Ronald Phillips obituary: eccentric antiques dealer trusted by royalty

The Times | 3 May 2026

Ronald Phillips never planned on dying, claiming he would live for ever. Even an Evening Standard cartoonist’s illustration of Ron (his preferred name) fishing an antique out of a swimming pool read “Ronald Phillips 5th February 1929 ad infinitum.” Now, if you walk down Mayfair’s Bruton Street, a photograph of Phillips — a man who used regularly to greet his own reflection in the mirror with, “By Jove, you’re good-looking” — sits in the window of his eponymous gallery.

• Caroline’s Life,
• Culture

We’re the lucky ones. We’re alive. But nothing will ever be the same

YOU Magazine | 19 Mar 2026

Sunday 14 December. It’s a perfect afternoon: sun, sand, surfers. I’m in Sydney visiting my two Londoner daughters who are here living the Australian dream. My 28-year-old, Ella, is at the beach with friends; her elder sister Anya, 30, is out with her boyfriend. So I go for a swim alone at the iconic oceanside pool, Icebergs. Afterwards I stroll along Bondi Beach photographing women celebrating Christmas around their tiny tree. Nearby, I hear firecrackers.

• Caroline’s Life,
• Current Affairs

Instead of hitting the therapist’s couch, we hit the road

YOU Magazine | 25 Sep 2025

My life is currently as challenging as a long-haul budget flight full of stag-party revellers, hope mislaid like lost luggage. The reason? My marriage is over after nearly three decades. But I can’t move on because Mr Almost-Ex and I are stuck – emotionally jet-lagged – in life’s transit lounge, still under the same roof nearly two years after agreeing to divorce. Our house isn’t selling and neither of us wants to move out. What better time for some ‘wanderhealing?

• Health, Beauty & Spa,
• Travel: Americas

My first attempt at stand-up comedy … aged 64

The Times | 15 Jan 2024

I am onstage in front of 65 strangers who think I’m a stand-up comedian. I’ve never done anything like this before. Why have I agreed to expose myself to cracking jokes solo in public when I’d rather eat my own prostate, if I had one, or face the Covid-19 inquiry naked? I fear stage fright, hecklers and farting near the mike.

• Caroline’s Life

Soukya: the Bangalore health retreat drawing a starry clientele — and interest from the NHS

FT Weekend | 29 Apr 2018

I am lying on a wooden massage bed as two women rub my naked body with hot pouches of cooked rice, milk and medicinal herbs. They massage in tandem my legs, hip joints and up to my neck. A little gloop escapes the poultice bags each time and soon my body is covered with a gluey white residue. This is navarakizhi, a treatment claimed to reduce joint stiffness and relieve depression.

I’m at Soukya, a health retreat outside Bangalore that offers traditional Indian cures for conditions from hay fever to diabetes and strives to “restore the natural balance of your mind, body and spirit”.

• Health, Beauty & Spa,
• Travel: Asia/ Oceania

Sun, sea, sand and a spell of humanitarian intervention

The Sunday Times | 7 Sep 2014

As we stepped off the Dodekanisos Pride ferry onto the Greek island of Symi for our late August beach holiday, our thoughts were on sunbathing and sailing. But our first sight was of 48 dispossessed Syrians carrying backpacks containing their worldly possessions. Within a week their numbers had grown to more than 200 and we could ignore their misery no longer.

Spending our last four days among them, we came across a septuagenarian with facial gashes who sat bleeding in 30C heat waiting for a doctor, as he had for 10 hours. He had hit his face against rocks when the Greek port police fired a shot in the air.

• Current Affairs

Abortion of the Healthy Twin

The Sunday Express | 4 Aug 1996

Professor Phillip Bennett faces a dilemma. His patient, 16 weeks pregnant, is carrying healthy twins and cannot abide the prospect of having two children. She says she couldn’t cope.

She has told Mr Bennett, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at London’s Queen Charlotte’s Hospital, that if she were carrying just one baby, she would continue her pregnancy.

• Awards/ Nominations,
• Current Affairs

Spy Hunters

YOU Magazine | 3 Aug 1986

In a Regency house just off the Mall, a man wearing an MCC tie sits behind an enormous mahogony desk. On the other side of the desk is a navy-suited strawberry blonde. Suffice to say her name is Camilla.

The man questions her about her hobbies, and Camilla answers easily enough. Then he suddenly slips in a question about Middle Eastern politics. His manner remains relaxed but emotionless, but Camilla is unnerved, sensing a menacing undercurrent.

• Awards/ Nominations,
• Current Affairs

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Real Life

Cosmopolitan | 1 Jan 1983

Finalist, Cosmopolitan New Journalists Competition

• Awards/ Nominations

Ash boarding in Nicaragua

The Week | 12 Dec 2015

For a country the size of England, Nicaragua has more than its fair share of volcanoes, says Caroline Phillips in The Independent.

• Travel: Americas

A secret Greek island

The Week | 22 Feb 2014

It has been attracting attention from the rich and famous lately, but the lush and beautiful Greek island of Meganisi is still “firmly off the tourist radar”, says Caroline Phillips in The Times. Part of the Ionian archipelago, just off the country’s west coast, it feels lost in time, with patchy mobile reception and a population of just 1200, none of whom locks their house or car.

• Travel: Europe/ Africa

He’s 60. She’s 33 and pregnant by another man. Why is Richard Ingrams thinking of death?

The Express | 27 Sep 1997

Richard Ingrams, former editor of Private Eye, looks away as he shakes my hand. He’s imposingly tall and wearing his habitual cords, a jumper full of holes and undone laces.

• Interviews

A bully? Well, ‘Piranha Teeth’ did hit a few drug dealers

The Express | 25 Apr 1997

The chairman, a rubicund man with a gale-force voice and peeling nose, shakes my hand and runs off. A minute later he sprints past again. “It’s to do with tourism”, he’s bellowing to the minion scuttling behind him. He’s Sir Jocelyn Stevens, chairman of English Heritage, reputedly a monster and one whose nicknames are Piranha Teeth and Terminator 3.

• Interviews