hacking competitions, which has led to the creation of more than 30,000 new cyber-security experts each year.

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Dr Hemmings criticised the ‘wet’ attitude of the UK Government to the Chinese threat, saying: ‘Even the EU is taking a more robust approach to Beijing than we are, which tells its own story.’

In March, the EU froze the assets of the China-based Integrity Technology Group and Anxun Information Technology in response to claims it had been involved in hacking critical infrastructure across the bloc.

It has also drafted legislation to exclude Beijing-linked companies such as Huawei from sensitive projects.

In contrast, a security source said the Government is struggling to catch up. ‘These are all pretty new ministers who change on a regular basis,’ the source said. ‘And most of them don’t understand the science and tech. Even inside the civil service it’s a mess.

‘Abolishing the science and technology department and putting it into trade means they have not got their eye on the ball. There’s a couple of people looking at this but their minds are elsewhere. At every level this issue is slipping through the cracks.’

But ideology matters, too.

‘There’s a belief in Government that growth can only come from Chinese trade and investment,’ said the source. ‘That is definitely Ed Miliband’s view. He signed a deal with China and didn’t tell anyone until a year later.

‘Ministers need their noses rubbed in it to stop them crapping all over the pavement.’

MI5’s warning last week about British academics was the first time the service has independently published a so-called ‘Espionage Alert’ – it is usually done under the direction of the Government.

It said that Chinese intelligence had tried to ‘covertly benefit’ from British AI and technology research after the academics contributed to projects funded by the China General Technology Research Institute, which it said has ‘very strong ties’ to China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), because its ‘primary purpose was to fund academic research that directly improved the MSS’s technical capabilities for espionage’.

UK cyber-security experts also warn that China has the ability to shut down hospitals.

The NHS has been regarded as the country’s ‘softest underbelly’ because of its antiquated IT systems – which are now being updated frantically to counter the threat. Chinese agents attack and test the hospital systems on a regular basis.

The most audacious recent example of Chinese hacking was an operation codenamed Salt Typhoon, when aides close to former prime ministers Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had their private calls tracked and text messages intercepted.

The state-backed group APT31, acting on behalf of China’s MSS, also gained access to the servers of the Electoral Commission, exposing the personal details of roughly 40 million voters.

APT31 has also targeted members of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China – a coalition of China-sceptic MPs and peers.

In April, the National Cyber Security Centre warned that Chinese state actors are building vast ‘covert networks’ by hijacking household items and office routers to ‘burrow’ into vital infrastructure.

Last year, it was reported that the Ministry of Defence had banned electric vehicles with Chinese components from military bases.

Staff working at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire and the Salisbury Plain training area were told they must park the vehicles at least two miles away from key buildings in case sensors in the cars collected intelligence and sent it to Beijing.

RAF Wyton houses officials from Five Eyes, the intelligence-sharing alliance formed by the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Defence minister Lord Coaker said at the time: ‘We are aware that individual defence organisations may have stricter requirements relating to electric vehicles on some sites, but we do not provide specific details for security reasons.’

Personnel have also been advised not to hold conversations in electric cars in case they are bugged.

The Five Eyes alliance issued a warning in the summer that Chinese military intelligence was targeting professional networking sites and online job platforms to obtain sensitive information.

One of Mr Miliband’s first moves after he moved to the Foreign Office in the summer was to arrange to meet Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi.

Many senior members of the UK’s diplomatic and intelligence community regard Mr Miliband as ‘weak’ on the security threat posed by the country.

Mr Miliband supports building closer ties with Beijing – because, they suspect, the regime is so central to his zealously advocated Net Zero goals.

A National Police Chiefs Council spokesman said: ‘UK policing follows Government guidance on protecting all our infrastructure, including vehicles.

‘Any assessment of national security risks relating to vehicle technology, telecommunications or overseas supply chains is a matter for Government and the national security authorities.’

Kim Kardashian has a team of five nannies caring for her children, with one working at any given time while the other four rotate shifts, according to a new report.

The 45-year-old is the primary guardian of the four children she shares with her third ex-husband, Kanye West: North, 13, Saint, 10, Chicago, eight, and Psalm, seven.

Kardashian, who is now dating Formula One star Lewis Hamilton, discussed her family life and childcare arrangements in a profile published by the Times of London.

During the interview, she admitted feeling uneasy about her children’s growing exposure to the public, particularly as North builds a following on TikTok and begins exploring a career in music.

“I do worry about it. Each kid does what they’re comfortable with,” Kardashian said, describing how her children appear on the family’s reality series, The Kardashians.

“So, my little ones come around when I’m filming but they don’t really do storylines. North loves it a little bit more than the rest. I hold her back,” she added.

“All she wants to do is forward-facing projects. And so it’s like us really kind of trying to savor those moments and not doing everything that comes her way, so we can really make sure that we manage it the right way,” Kardashian explained.

“And with her, since it’s more music-related, that is something that her dad and I have better communication about. We make sure that we’re aligned and that she’s in projects that we both approve,” the reality star said.

The Daily Mail has contacted Kardashian’s representative for comment.

Kardashian and West have previously disagreed over North’s upbringing. Their differences came into focus last year after the rapper used his daughter’s vocals on a song featuring Sean “Diddy” Combs, who was then facing trial on multiple sexual misconduct allegations.

Combs was acquitted in July of the most serious accusations, including sex trafficking and racketeering, but he was convicted on two lesser counts of transporting people to engage in prostitution.

Kardashian also faced public criticism over her parenting after North revealed in August 2025 that she had received a dermal piercing featuring two small metal balls beneath a knuckle on the middle finger of her right hand.

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Unlike conventional piercings, dermal jewelry is held in place by a tiny anchor inserted beneath the skin.

The procedure can carry risks, including infection, keloid scarring and, when not properly cared for, rejection of the jewelry by the body.

Because Kardashian has frequently described herself as North’s primary guardian, she was heavily criticized for allowing her daughter to get the piercing at such a young age.

North later addressed the backlash in a December TikTok, mouthing along to the audio: “Why are you crying? How old are you? Just pull it together.” The caption read: “this is for everyone that’s mad over a finger piercing.”

Undeterred by the brickbats her mother was receiving, North then apparently unveiled two further dermal finger piercings on her Insta Stories in January.

Then this May, in the music video for her first solo single #N0rth4evr, she was shown strolling through a graveyard with two stick-on piercings under one of her eyes and another one placed near the top of her nose.

Much of the video was grainy and choppy, in a nod to ‘found footage’ horror movies like The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.

Her follow-up single was a collaboration with a fellow ‘nepo baby’ – Lil Novi, the 16-year-old son of rap legend Lil Wayne and R&B songstress Nivea.

Lil Wayne and Kanye worked on a number of songs together in the 2000s, including the 2007 release Barry Bonds and the 2008 single See You in My Nightmares.

Their children’s new effort, entitled MULA THA ROOT OF ALL EVIL, is a cacophonous piece of music with a frenetically edited music video to match.

North materializes in the middle of the video with blue hair, seemingly wearing a set of grillz as well as a pair of spiky gauntlets.