Her once-luxuriant blonde hair is cropped short, hidden beneath a traditional nun’s wimple. Our picture shows the moment when former socialite Laura Adshead took her ‘final, solemn, profession of vows’ to become Mother John Mary.
It was a milestone that this once-troubled woman had worked towards for 14 years, cut off from the world at a remote Benedictine abbey. The girlfriend of David Cameron in another age, she has since achieved a transformation even more remarkable than the political resurrection of the former Prime Minister of Briton.
While her former lover is back at the heart of British political life, having been appointed Foreign Secretary last week, Laura’s world could not be more different. The 55-year-old has devoted herself to a life of prayer alongside 39 fellow nuns on the isolated 400-acre Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut, a two-hour drive north of New York City.
‘She cannot speak without permission,’ a nun known as The Portress, told us.
‘She must apply for leave to speak to outsiders, and that may take some time.’
Laura, a former pupil of £45,000-a-year Cheltenham Ladies’ College who was born in New Zealand to British parents, met Cameron when both were undergraduates at Oxford University. They then worked together at Conservative Central Office and dated from the spring of 1990 to the summer of 1991 when, according to reports, their break-up was so devastating she asked for a compassionate leave of absence.
As Cameron rose through the political ranks, Laura moved to America, obtaining a master’s degree at Wharton business school in Philadelphia before landing a job as an advertising executive at Ogilvy & Mather in Manhattan, the agency that inspired the TV series Mad Men. But after her addiction issues she turned to Alcoholics Anonymous, found God and entered the abbey as a novice nun.
On a page published on the abbey’s website devoted to ‘The Final Profession of Mother John Mary’ in October 2022, Laura writes: ‘Making vows is a declaration of love. We make these vows not to an abstract notion of monastic life, but to a particular people and community. I made the leap, and have landed on the other side, and it’s starting to feel a lot like home.’
Every day Laura rises at 2 a.m for the first of at least six prayer sessions conducted in Latin. At weekends she works in the abbey shop, selling home-made cheese, candles and wooden bowls made from trees felled in the grounds.
Images on the abbey’s website show nuns milking cows, baling hay and making cheese.
Laura’s transition from party girl to nun was first revealed in a 2011 Oscar-nominated documentary called God Is Bigger Than Elvis, about Dolores Hart, now 85, another nun at the abbey.
Dolores had starred alongside Elvis Presley in the films Loving You and King Creole before turning her back on Hollywood aged 24 to take vows at Regina Laudis, where she still lives.
In the documentary, Laura, whose theologian father wrote a book titled Philosophy Of Religion In Nineteenth-Century England And Beyond, said: ‘I feel like I tried most things in life that are supposed to make you happy. That journey took me down into alcoholism and drug addiction. I remember telling my mother, “I’m going to join the abbey,’’ and she said, “Yes, I can see this world has no real meaning for you any more.’’
‘I looked at this place and saw women who had what I wanted. You make a decision here to surrender your life to God.’
Laura lives in a simple room with a wooden bed, a shelf full of religious books and shares a communal bathroom.
The abbey has a guesthouse for visitors seeking ‘peace and serenity’ where a former classmate of Laura’s, Shelley Sprang, once spent some time. Shelley said: ‘She’s got that sparkle and the wicked sense of humour she always had.
‘We nicknamed her the naughty nun – I won’t tell you why.’
She recalled meeting David Cameron when he and Laura dated, saying they would meet for ‘Friday drinks’ in London’s Sloane Square.
Laura is known to have left the abbey only once, in 2011, to go to New Zealand following the earthquake that devastated Christchurch Cathedral, where she and her parents had worshipped. Cameron married Samantha Sheffield in 1996.