Private equity swoops on UK pharma firm in £703.1m deal: Ergomed founder lands £120m windfall

By Leah Montebello

Updated: 16:55 EDT, 4 September 2023

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Gogglebox star Sandra Martin has revealed that she’s finally off benefits after landing a job at a funeral parlour.

The TV personality, 61, told in March this year that she was back on benefits after having fallen on hard times – despite claiming that she ‘earned more than anyone else’ during her stint on the Channel 4 show. 

But Sandra has now turned her life around once more and is earning a wage as a cleaner at her friend’s business – a job she started just three weeks ago. 

In a new interview, the bubbly TV star told how she initially rejected a role as a receptionist at the funeral parlour as it would’ve been ‘too emotional’, but is happy to show ‘respect for the deceased’ by keeping the place clean.

She told The Sun: ‘I’m 61 and a grandmother. Three weeks ago I was on benefits and looking for work. Now, I’m going to be cleaning a funeral parlour after a friend opened one in Hastings.’ 

She went on to say that she’s due to begin a training course on ‘confidence and communication’ in a bid to develop new skills should she want to move onto receptionist work, but for now, she felt happier to be a cleaner.

Sandra explained: ‘I don’t want to do the reception work at the start, I think it will be too emotional. 

‘But at least for now I’m happy to keep the place clean out of respect for the deceased. I think it will be respectful.’

Sandra, who lives in Hastings but originally hails from Brixton, has been on and off benefits since leaving Gogglebox in 2018 – which the exception of a brief stint at Midlands’ train station.

The TV star told how she found it difficult to work that as she would be ‘constantly’ stopped for selfies. 

In March, Sandra revealed she was ‘paid more than anyone else’ during her time on the Channel 4 series . 

Sandra and her best friend Sandi Bogle, 58, became one of the most popular duos on the show when it began in 2013.

But in 2017, Sandi left the show to pursue her singing career and was replaced by Sandra’s daughter Chanchez, before she too left show soon after. 

Speaking to The Sun she claimed as ‘star of the show’ she was paid more than any other cast member, allowing her to enjoy a ‘luxury lifestyle’. 

She said: ‘I got more than everybody else, because everybody else was working, but I was on benefits, and I was the best one that was making the show’.

‘I got the contract, and they paid my rent, council tax, TV licence, electricity, gas, all the bills you need’.

Before adding: ‘I was living a luxury lifestyle.’

The fan favourite said she had blown her earnings from the show – thought to be around £1,500-a-month – on takeaways and getting her hair done. 

Earlier that month she revealed she had been forced back onto benefits after hitting hard times. 

Sandra won the British public over with her infectious cackle and love of Pot Noodles during her time on the show but by 2018 she had ended up homeless.

Despite the setback, Sandra revealed that after 50 years they remain friends: ‘No matter what we go through, she’s always got a room here for her, and she’s always got a room for me.

‘We’re besties. We’ve been through, ups, downs, thick and thin, the worst, the wears, the tears, the bumps, the laughs.’

Explaining how she quickly burned through her pay, Sandra previously told Loose Women: ‘The money was coming in. The bank account was big, being in the community, all my friends on the social.’

‘I never got help, but the money was squandering. The money went, taxis, hair, take away, friends that wanted money. The money just went. It was natural to help, I don’t regret it.’

Sandra added that at some points she wished she had never found fame, explaining: ‘I wanted to burn it all and go back to it. I’m not the celebrity person. I do lots of charity work, they don’t pay me, Sandi likes doing the red carpet.’

Gary Neville’s sister heads for Australia as former England coach Tracey lands job with Super Netball’s newest franchise

• Tracey Neville has landed a new job in Australia 
• She will coach Super Netball’s new franchise 
• Neville previously led the England team

By Ollie Lewis For Daily Mail Australia

Updated: 08:00 EDT, 2 August 2023

Prince Harry is back in California after spending just 28 hours and 42 minutes in the United Kingdom to witness his father, King Charles’ coronation on Saturday.

Following the ceremony, he slipped out of Westminster Abbey – accompanied by a Metropolitan police escort and four outriders – with only the briefest of goodbyes and headed straight for Heathrow Airport.

He was back on the plane to California before his father and stepmother, the newly crowned queen, had even finished having their official portraits taken. 

Harry’s British Airways flight from Heathrow direct to Los Angeles landed just before 6:30pm local time. 

The idea was that he would be back in time for his four-year-old son Archie’s fourth birthday party.

But despite getting a chauffeured ride from the airport in a black Range Rover SUV, it is doubtful he would have been back with his wife and children much before the kids bedtime. 

Montecito, California, where the family live is almost 100 miles away from Los Angeles and a good two hour drive even at the best of times given the unpredictability of LA traffic.  

For months, he had kept the British public – not to mention his own family – on tenterhooks with a cat and mouse guessing game over his attendance.

And in the end, it was truly a blink or you’ll miss it moment.

At the main event he was obscured by Princess Anne’s feathered plume from the cameras for most of the ceremony.

