Why HAS this 26-year-old beauty married 68-year-old Peter Stringfellow? And what did her father do when he found out?

By Natalie Clarke for MailOnline
Updated: 17:55 EDT, 6 March 2009

Convent educated, Royal Ballet dancer, daughter of a Home Counties accountant - her pedigree couldn't be more pukka. So how did Bella fall for Peter Stringfellow?

Mr and Mrs Stringfellow are curled up on a leopard-print sofa in their Spanish villa. Animal prints are the dominant theme of the interior design. Leopard-print cushions and rugs are scattered around the open-plan living space, a fake tiger throw - complete with head - is draped over a sofa and huge oil paintings of tigers and lions adorn the walls.

In a corner is a grand piano - the original Stringfellows piano at his London nightclub.

In short, this is exactly how I imagined Peter Stringfellow's house would be.

Peter and his wife, Bella, were married three weeks ago on Valentine's Day. The bride is 26, 42 years younger than her 68-year-old husband. So no surprises there, either.

Newlyweds: Peter and Bella Stringfellow married on Valentine's Day

Yet appearances can be deceptive. Mr Stringfellow would like to say something about his thong-wearing, cradle-snatching lothario image.

'Look, can we lay the ghost of the old Peter Stringfellow to rest, please? It was fun, it was a laugh, I played up to my cartoon character, but to be honest, I get a bit embarrassed by it all. The past is the past, let's just leave it there.

'I have married a woman who is stunningly beautiful and intelligent and gorgeous, and I am madly in love with her.

'I will be a good and faithful husband to her for the rest of my life. I want to make Bella happy. I will not let her down. I have met the love of my life.

'Up until I met Bella, exclusivity had not been part of my life. But that has all changed. The old Peter Stringfellow is gone and Bella and I are looking forward to a wonderful future together.'

Is this proof, then, that a leopard can change its (leopard-print) spots? It certainly seems so.

The young lady who has tamed the untameable is indeed a stunner, half-Italian on her mother's side, with lustrous hair and peachy skin to die for.

Until now, Bella has turned down all requests for interviews, so with no insight into her character forthcoming, she found herself typecast in the role of another of Peter's trophy girlfriends.

Stringfellow seems quite a fan of leopard print

She met him at his eponymous nightclub, which seemed to confirm the stereotype. So here's another surprise. Bella is a convent school-educated, classically trained ballerina, who went to Stringfellows nightclub one night with some of the other dancers to wind down after a performance in The Nutcracker at the Coliseum nearby.

At the time, she had never had a boyfriend. But then Stringfellow sent a bottle of champagne to Bella's table and came over to introduce himself.

Eight years on, the pair have finally wed. They were married by an Anglican priest on February 14 in a sugar mill on Barbados. After drinks on the beach, they held a reception in a luxury villa.

The bride wore an off-white sleeveless Amanda Wakeley dress, while the groom wore off-white Versace.

It is Bella's first marriage and Stringfellow's third. His first marriage was in 1960 - 22 years before Bella was born. This time, it was a small affair, with just their closest friends and family - 26 guests in total - present.

They included Stringfellow's 43-year-old daughter, Karen, from his first marriage to Norma, and Scott, 41, from his second marriage to Coral.

Bella's family were also there, her brother and sister and her mother, Graziella, 60, and 71-year-old father, Neil, a retired chartered accountant.

Today, Peter and his father-in-law are great friends, but at the outset, it took some time for Bella's father to welcome her 'boyfriend' into the family.

'The wedding was like a fairytale - only better,' says Bella, who is clearly as besotted with Peter as he is with her. 'When we went to the beach, there was a beautiful pink sunset, it really was so romantic. We didn't want all the stress of a big do, we wanted the people closest to us around us and for it to be informal. It was a magical day.

'Peter and I are so close, so happy. I don't notice the age gap at all. I wish people wouldn't make an issue of it.'

After honeymooning in Barbados, the newlyweds have returned to their villa outside Palma, Majorca.

Outside, there is a swimming pool, luxuriant plants and - at the bottom of the garden - the chicken house which is home to their three chickens. Stringfellow loves his chickens. 'They are very spoilt,' he admits. 'They have this very smart home in the garden and Bella and I go to the supermarket for them and fill our trolley with corn.

'I would say each egg they lay costs us 25 euros, but they are delicious eggs. Egg on toast - you can't beat it.'

Bella is looking at Peter adoringly. She is blessed with a disarmingly sweet and sunny nature and is unlike the hard-bitten opportunists one imagines might seek out Stringfellow.

She even agrees with his choice of decor. 'It's funny, but as a child I had an obsession with Siberian tigers and had pictures of them on my walls.' Leopard-print aside, Stringfellow doesn't resemble the caricature who has featured in the redtops for nearly 30 years.

Pole dancer Lucy Carr, one of Stringfellow's former girlfriends

He is more serious than you might expect, and says that in Majorca he enjoys the simple pleasures of life. Cooking for Bella, feeding his chickens and going for walks with the two dogs, Rocky, a pint-size Yorkshire terrier, and Cindy the chihuahua.

And he's not wearing a thong. 'I only wore the thong that time because I wanted an all-over tan. What got to me most was that it was a c**p picture of me.'

