Relations: Inside Mrs Mugabe's Mills'n'Doom romance

Robert Mugabe with his wife Grace (EPA)

He may be one of Africa's most feared tyrants, but according to Robert Mugabe's wife, Grace, he's "calm", "supportive" and "very religious".

She was speaking at a new children's home when she decided to open up about their relationship. And it is quite the romantic tale. "I was young when I started living with President Mugabe, but he was patient with me and took time to groom me into the woman that I am now," she gushed.

Isn't that lovely? So just how old was she when they first got together? Well, no one quite knows because they started having an affair while Mugabe's first wife, Sally, was dying of cancer, but it's safe to guess Grace was in her late twenties, which wouldn't be quite so icky if her paramour hadn't been knocking on 70. She was married at the time too, incidentally.

Strangely enough she failed to mention any of these details in her speech. Funny that.