‘How come you know so much about the Royal Family?’ people often ask me. The question is intended as a challenge. Nowadays an interest in the Monarchy has to be justified. As a child I only wanted to hear about people who lived in large houses and had masses of money. I was engrossed in a life of Queen Mary at the age of nine and later, while other boys at school were leafing through Autocar or setting fire to things, I was slaving in the pottery room on a head of that same queen – capturing her marcel wave in clay was a nightmare. Even now, at forty-four, it’s a comfort to wonder what the Queen might be doing at the same moment as I am dusting or washing up and still almost impossible to accept her parallel existence in the same universe.

Barking mad, you might say. Well, I have another alarming symptom. While compiling this book, I found that my memory for all the little details about the Royal Family that I have ever read or heard is extraordinarily retentive. Often I would say to a friend, ‘You remember when you told me about the Queen hunting for a hat at Buckingham Palace or that time she found the footmen eating her chocolates…?’ and they would look blank. I will never be able to understand how they could have forgotten. This perhaps explains, among other things, why I have been able to include so many previously unpublished stories here.

On a more serious note, it is difficult to explain the allure of Royalty. Judging by the response to the death of the Queen Mother there are many who know that the killjoy anti-monarchists have got it wrong; on the other hand, the era of uncritical worship is over. I hope that this book reflects the freer and more complex way we feel about the Royal Family now. At times we might want to revel in their strange Alice in Wonderland world where they seem simultaneously down to earth and utterly regal, at others we are more sober – appreciating, especially in the Queen’s case, true wit and style and an engaging and distinctive personality. Whatever the truth, let’s hope they are never replaced by some colourless figure elevated drearily on ‘merit’. Long may they reign over us!

Gracious Me

At a Tuesday audience Tony Blair raised the subject of what he called ‘the Golden Jubilee’. ‘My Golden Jubilee,’ the Queen gently corrected.

On a 1990s State Visit to the Caribbean, the Queen stopped off at the Cayman Islands, which is a tax-haven where every hotel is of unimaginable luxury. At the press reception she said, ‘I’m so glad we’ve got the Yacht with us this time [referring to the Royal Yacht Britannia]. I seem to remember the last time we came here we had to stay in a guest house.’

An escort commander allowed his horse to block the crowd’s view of the Queen once too often. From inside the carriage, the Queen said, ‘Actually, Captain, I think it’s me they’ve come to see.’

The French government gave a dinner at the Louvre for the Queen during her State Visit of the early 1950s. As they munched their hors d’oeuvres, the Queen revealed that she had never visited the museum before. ‘So,’ somebody said, ‘you’ve never seen the Mona Lisa.’ The Queen admitted that she had not. The next thing anyone knew, the picture was brought into the dining room and left propped up on a chair for the Queen to study at her leisure.

Lady Elwyn Jones hosted a reception for the Pearly Kings and Queens at the House of Lords in the 1970s. One of the Pearly Queens arrived late and rather confused. She approached Lady Elwyn Jones. ‘The bus was terrible,’ she sighed. ‘I’m over eighty. I can’t get into my costume any more but I’ve brought these dolls instead…’ She held up a miniature Pearly King and Queen, slipping her arm around the person standing next to Lady Elwyn Jones. ‘I supposed I’ve missed the Queen Mother. But, perhaps, Lady Elwyn Jones, you could give her these when you next see her.’ ‘Why don’t you give them to her yourself?’ said Lady Elwyn Jones, indicating the person the elderly Pearly Queen was inadvertently hugging. It was the Queen Mother. ‘Oh my gawd,’ exclaimed the old lady, and sank almost to the floor in an arthritic curtsy. ‘No, no,’ said the Queen Mother, ‘you must get up at once. We Queens of East and West have always been equals.’

The Queen’s French is the best of any woman in England, as crisp and neat as her clothing. In 1999, she was subject to a hoax telephone call from a Canadian broadcaster posing as the prime minister of Canada. She behaved impeccably, observing every constitutional nicety, and when the hoaxer suggested that they speak in French she was quite unfazed. ‘Bon, allez,’ she rapped out in triumph.

In 1958 the practice of presenting debutantes at Court was finally dropped. It was really too absurdly snobbish and outdated. But Princess Margaret took a different view. ‘We had to put a stop to it,’ she said. ‘Every tart in London was getting in.’

During the war the Queen Mother got wind that none of the treasures had been evacuated from Apsley House, the London home of the Duke of Wellington. She informed the then duchess, ‘I’m coming round at eleven with a van to take them to Frogmore.’ At eleven sharp a van drew up, the King and Queen appeared and Her Majesty marched around the rooms, picking out all the valuable items and making a list in pencil.

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