Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet and members of Richard Branson’s family escaped unharmed on Monday when a lightning storm hit the Virgin tycoon’s Caribbean island home, which was destroyed in a blaze. Winslet carried Branson’s 90-year-old mother Eve out of The Great House on Necker Island as the flames took hold in the early hours of the morning. “She (Winslet) was staying there with her children and in fact it was she who carried my mother out of the house,” Branson told Britain’s ITV News.
“She swept her up into her arms and got them out of the house as fast as possible.” Winslet said “it’s like being in a film set where you’re waiting for the words ‘cut’ but they just don’t come,” the entrepreneur added. Branson’s 29-year-old daughter Holly was also forced to flee the flames. The 60-year-old founder of the Virgin empire had been staying in another property nearby with his wife Joan and son Sam, when the lightning struck the main house.
