Cynthia Payne pulls in the punters in the Cotswolds

The owner of a Cotswolds country house hotel has hired former brothelkeeper Cynthia Payne to help boost flagging business and fill her seven bedrooms, which have been left empty by the foot-and-mouth crisis.

But the services provided by Payne, the former Madam Cyn, have been limited to after-dinner talks, rather than anything more controversial. She has been entertaining guests at the Lower Brook House hotel in Blockley, near Moreton-in-Marsh, Gloucestershire, with stories of her colourful career.

Owner Marie Mosedale-Cooper, who is a friend of Payne, says she has been packing the guests in since she started advertising her "Nights of Innocent Cyn".

Sixty-nine-year-old Payne became a household name after the role of her brothel in the Profumo affair of the 1960s was immortalised in the film Personal Services. She also used to accept luncheon vouchers as payment.