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Inside the Rees-Moggs’ bizarre life… from black tie dinners with kids to ‘odd’ chat-up line & meaning behind zany names
The former MP knew more about his future wife's family than she did when they met
HE is the former firebrand politician famed for his eccentric behaviour, double-breasted suits and multimillion-pound fortune.
Now after throwing open the doors to his country pile and London mansion for a reality TV show Jacob Rees-Mogg has unwittingly revealed his secret weapon - his wife Helena.
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Like him, she is from an aristocratic life of privilege and heir to a rumoured £45m art fortune.
But she is also surprisingly, brutally honest about their lifestyle, self-deprecating and hilariously funny with a string of witty one-liners that keep the show on the road.
Helena is far from tone-deaf and is fully aware of how the public might perceive her family.
Sporting an outfit by Boden - the designer loved by Middle England yummy mummies, she quips: “I hope I don't get a cease and desist letter from Johnny Boden.
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'Could you please not wear my clothes? You awful Tory right-wing fox-hunting Brexiteer.'”
The pragmatic mum-of-six's full name is Helena Anne Beatrix Wentworth Fitzwilliam de Chair.
She's the daughter of poet and aristocrat Somerset de Chair and Lady Juliet Tadgell, and clearly the oil that keeps the Rees-Mogg engine running.
The couple have been together since 2005 when Helena readily admits she could think of nothing else other than Jacob.
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The pair first met as children but it was Jacob’s sister Annunziata, who reintroduced them as adults and Helen was surprised by how much he knew about her family - particularly her ancestor Thomas Wentworth.
Helena explains: “She and I had become friends the summer before. It was at a party in a basement somewhere in Mayfair and my first impression of him was seeing this tall, dark, slim, pale, bespectacled person standing alone fiddling with his cufflinks.
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“Annunziata introduced us and he launched straight into this speech about the many virtues of Thomas Wentworth.
"I thought I knew a fair bit about my family but I staggered off 20 minutes later, thinking what a serious young man and how odd that he knows more about my family than I do.
"We then met periodically after that, and he was always someone I found intriguing. Is he still intriguing? Yes!”
When Jacob is asked what struck him about Helena she jokes "I thought you were going to say my ancestors."
'Cricket team' brood plan
As a gift for their first date, Jacob wanted to buy Helena a book on her ancestor Thomas Wentworth - the English statesman and supporter of King Charles I who was beheaded in the English Civil War.
But thankfully for him, Waterstones didn’t have a copy in stock so instead he bought her a pair of earrings.
I think, quite frankly, the world has got enough Rees-Moggs already hasn’t it?
Helena on whether they will have more kids
“I didn’t know ladies prefer to be given a pair of earrings to a book on their distinguished ancestors,” says Jacob. “I was absolutely amused by this.”
Helena recalls: “We had a very nice dinner there and afterward Jacob said, 'You should marry me'... 'I want a lot of children,' I said. He said 'Great, so do I'. He said, 'We can have 12 - a cricket team.'”
The couple have stopped short of that though and have a brood of six - with Helena declaring she carried on having babies until she got one that didn’t look like Jacob.
“It took five goes to get one that looked like me rather than Jacob,” she says.
Peter, 17, Mary, 15, and 14-year-old Thomas are all at boarding school, while the younger three Anselm, 12, Alfred, eight and seven-year-old Sixtus are all at day school in London.
Despite the oak-panelled walls being lined with old masters, nine bedrooms of four poster beds and the family having a drawing room and their own chapel, the Rees-Mogg house in some ways is just like any other with a large young family - organised chaos.
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The youngest play football out in the street in front of their London mansion a stone’s throw from 10 Downing Street.
This is much to the angst of family nanny Veronica who has been a permanent fixture in the Rees Mogg household for years - even changing baby Jacob’s nappies.
But when dad Jacob plays cricket with the boys in the garden, he does it in his signature double-breasted suit.
Youngest child Sixtus seems the most exuberant of the bunch, but that wasn’t always the case.
“He was really quite late to talk, which apparently is normal for the youngest of a large family because they literally can't get a word in edgeways,” Helena says.
Demonstrating his impressive vocabulary in the back of the car on the school run, Sixtus declares: “I only know the F-words, the B-words and the S-words.”
Secret to the Mogglets’ unusual names
Eldest child Peter Theodore Alphege Rees-Mogg, was born the very year the couple wed in 2007.
While Peter and Theodore are more traditional names, Alphege was the name of a saint and former Archbishop of Canterbury.
His sister Mary Anne Charlotte Emma Rees-Mogg came along a year later, followed by Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan in 2010, whose name is a clear nod to Helena’s ancestor Thomas Wentworth who was also Jacob’s political hero.
Thomas’s third name is from Helena’s father, Somerset de Chair, and Dunstan is another reference to a saint, who was also Archbishop of Canterbury.
Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam Rees-Mogg, now 12-years-old, then followed. He was named after another Archbishop of Canterbury with Helena believed to have said she thought it was a “lovely” name. One of Helena’s other ancestors, William Fitzwilliam, inspired his third name.
Next up was Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius in 2016, who was named after Alfred the Great.
The unusual name Wulfric is after the hermit saint who was born near the Rees-Mogg’s Somerset second abode, Gournay Court, a multimillion pound Grade II listed building,.
Leyson is a nod to Louis Leyson Rees-Mogg, Rees-Mogg’s grandfather’s first cousin who died in 1915 at just 25 years old.
