As she travels around the Indian resort, she attracts barely a second glance from the British tourists.
And the woman who was once famously pictured stepping out of a limousine in the company of then Tory minister Colin Moynihan, is today travelling alone in a small white Suzuki runaround.
But that is exactly how Pamela Singh likes it.
If the name is unfamiliar, you might know her better as Pamella Bordes, the former Miss India who 21 years ago was on the front page of every newspaper after being exposed as a secret £500-a-night prostitute.
She had been known in the diary columns as an habitue of exclusive nightclubs, and social companion of then-Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil, his rival editor at The Observer Donald Trelford, and of junior minister Mr (now Lord) Moynihan.
It was then discovered that she was moonlighting as a ‘high class’ call girl while enjoying the perk of a researcher’s security pass for the Commons arranged by MPs David Shaw and Henry Bellingham.
The scandal increased after the Daily Mail revealed her association with a Libyan official named Ahmed Gadaff Al Daim, raising worrying security issues.
Ironically, when the furore died down, Miss Singh, now 49, went from being pursued by the world’s media to working as a successful photojournalist in Africa, South-East Asia and India.
But for the last five years – as she admitted to a friend last week – she hasn’t worked at all. She is understood to be surviving on her earnings from photography thanks to the low cost of living in Goa.
Although her family is wealthy, she long ago fell out with her mother.
According to a close friend, Miss Singh has erased her past. She has not only resumed her maiden name – her husband was long ago divorced – but dropped the extra L from her first name.
‘Nobody knows her as Pamella Bordes now,’ said the friend. ‘People like me know about her past but I am in the minority. Pam has built a new circle of friends who are generally much younger than her, so there is even less chance of them remembering.’
She has been staying in Goa – a part of India which has traditionally been a haven for hippies and dope dealers but is now a growing favourite of British tourists – for a few months while apparently readying herself for the climbing season.
She prides herself on her fitness and is a member of the Himalayas Climbing Club. Indeed, the majority of her friends are climbers.
Her home in a fishing village in Goa is a two-bedroomed apartment she rents from a friend.
Mornings are spent attending a trendy yoga and pilates centre in nearby Anjuna and she whiles away the afternoons reading beside the communal pool.
She has bemoaned to friends the lack of ‘a man in shining armour’.
And instead of waltzing around nightspots on the arm of a wealthy man, she now amuses herself by collecting rare books, and posting messages to her new friends on Facebook.
Asked yesterday if she would discuss her life now, Miss Singh said: ‘I am sorry. I cannot speak to you.’
But in a rare interview 14 years ago, she explained her simple philosophy after her time in the spotlight.
‘I don’t want much in life,’ she said. ‘After a while you have seen it all.’
This post has been commented once
1
January 12th, 2012 at 11:09 pmaron says:
deserving candidate for BIG BOSS SEASON 6. bring her on and you ll have another hit season.