Royalty helps celebrate Billy's 60th

Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles were among 200 guests celebrating Billy Connolly's 60th birthday at the weekend.

The star-studded guest list also included the Duke and Duchess of York, as well as showbiz royalty including Ewan McGregor, Michael Parkinson and Dame Judi Dench.

Sir Bob Geldof, Steve Martin and Robin Williams also descended on Connolly's Aberdeenshire mansion Candacraig House for the bash.

The Big Yin is not 60 until November but always celebrates his birthday during his summer stay in the Highlands.

Billy and wife Pamela Stephenson bought the 15-bedroom house - 16 miles from Balmoral - from Body Shop founder Anita Roddick in 1998.

Stephenson commissioned a 5ft-high ice sculpture of her husband's favourite Harley Davidson trike for the centrepiece of the banquet.

The menu, in the shape of Connolly's trademark banana boots, offered black pudding, haggis timbales, salmon and roast guinea fowl.

The mansion was decked out in three-quarters of a mile of tartan ordered from a Bradford mill at a cost of £7,200 - about a tenth the price of the real thing from a Scottish firm.

Published: 19 Aug 2002