John Gibson: Nancy and the laughing face here

Close as I ever got to the flesh-and-blood Francis Albert Sinatra, nestling up to his daughter Nancy. And here’s the photo, filched from the Gibcress File, an occasional series.

We met for a lunch party in Eric Milligan’s office in the City Chambers in 2002. Utterly charming, Nancy, whose boots were made for walking up the Chambers stairs, told me she had fallen in love with Edinburgh and that she’d want to return and bring her two mature daughters with her.

She also had a love affair with Elvis Presley (she starred alongside him in the forgettable film Speedway), but preferred not to talk about that.

Nancy, as I recall, wasn’t exactly enthralled hearing me say I was overawed seeing my reflection in her father’s shoes when he performed at Ibrox Stadium.

I remain a tedious Sinatra groupie. A lifelong hero.

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Larger than life. You’d think that Archerfield being his second home and all that golf he’d have shed a stone or two since I last met him.

Gerry D’Agostino barges in unexpectedly to Gordon’s High Street Trattoria blustering: “I’ve pledged £10,000 to charity if I ever go back to Easter Road. I’ll never go back.’’

We have to believe he has shredded his season ticket.

His big leisure pursuit is drowning his sorrow amid his old Hibs programmes at his first home in Marbella.