[Bells]

At 75 years of age, Angela McKimm's romantic adventures were behind her. Or so her family assumed.

So imagine their shock when the respectable grandmother installed an African boyfriend 50 years her junior in her £1 million home.

That was nothing to the uproar after Mrs McKimm's granddaughter revealed intimate details of the affair in a national newspaper.

A source close to Mrs McKimm's family said she was "absolutely livid".

Mrs McKimm, who has four sons and nine grandchildren, told the source: "Without a doubt my reputation has been destroyed and sadly it has been by my granddaughter.

"The distress this has caused me is more than I can put into words at this time."

Mrs McKimm and her husband David, a Royal Navy officer, had enjoyed travelling to developing countries, and after he died in 1996, she continued her trips.

She met her "companion", known only as Tosin, three years ago while on holiday in Gambia, where many British women of a certain age have affairs with considerably younger suitors.

After a lengthy legal battle, the couple are now sharing her eight-bedroomed home in the picturesque village of Buriton, near Petersfield, Hampshire.

Earlier this week Mrs McKimm's 19-year- old granddaughter, Sophie, wrote an article in the Guardian newspaper, in which she said: "I wouldn't call what Grandma and Tosin have love. I'd say it was an agreement of companionship.

"She says it's only society that has made the age gap wrong but I know I wouldn't find a man of 69 attractive, or consider having sexual intercourse with him.

"The relationship certainly isn't conventional and it has ruined the portrait we have of ourselves as a typical middle-class family - but who wants to fit the government specification?"

Writing about how her grandmother fell for Tosin, who lived with his family in a cramped village hut, Sophie said she met him as she walked through a market where he had a stall selling carpentry goods.

"His first words to her were, 'You are beautiful, Miss'.

"Her 5ft 8in slim shape, immaculate dress and straight mid-length white hair made her a head-turner.

"They spent the day together walking, talking and laughing. The next day she flew back to Britain."

"When she came back she seemed so happy.

"She seemed to have got back some of her youthful spirit."

Mrs McKimm returned two years ago, and the pair hit it off again.

She then made repeated visits to Gambia during the convoluted legal proceedings - including several appearances at the High Court -to allow him to come to the UK.

Describing their life together, Sophie said: "Weekday mornings she takes him to the course on which she has enrolled him. The afternoons are taken up with educational trips.

"Friday is spent at the mosque, the evenings in front of the TV, her correcting his grammar or teaching him how to cook.

"In return, she has someone to eat breakfast with, someone to turn off the light at night.

"They are both gaining from what the other provides."

Sophie added in her piece: "What I do know is that my grandma, who still daily visits my grandpa's grave, is happy for the first time in ten years."

Tosin - who has taken a job at a nearby McDonald's restaurant - spoke for the first time as he leant out of an upstairs window of Mrs McKimm's home to smoke.

Speaking softly, he said: "She is very upset. And I don't have anyone to talk to about this."

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk