On Father’s Day last weekend, Holly Ramsay-Peaty penned a gushing and very public tribute to the two most significant men in her life.
To her husband, Olympic swimmer Adam Peaty, or Adam Ramsay-Peaty as he is now known, the man with whom she recently announced she is expecting a daughter, she wrote: ‘Happy Father’s Day ARP you are the best dad ever and I can’t wait to see you as a girl dad.
‘Our little lady & George are so lucky to have you x we love you so much.’
George, of course, is Adam’s son, five, from his previous relationship with Welsh artist Eirianedd Munro. Then, to her own father, chef Gordon Ramsay, Holly, 26, declared: ‘Happy Father’s Day Dad, you are the best ever and we are so lucky to have you. I love you.’
Along with a montage of images taken on her wedding day – ethereal bride and doting father – she added the postscript, ‘I can’t wait to see you become a grandad,’ ending with an emoji of a face holding back tears and a star.
The joyful words were shared amid the bubbling anticipation and nervous excitement of a first baby together, as revealed in synchronised posts by Holly and Adam a day earlier.
Moments of delight such as this are the glue that draw families closer together.
And yet, in the lives of the Ramsay-Peatys, this joy is overshadowed by an impossibly sad divide: the chasm that remains between triple Olympic champion Adam, 31, and his own devoted parents Mark and Caroline Peaty, who were his fiercest supporters as he strove to achieve his sporting dreams.
Holly Ramsay-Peaty wrote of her husband Adam: ‘Happy Father’s Day ARP you are the best dad ever and I can’t wait to see you as a girl dad’
There is still a chasm between Adam and his mother Caroline (centre), who was a fierce supporter in helping her son achieve his sporting dreams (pictured with Holly)
Holly wrote of her father, Gordon Ramsay: ‘Happy Father’s Day Dad, you are the best ever and we are so lucky to have you. I love you’
For not only did this stalwart, hardworking couple, from Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, have to suffer the ignominy of receiving the happy news by ‘a very formal text’ they’ve also, as the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal, been effectively cut from their beloved grandson, George’s, life.
They’ve been banned from seeing the little boy, on whom they dote, for the last six months, according to a family source, as Adam spitefully ‘inflicts the ultimate hurt on his mother’.
The blow has cut deep, claims the source, with grandmother Caroline said to be ‘completely devastated’.
Needless to say, there was no gushing Father’s Day message for Mark, 65, last weekend, nor was there one for Caroline, 60, on Mother’s Day in March.
As readers will doubtless recall, the relationship between Adam, who holds two swimming world records, and his parents was torn apart in the wake of an extraordinary family bust-up that exploded into the public arena in the run up to Adam and Holly’s glossy wedding at Bath’s historic abbey on December 27 last year.
It began when Caroline was not invited to Holly’s hen-do, at exclusive Soho Farmhouse, in Oxfordshire, in November.
Angry public exchanges ensued in the wake of the snub, with shock claims on each side about the fallout – including allegations that Holly and Adam had vetoed Caroline’s wedding outfit.
Photographs of the hen-do gathering – notably including the bride-to-be’s mother, Tana Ramsay, and her good friend Victoria Beckham, among others – were posted on Instagram.
But Caroline was at home, ironically looking after grandson George, while Adam was enjoying his stag do in Budapest, Hungary.
We sat with Caroline Peaty, a former nursery manager, as she tearfully told us the rift with her son had caused a hurt so deep it was as if her heart had been torn from her chest.
Again and again she spoke of the importance of family.
‘All I want to do is support people, help them,’ she said. ‘I want people to be happy, not to go through life arguing and disliking each other. All I want is my family to be happy.’
In the furore, Caroline was told, via a message, that she was no longer invited to the wedding, and also, in a particularly nasty side swipe, that she would not be seeing George or ‘any future grandchildren’ either.
And so it was that neither Caroline or Mark, nor Adam’s two brothers, his aunts or his elderly grandmother – Mavis Williams, who went viral as the very proud ‘#OlympicNan’ during the 2016 Rio Olympics – attended the wedding.
Adam’s sister Bethany was the sole Peaty family presence, making a very elegant bridesmaid alongside Holly’s sisters Tilly, an aspiring chef, and Megan, a policewoman.
Now, it seems, the second part of that heated message is coming to pass.
Caroline has been trying so hard to find her way back from the agonising lows to which this rift has taken her. A mother-of-four – Adam being her youngest – she has always been a very active and supportive grandma to her seven grandchildren.
Most of them live near the family home, from where she would ferry Adam on his regular trips to Derby for training twice a day – 40 minutes there, two hours in the pool and another 40 minutes back.
George lives in Wales with mum Eiri but, prior to the fall-out, would regularly stay with Caroline and Mark. Adam’s older brother Rich and sister Bethany have two children each, as do his other brother Jamie and wife Charlotte. How joyful things should be.
In normal circumstances Adam and Holly’s little girl, due in December, would be excitedly welcomed into the large, loving Peaty clan, with all her cousins lining up to hold her while her big brother proudly looks on.
Now, whether they’ll ever meet at all remains doubtful.
Caroline shared with us last year the joy she always felt in organising a Christmas party for ‘all the grandchildren’.
Now one can only imagine the strength it must be taking to steel herself for the absences that may yet come.
‘No one is stopping you from seeing George,’ Eiri, a kind, gentle young woman, reassured Caroline last November.
What could have happened to change all that?
Needless to say, there was no gushing Father’s Day message for Mark, 65, last weekend, nor was there one for Caroline, 60, on Mother’s Day in March (both pictured with Adam)
The Ramsay family attend the launch of Netflix’s Being Gordon Ramsay (L-R: Adam Peaty, Holly, Tana, Oscar and Tilly Ramsay – and her boyfriend Henry Farrow)
There are mutterings from a family source that Adam may have requested that George is no longer to see his grandparents.
‘He’s inflicting the ultimate hurt on his mother,’ says our angry source.
‘Caroline is one of life’s few decent people,’ the insider adds. ‘She would help anyone but family is her priority.
‘[She] has her own health issues but despite this she keeps going. She cares for her elderly mum, her family and wider family.’ But, it is Caroline’s grandchildren, says the source, that are ‘her reason for being’.
‘Adam took that from her and broke her in the process.’
Caroline is so keen to maintain a relationship with George that some say she’d like to initiate court proceedings to fight for the right to see the little boy, who as a cherubic blond-haired three-year-old, joined her and Holly in the stands as they all cheered on Adam at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Whether Caroline would ever take that route is, of course, unclear. Grandparents do not have an automatic right to access to grandchildren, although they can apply for a Child Arrangement Order via the Family Courts – a drawn out, emotionally draining and ultimately costly process. And Caroline and Mark are not a wealthy couple.
Caroline did not want to talk about the rift this week and even at the height of the row late last year was measured and maternal.
‘No matter what happens in the future please know I love you,’ she said in a message to her son.
‘I don’t wish any ill on you and I want you and Holly to have a long and happy marriage, like your dad and me.’
It’s all so very sad, especially as the Peatys want very much to be happy about the baby news.
‘The family are all over the moon for Holly and Adam because we knew how much she wanted a child. She was so good with George,’ says the family source.
Wistful words, because they also add: ‘The rift shows no sign of healing, it is beyond healing. Caroline is devastated, Adam’s actions are cruel, very unfair and self-centred.’
And what of Eiri in all this?
She and Adam split in 2022, three years after meeting while he was training at Loughborough University, where she was studying art.
Adam announced the split on Instagram, which has become the medium by which his various life announcements take place, declaring: ‘Eiri and I have decided to go our separate ways.
‘We have enjoyed a wonderful three years together, two of those with our gorgeous son George,’ before complimenting Eiri and adding, cryptically: ‘Eiri and George, I’m sorry for letting you down.’ There then followed a tumultuous period for Adam, who has spoken of ‘three years of hell’ in which he withdrew from competitive swimming due to a breakdown fuelled by depression, anxiety, heavy drinking, and ADHD.
The Olympian has been frank about his troubles, ascribing much of his recovery to his newfound Christian faith – he started going to church and has a tattoo of a cross with the words ‘into the light’ inked on his abdomen.
Holly too has been frank about her own struggles, having been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for three months when she was 18 after a sexual assault. She was diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety and depression, later giving up alcohol.
There is no doubt that this pair have a deep bond.
Eiri, ever diplomatic, has said little about her split from Adam, who is preparing to compete in the Commonwealth Games this summer.
Asked about her son and contact with his Peaty grandmother this week, she said: ‘I cannot comment. I am a very private person.’
However, she did say: ‘I have a very good relationship with Caroline. I am very fond of her.’ All very curious.
What is in no doubt is the strength of the welcome baby Ramsay-Peaty has waiting in the shape of her mother’s family, the Ramsay clan.
Chef Gordon, who has taken Adam under his wing, has shared his excitement at becoming a grandfather for the first time.
‘Congratulations to you both sending lots of love, Dad,’ he wrote in response to the couple’s baby announcement.
In Staffordshire, another Dad and another Mum can only watch and wonder if they will ever have opportunity to meet the little girl soon to take the Peaty name.