After it was all over, he headed straight for the airport and was pictured smiling broadly as he arrived at Heathrow’s Windsor suite before his flight, still in morning suit and sporting his medals.

Harry, 38, had not been expected to play any part in the coronation celebrations apart from his brief appearance at Westminster Abbey.

Sources tell the Daily Mail that there were no plans for him to join the procession, take part in the private family lunch or even appear in any of the official or unofficial photographs.

The prince was not seen once after it was said he flew in on a scheduled American Airlines flight to Heathrow on Friday morning while the rest of the family were undertaking multiple ‘Eve of Coronation’ duties in London.

On Saturday morning, he left Frogmore Cottage, the Windsor home he and Meghan once shared, almost certainly for the last time after his father’s decision to evict them, just before 9.30am in a BMW with blacked-out windows.

He entered Westminster Abbey alongside his non-working royal cousins – Zara Tindall, Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie.

Lurking at the back of the group, Harry could be seen chatting to Beatrice and her husband, Edo Mapelli Mozzi.

Eugenie and her husband, Jack Brooksbank, probably now the closest family members to Harry, turned round with big smiles.

Like the other non-working royals, Harry dressed in a morning suit with medals and the KCVO – Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order – given to him by Queen Elizabeth round his neck.

But he was forced to make his way, somewhat awkwardly, down the Nave in the full view of the congregation on his own.

The prince turned twice, once to his right and then to his left and smiled at someone he recognized.

But he quietly took his seat three rows from the front in the South Lantern.

The front row was reserved for the Prince of Wales – his brother, wife and their children, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh. 

As the historic ceremony drew to a close, Harry left through the Great West Door and, with the same police outriders accompanying him, headed back straight to Heathrow.

11 hours and 5,440 miles later, and a world away from the celebrations in London, he was back in the Golden State, ready to resume his ‘California dreamin” once more.  

A Turkish evacuation aircraft was shot at by paramilitary forces in Sudan because it was touchdown within the capital of Khartoum immediately, damaging the gasoline provide.

Sudan’s paramilitary Speedy Help Forces (RSF) shot on the plane on the Wadi Saeedna airbase, the military mentioned, in an indication of simply how harmful the scenario is for these racing to evacuate civilians from the war-torn nation.

The aircraft managed to land safely after the paramilitary forces opened fireplace and is being mounted, Sudan’s military mentioned.

Earlier reviews claimed {that a} crew member was wounded within the assault however Turkey’s defence ministry mentioned there have been no accidents whereas confirming the aircraft had been fired at.

The RSF denied firing on the aircraft and mentioned the military was ‘spreading lies’, including: ‘Our forces have remained strictly dedicated to the humanitarian truce that we agreed upon since midnight, and it isn’t true that we focused any plane within the sky of Wadi Seyidna in Omdurman.’

Hundreds of determined civilians – together with round 3,000 Britons – are racing to board the final evacuation planes out of the capital earlier than the delicate ceasefire ends in 72 hours.

However with heavy explosions and gunfire rocking components of the capital – and now evacuation planes being shot at – the scenario has turn into much more determined for these nonetheless trapped in Sudan.

There is no such thing as a indication that as a result of renewed risk of violence on the airstrip, evacuation flights will probably be stopped however Overseas Secretary James Cleverly yesterday urged Britons to depart whereas they’ll.

He warned that if the clashes between the warring factions turned too harmful for evacuation flights to carry Britons to security, the mission might turn into ‘inconceivable’. 

To this point, 897 Britons – a lot of them younger youngsters – have been safely evacuated to Cyprus and now the UK on eight flights as the federal government races to evacuate hundreds of Britons earlier than the window of alternative closes. 

They one way or the other survived the nightmarish journey by means of the violent streets of Khartoum with the intention to attain the British troops ready for them on the Wadi Saeedna airbase – all with out a UK navy escort. 

However there are fears over the security of these nonetheless trapped within the war-torn nation. Air strikes, tanks and artillery shook Khartoum – the location of many of the violence – on Friday and a heavy bombardment pounded the adjoining metropolis of Bahri, illustrating simply how determined the scenario has turn into. 

In persisting ceasefire violations, heavy gunfire and detonations rattled residential neighbourhoods of the capital area the place combating has been concentrated over the previous week. 

‘The scenario this morning may be very scary. We hear the sounds of planes and explosions. We do not know when this hell will finish,’ mentioned Bahri resident Mahasin al-Awad, 65. 

‘We’re in a continuing state of worry for ourselves and our kids.’ 

The escalation of violence between the warring factions got here hours after either side accepted a 72-hour extension of the truce.

Not less than 512 individuals have been killed and near 4,200 wounded by the combating since April 15, and a humanitarian disaster has mushroomed. 

Britons have described seeing thieves and killers roaming the streets of the capital, with the corpses of civilians killed within the combating between warring factions littering the bottom in scenes which were in comparison with the horror movie The Purge. 

They spoke of buildings on fireplace, residential areas become battlefields and youths roaming with massive knives.