She was once the glamorous brunette whose lover, the notorious John Stonehouse MP, scandalised Westminster.
The former Labour cabinet minister faked his own death and was jailed for seven years for fraud, but his loyal secretary-turned-wife Sheila Buckley stood by him to the end.
More than 40 years on, Ms Buckley, now 80, cuts a very different figure in the secluded cul-de-sac where she now lives a sedate life, pruning her roses and helping clients with their tax returns.
Her auburn locks have been replaced by grey and there is little hint of the sparkle in the green eyes that once captivated Stonehouse, the subject of two new biographies, who, despite being 21 years her senior, embarked on a torrid affair with her when she was working as his parliamentary secretary in the 1970s.
John Stonehouse's mistress Sheila Buckley is pictured today (left) some 47 years after she was at the centre of the rogue MP's spectacular downfall when he faked his own death. Ms Buckley (right) was Stonehouse's brunette secretary, 21 years his junior, when they had an affair
Stonehouse and Buckley, pictured here together alone, fell for each other when the philandering MP comforted his pretty secretary when she was divorcing her first husband
In one of the most astonishing scandals in British history, former Postmaster General Stonehouse went on the run when a string of crooked business deals finally caught up with him.
He left a pile of clothes on a hotel beach in Miami to fake his own death in 1974. Assuming he'd drowned or been attacked by a shark, the great and the good paid tribute to him in fulsome obituaries published in London.
In fact, Stonehouse had prepared the escape from his old life down to the tiniest detail, leaving a fake passport, money and luggage at a neighbouring hotel, and was on a flight to Australia before the alarm was raised.
In a trick borrowed from Frederick Forsyth's Day of the Jackal, he obtained fake passports using birth certificates of two dead constituents and wired himself money in their names in Australia as he embarked on a new life.
Stonehouse planned to leave his wife and start a new life with Sheila (pictured together)
Within a fortnight he was caught due to a suspicious Melbourne bank teller (and initially suspected of being the fugitive Lord Lucan, who had disappeared a fortnight earlier).
He was then extradited to Britain, all the while continuing to serve as one of Parliament's most colourful members. Stonehouse didn't submit a resignation until after he was convicted of theft, fraud and deception and jailed for seven years. He died of a heart attack in 1988 aged 62.
For Ms Buckley, then a 22-year-old ingenue impressed by her dashing boss, Stonehouse was not just her mentor, but also a shoulder to cry on after she discovered her husband had cheated on her and began divorce proceedings.
Despite the age gap and Stonehouse's frequent philandering, she fell in love with him and married him in 1981 after he divorced his wife Barbara. Their son James was born a year later and still visits her regularly at her 1980s red-brick home, running errands and bringing her shopping.
Few of those in the neighbourhood where she has lived for decades know of her complicated past.
She spends her days gardening with a partner who does not live with her and working from home as a chartered accountant.
But one of the most scandalous episodes in British political history is about to be excavated as two of Stonehouse's family members have written books about the events leading to his capture and imprisonment.
After he was caught, Stonehouse phoned his wife to tell her that he was in fact, not dead. 'Pressures became far too great. It was just impossible,' he told her, according to great nephew Julian Hayes, the author of Stonehouse: Cabinet Minister, Fraudster and Spy. He then incredibly asked his wife Barbara if both she and Sheila could come out to Australia.
Stonehouse married his first wife Barbara when he was 23. The couple had two daughters ands a son. He relied on his wife's calmness and strength that enabled him to rise in politics