And the baby of the family is Sixtus Dominic Boniface Christopher, continuing the family’s catholic naming tradition, the name Sixtus has been shared by five popes.
When it comes to parenting Jacob freely admits that Helena is the one in charge, saying: “Helena has some level of control.
"Nanny is a bit of a pushover and I'm a complete pushover. It's I think how the children will put it.”
And asked if they would be adding a seventh child to their brood, Helena replies firmly: “No, no thank you very much. I think, quite frankly, the world has got enough Rees-Moggs already hasn’t it?”
The Rees-Moggs’ main family home is an impressive Somerset country pile that wouldn’t look out of place in Downton Abbey or Brideshead Revisited.
The family has a team of staff to help them run the home - from cleaning the Bentley to making their own cider and polishing the family silverware.
And Helena isn’t ashamed to admit she needs the help. “I think it would be impossible to run a house that size with no help at all,” she says.
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“All the cleaning, all the laundry, all the shopping, all the cooking and all the childcare. I don't know if there is some Wonder Woman, I was about to say whoops, a wonder person maybe who could do this. But that person is not me.”
Daughter Mary, 15, says there are pros and cons to being a Rees-Mogg.
“I think they are some really good things,” she explains. “Sometimes you meet a lot of really cool people like Boris [Johnson] and Carrie and they're so fun.
“But when I was little, I used to get a little bit offended about the sorts of things... like the height of Brexit and going to school and... [they say] 'My mummy says that your daddy hates foreigners'... when I was very little that upset me a little bit.”
Black tie parties
Saturday night in the Rees-Mogg household is black tie night - for everyone including the youngest children - where they all get dressed up and enjoy a formal family dinner.
Helena explains it was a tradition that started in lockdown and the decided to don formal attire for Thomas’s 10th birthday.
She says: “The tradition was started by my mother as she’d stayed up for dinner the first time for her 10th birthday, as her father was home on leave from WW2.
I didn’t know ladies prefer to be given a pair of earrings to a book on their distinguished ancestors. I was absolutely amused by this.”
Jacob
"So, we did the same for Thomas, and then it transpired that he felt a bit sad putting all the clothes away, knowing it would be a long time before he got to wear them again.
“At which point Jacob said, ‘Oh well, we could do black tie every Saturday night instead?’
"Mary and I thought ‘woohoo’ as we loved dressing up and having fun. Thomas, who was initially enthusiastic, was probably the first to revert back to shorts and a hoodie.”
In another quirky affectation, the children are summoned to the table with a deafening dinner gong - struck by their father.
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Surprising favourite food
Caretaker Sean reveals that despite his posh background and penchant for formal attire, Jacob is not a fan of flashy food. The Rees-Moggs’ black tie dinner is more gammon and mash than caviar and foie gras.
Sean explains: “He doesn't like posh food, mind. Not a fan of vegetables or onions or anything like that. And he likes his puds. And he will also sit in the jelly and ice cream along with the kids.”
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And Jacob’s favourite lunch when on the campaign trail is a Greggs sandwich and one of their"delicious" chocolate eclairs.
But despite the down-to-earth meals, there are sacrifices to being a Mogglet. Instead of going go-karting with his friends, Anselm spent his 12th birthday at Boris Johnson’s 60th birthday party.
Helena says: “Not many children will spend their 12th birthday at the former prime minister's birthday party.”
And Anselm seemed to rather enjoy Boris's bash, saying: “It was really fun. Boris is so nice. He's very funny. When I was leaving they sang happy birthday, which was very kind, very nice of them.”
Given Jacob’s stance on issues like abortion - he is opposed to it even in cases of rape or incest - it is no wonder he often gets heckled on the street.
It’s improving but certainly pre-marriage I thought being 10 minutes late was not late at all. Now I’m more likely to be two minutes late rather than ten, so I am getting better.
Helena
But Helen says she’s used to it and it is all part and parcel of being a political wife.
She explains: “He chose to go into politics and to do so you need to have the hide of a rhino.
"Similarly, if you choose to share your life with someone who is in politics, you have to take the rough with the smooth. If you want a quiet life, marry a librarian!”
Punctuality row
But the couple clearly adore each other - despite disagreeing on Helena’s tardiness and Jacob’s obsession with being early rather than on time.
“It’s probably the fact that I am never on time,” says Helena.
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“It’s improving but certainly pre-marriage I thought being 10 minutes late was not late at all. Now I’m more likely to be two minutes late rather than ten, so I am getting better.”
Jacob adds: “Yes punctuality for me is a hereditary affliction. When my parents had just got engaged, my father was taking my mother down to Somerset to meet his parents.
"He made sure they got to Paddington station to catch the train before the one they needed to get.
"My mother thought, 'Who is this strange man that insists on getting unnecessarily early trains?’ I’m afraid I too am very much an ‘on-the-train-before’ type of person.”
To get a grip on what life would be like having a film crew Chez Rees-Mogg for months, the couple decided to settle down and watch another popular reality show featuring a huge brood of children - At Home with the Furys.
The life of the Gypsy King may seem unlikely viewing for the Rees-Moggs, but the show was made by the same production company and Jacob and Helena are now huge fans.
“It’s the only thing like that we’ve watched,” says Helena. “We certainly haven’t seen the Kardashians. Paris Fury is gorgeous.”
Jacob says: “I thought Mrs. Fury came across extremely well, as Helena does in this.”
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Helena adds: “She comes across much better, I’m sure. Certainly, hotter anyway.”
Meet The Rees-Moggs will stream from 2nd December on Discovery+.
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