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Edward and Sophie send bizarre Christmas card - featuring the tycoon who offered them a trip to St Moritz
Last updated at 18:52pm on 23.12.07It seems an unusual picture to send out to celebrate the festive season especially as - in the midst of all the skis, snow and sunglasses - their faces are tricky to pick out.
Yet this is the image the Earl and Countess of Wessex have chosen for this year's Christmas card to their family and friends.
Prince Edward, 43, and his wife Sophie, 42, are pictured standing alongside their acquaintance, tycoon Sir John Ritblat.
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The Countess of Wessex' Christmas card this year: Pictured in the centre, Sophie and Edward, with Sir John Ritbiat, circled, and British skiers
In February 2003, Ritblat, the 72-year-old president of the British Ski and Snowboard Federation, offered the royal couple an allexpenses-paid trip to upmarket Swiss ski resort St Moritz in return for their patronage of the organisation.
And the friendship seems to have gone from strength to strength, as the card shows. It features the trio posing with the British ski teams, including Paralympic competitors, at the National Ski Championships in Meribel, France, in March.
Sir John said last night: "It's very nice that Edward has chosen to use this photograph but I don't think they have chosen it on my account. It's nothing to do with me.
"I certainly know the Prince. As a patron he has been so helpful in British skiing and we need all the help we can get.
"He is very good at turning up, presenting prizes and all the things that need doing."
A source said: "Edward and Sophie usually use a family photograph, although they once used a picture of the Northern Ballet, whom they sponsor."
Ritblat netted £56.5million when he sold his shares and retired as the chairman of British Land, the country's second largest property company, last November.
A dentist's son, he left school at 16, had become a millionaire by the age of 33 through his property company Conrad Ritblat and became chairman of British Land in 1970.
A keen skier and golfer, he has a mansion in Regent's Park, London, and two holiday homes.
He is known as a devoted father to his three children, Nicholas, Suki and James, now all in their 40s. Their mother, Isabel, died in 1979.
Ritblat's second wife Jill, 65, is a former barrister.
• Edward is planning to fly Sophie, daughter Louise, four, and newborn son James to Sandringham tomorrow to celebrate Christmas Day with the Queen. A nurse will accompany Sophie and week-old James on the private helicopter taking them from their home in Surrey to the Norfolk estate.
