Puzzling end to blissful life
Peaches Geldof said she had the “perfect life” and had never been happier, just days before she was found dead, it has emerged.
The 25-year-old daughter of the singer and campaigner Sir Bob Geldof used what would be her final magazine column to describe how being a mother was “bliss”, insisting “right now, life is good”.
Her body was discovered at her home in Wrotham, Kent, on Monday in what police have described as “unexplained but non-suspicious circumstances”.
Speculation about her state of mind was initially triggered after it emerged that the night before she died she posted a picture online showing herself as a toddler in the arms of her late mother Paula Yates.
But friends insist she had found deep fulfilment in motherhood and was devoted to her two children.
Police officers with dogs spent hours yesterday searching as mystery continued to surround her death.
Her father arrived back in Britain from San Francisco where he had been speaking at a conference when he learnt of his daughter’s death.
Geldof’s older sister Fifi Trixibelle posted a picture of the pair together when they were young children with the message: “My beautiful baby sister … Gone but never forgotten. I love you Peaches x.”
Geldof’s final column, in Mother & Baby magazine, painted a picture of a happy young mother who had put her turbulent teenage years behind her.
She wrote: “I lived a life of wanton wanderlust. With fun-loving friends from Los Angeles to London, I was lost in a haze of youth and no responsibilities. Other than work, there was nothing stopping me from having constant fun.
“But it was becoming boring, I wanted an anchor – I craved it. And when I had two wailing, smiling, joyful little blobs of waddling pink flesh they became my entire existence and saved me from one of pure apathy.”
She went on: “Everything else was nothingness – I had the perfect life, two babies who loved me more than anything.
“It was and is bliss.”
A post mortem examination was due to be conducted today at the Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford.
But uncertainty about the cause of death has been increased by ongoing police activity at her home.
Yesterday, specialist search officers could be seen focusing on bags of rubbish which were taken to an outbuilding for closer examination.
A sniffer dog was also taken into the property.
Despite her sometimes brash public image, neighbours insisted Geldof had settled well into the community and would often visit a nearby play centre with her children.
Kimmy Milham, 30, who met her at a local nursery said: “Peaches was a wonderful person and a wonderful mother.
“It’s just tragic that her sons will grow up without a mother.
“Everybody at the nursery loved her, and we all admired the way she brought up her kids.
“She will always be in our hearts.”
In addition to her work as a magazine columnist, Geldof recently appeared as a contestant on BBC Sport Relief’s Top Dog, with her golden retriever Parper.
Ron Dyer, a dog trainer who worked with her on the show, described her as a “happy, healthy young mum”.
She had also been due to speak at a Women of Letters event tomorrow, reading her own piece on the subject: “A letter to the thing I wanted most of all”.
Geldof’s husband Thomas Cohen and her two sons were believed to be staying with Cohen’s family in New Eltham, southeast London.
After news of her death was announced, he said: “My beloved wife Peaches was adored by myself and her two sons Astala and Phaedra and I shall bring them up with their mother in their hearts every day. We shall love her forever.”
By Hannah Furness, Martin Evans