Settling into married life, the newlyweds are planning their future. Stringfellow, who has two nightclubs in London and one in Paris, has no intention of scaling down his business. Bella is to be executive editor of a new in-house magazine for club members that Stringfellow is launching. Are they considering having children? 'Well, I would like them,' says Bella, 'I think in a couple of years it will be the right time.'

And Peter? Is he ready yet? 'If Bella wants a child, then I would love to have one with her. I am thinking more of a child rather than children. And we will have to have three nannies.'

They have addressed the obvious question in a relationship with a 42-year age gap. Peter says. 'If things go according to their natural course, then I will go first and Bella will still be a stunning woman. She must move on and have a life.'

At this, Bella looks upset and interrupts: 'No, no, I won't, I won't have a life, absolutely not,' and wraps her arms around him.

When Stringfellow and Bella met eight years ago, Bella's life revolved around ballet. At 11, she was offered a scholarship at White Lodge in Richmond Park, Surrey, home to the Royal Ballet School, but turned it down.

'I am close to my family,' says Bella, 'and we all felt I was too young to leave home and live at the school.'

But after leaving her convent school, close to the family home near Reading, Bella began her training with the Royal Ballet School.

She met the ballet star Carlos Acosta, and he asked her on a date. 'I turned him down. He had a reputation with women, which I suppose seems funny now, being with Peter.'

While still a student, she was chosen to join the Royal Ballet and appeared on stage at the Royal Opera House in London. When she walked into Stringfellows eight years ago, she was a member of the English National Ballet.

Stringfellow, the son of a steel worker from Sheffield, is a workingclassboy made good. After opening his first nightclub, the Black Cat, in Sheffield in 1962, he had come to London to seek his fortune and, in 1980, he opened Stringfellows.

The flamboyant 'king of clubs' gives evidence to a parliamentary committee investigating the licensing of lapdance clubs

Over the years, the name Stringfellow was to become synonymous with nightclubs - and women who grew younger as he grew older. So the match between the young ballerina and the much older lothario was not one that looked promising on paper.

But Bella says she and Peter 'clicked instantly'. 'I was very impressed by Peter's knowledge of ballet,' she says.

Peter recalls: 'Luckily, I had seen a charity performance of The Nutcracker, so I was able to give the impression that I knew something about ballet.

'I was fascinated by Bella - she was unlike anyone I'd ever met. I was attracted by the fact she was so passionate about ballet.' They discovered they were going to be in Paris at the same time a couple of weeks later, so Stringfellow invited her to dinner at his club there.

No, it wasn't what you're thinking. 'I made Peter wait three months before there was anything like that,' says Bella. 'He was my first.'

At the time, Peter was in another relationship - 'let's not go there,' he says - and so with Bella it was on and off.

But in 2004, the relationship became 'exclusive'.

'We fell in love slowly and we reached the point when it felt right and we knew this was it,' says Peter.

And how did Bella feel about Peter? 'It felt very natural,' she says. And he is a very attractive man. I love his shoulders and his chest.' But how does a 20-something daughter tackle the problem of bringing Peter Stringfellow home to meet the parents? Bella wrestled with this one. She found the courage to confide in her mother, but was correct in thinking that her father would not approve. In the end, he found out by accident. One night, Stringfellow was in Majorca while Bella was at home in Reading.

Stringfellow had had one too many and slipped over in the middle of the night after going to the fridge to get another glass of Vina Sol. When he fell, he dislocated his shoulder, but he managed to call Bella on his mobile.

The next day, Bella could not resist blurting out to her father that her boyfriend had dislocated his shoulder. Then later that evening, the family were watching Sky News when an item came on about Peter Stringfellow dislocating his shoulder.

'There was silence and then my dad said: "Your boyfriend had better not be Peter Stringfellow." I had to own up - my dad was shocked, he is very old-fashioned.'

For a year, he refused Bella's pleas to meet the man. But finally, a night out was arranged. Peter took Bella and her parents to the Cirque du Soleil and then dinner in London.

Bella says: 'They got on well once my dad saw Peter was not the kind of character he believed him to be.'

Peter proposed on February 14, 2005 and asked Neil for his daughter's hand in marriage. 'He said he was happy for me to do so and that I must look after her,' says Peter.

After dinner, Peter proposed. 'He said he had a present for me,' says Bella. 'It was a diamond and gold necklace, and there was another box with matching earrings.

'I had no idea that it was an engagement ring. When I saw it I cried and my mum cried and Peter cried.'

They decided to wait before they married, because both wanted to be sure they were compatible living together. Bella moved into the villa in Majorca and they settled into a routine, dividing their time between Majorca and London.

By now, Bella had walked away from her ballet career. What made her do it after all those years of work?

'I had issues with the company. There was a lot of pressure to stay very thin which I didn't agree with.'

Did Bella ever worry about Peter's lothario image?

She says: 'I didn't like reading about his past in the papers. I felt it was disrespectful to me.

Stringfellow, a Tory, would often take Bella to Conservative functions. Once, they bumped into Lady Thatcher.

'She was such a lovely lady,' says Bella. 'She said to Peter: "When are you going to make an honest woman of your lady?"'

Well, now it is official. And the leopard who changed his spots and his ballerina bride could not be happier, proof of the eternal mystery of the ways of love.