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Countess Spencer is claiming around £2 million in damages from her former firm of solicitors which represented her at what she…

Countess Spencer is claiming around £2 million in damages from her former firm of solicitors which represented her at what she describes as "one of the most public divorce hearings ever recorded".

The 32-year-old former model, who was married to Earl Spencer (33), brother of Princess Diana, and bore him four children, has issued the writ in the High Court in London against the Family Law Consortium.

The London solicitors represented her at last month's hearing in Cape Town when she won a £1,815,000 settlement after her husband sued for divorce.

The television presenter and author Melvyn Bragg has described how the leaders of Britain's six main religions revealed their beliefs and doubts to him for a TV series.

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"What I found very surprising was the similar problems they each face, like how to interest young people in their faith," he said. He talked intimately to one leader for each of the six half-hour programmes in the series Faith In Our Time.

The South Bank Show presenter said he believed religion was given a raw deal on television. He has been talking to Archbishop George Carey of Canterbury, Cardinal Basil Hume, the Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, Dr Zaki Badawi of the Muslim College in London, the Rev Joel Ed- wards of the Evangelical Alliance, and Mr Indarjit Singh of the Network of Sikh Organisations.

Former Tory MP Edwina Currie (52) is in training for a gruelling desert bicycle ride in aid of charity. The 350 km sponsored ride will be through the Judean desert in Israel and the West Bank.

Mrs Currie's five-day trip starts next month on St Valentine's Day. The novelist and ex-Derbyshire South MP will be one of about 100 riders raising money for Mencap, the charity for people with learning difficulties and their families.

"I look like a Valkyrie on my bike," she said. "I look absolutely wild."

The group will sleep at night in Bedouin tents. "I have promised my daughters that if I find a nice Bedouin sheik I probably won't come home," laughed Mrs Currie, who is separated from her husband.