“We’re just putting things away. We do hope we’re putting them in the right place,” we said, as we stopped and turned around. It was dawning on us that perhaps that was why she was looking rather fiercely at us.
“Well, I hope you are, because if you’re not the Queen will be bloody angry with you.” Colin and I almost fainted with horror. The thought of the Queen being “bloody angry” with us was enough to stop us helping at once, realizing that the Queen took great care and that keeping everything in exact order was her first rule.
As well as Balmoral, throughout the seventies and eighties the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret would invite Colin and me to stay at Royal Lodge. Apart from the drawing room, which had an exquisite mural painted by Rex Whistler, the house was relatively modest. The bathroom had a cracked lino floor and a lot of the other rooms were a little tired, but the Queen Mother didn’t want to change anything: it was where she and the King had lived as the Duke and Duchess of York, before the abdication, and she was happy with how it was.
The weekends were always a lot of fun and varied. In the summer, we spent afternoons lolling about in the gardens, having lunch outside and going for a swim in the pool. In the winter, we were asked to the shooting parties. The men went off to the shoot and the ladies would join the guns at about half past eleven, taking bull shots, made from the traditional mix of beef consommé and vodka, to help warm up the men after a cold morning standing in the fields. Princess Margaret loved pouring the bull shots into little silver cups and handing them round to those shooting, who were always very grateful. She would then take me and any other ladies for a walk around the beautiful Savill Garden in Windsor Great Park before returning to Royal Lodge to meet the men to enjoy a very long lunch.
Those shooting days were much more relaxed than the ones at Holkham, where the men would pack a sandwich at breakfast, eating it under a hedgerow somewhere around lunchtime, before being bellowed at to continue the drive by my grandfather and then my father.
Whatever the season, every evening we had drinks in the Whistler drawing room, where we’d often find the Queen Mother standing in front of the television in the corner, transfixed by Dad’s Army. One of the protocols of being in the company of a member of the Royal Family is that if they are standing, you have to stand—you can’t sit down until they do. They seem to do an awful lot of standing so we’d just stand with the Queen Mother as she watched her favorite TV program, being a big fan of Captain Mainwaring, sipping a dry martini, laughing until the credits ran.
Once Dad’s Army had finished, we would all go to the dining room for dinner. The Queen Mother loved very rich food, such as eggs Drumkilbo—hard-boiled eggs with lobster and prawns—and there would always be a lot of puddings, cold soufflés filled with cream and chocolate. Wine was always served with each course, which meant there were several different glasses on the table: little ones for port and liqueurs, next to longer-stemmed glasses for red wine and longer still for white, then delicate water glasses.
The highlight of every dinner with the Queen Mother was when she started her ritual of toasts. She would say the name of anybody whom she liked and raise her glass above her head. And we would all follow suit. For anybody she didn’t like, she would lower her glass under the table and say their name, and we would do the same. These toasts went on for ages, often carrying on throughout a whole course, accompanied by roars of laughter and copious amounts of alcohol.
After dinner, we would go back to the drawing room where Princess Margaret would play the piano and we would all sing. She was very good at “singalongs,” as she called them, and they were her favorite after-dinner pastime. After we had exhausted our voices, we sometimes played charades. If the mood was less energetic, there was always a jigsaw puzzle on the go in the corner of the room, although I preferred to sit and listen to the gramophone. If we were feeling particularly merry, we’d dance to the music on the carpet.
Princess Margaret loved organizing a treat for us. She was extremely thoughtful and utilized what was accessible to her in interesting and creative ways. Once she flew us to the Isle of Wight to have lunch at Osborne House and walk in the grounds. On another occasion we had dinner at the Tower of London and had a look at the Crown Jewels. We also went to Kew Palace, and the Queen’s House, built for Anne of Denmark, James I’s wife, in Greenwich to look at the paintings by Lowry, Turner, and Canaletto, as well as the iconic Armada Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. When in Windsor we stayed at Royal Lodge, and she would take us to the library in Windsor Castle, where she would arrange for a librarian to show us something special—like Queen Victoria’s letters to Prince Albert, or documents dating back to Henry VIII—or we would go and look at the beautiful china or the dolls’ houses.
These weekends at Royal Lodge were always fun, despite the bouts of bickering between the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, who at times had a slightly strained relationship. One would do things like open all the windows, only for the other to go around shutting them. Or one would suggest an idea, and the other would dismiss it immediately. Perhaps they were too similar—I don’t think it is an unusual predicament for a mother and daughter. And while they had been part of a foursome originally, they were left as the spare pair, to a certain extent.
Colin and I had lots of friends who made every effort to entertain their guests, but I was always especially grateful to Princess Margaret, who was meticulous about her weekends in the same way Colin was about his parties. Princess Margaret’s generosity extended to me living with her at Kensington Palace for a time in 1990, when Colin declared he had sold Hill Lodge, our London house, and not only that, we had just a fortnight to get out; he admitted to me that he had already packed up a whole lot of my things. When I was upset and asked him why he couldn’t have waited for me to return, he lost his temper. “No! No! No!” he yelled, even though it was me who had been put out.
I had nowhere to go, so Princess Margaret suggested I stay with her. I said, “It won’t be for long as I’ve found a flat I like, but I have to do it up. Could I come for about three weeks?” She said that would be fine and I moved in with her.
Princess Margaret had the stone hall—Apartment 1A, in the north side of the Palace, next to the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and she had an ongoing battle with Prince and Princess Michael of Kent’s cats, encouraging her chauffeur to drive at them and turning the hose on them in the garden. If I was there, she would give it to me and shout, “Go, Anne, get them!” as I dutifully ran all the way around the garden, making sure I didn’t spray her by mistake. I never got any of the cats, who were far too quick and would sit on the wall, just out of reach of the hose, looking slightly smug.
Princess Margaret had moved there in 1960 when she had married Tony. Their redecoration of the house had been met with criticism by the press, who tried to make out that they were overextravagant, assuming that the property was in a perfect condition already, being part of Kensington Palace. In truth, it had been a crumbling shell when she and Tony had moved in and hadn’t been redecorated since 1891. Used to the press vilifying or praising them, they had shrugged it off.
Princess Margaret’s marriage to Tony had ended over a decade before, but it was still clear that when they had tackled the redecoration, Tony’s creative flair and Princess Margaret’s exceptional taste had made them a brilliant team. Together, they had succeeded in creating a charming, distinctive house, which, despite being within the walls of Kensington Palace, felt very comfortable and relaxed.
There were double doors from the drawing room into the dining room with a long table big enough to seat twenty people, and just off the hall, her shell room, full of cabinets containing her collection. I knew this collection well as, once a year, I would help her wash the shells, plunging them into the bath, filled with water and Fairy Liquid, then drying and polishing each one.
Throughout the apartment, the windows were always kept open, the doors ajar, because Princess Margaret always seemed to need more air, maybe
because of her heavy smoking. As the apartment was in the Palace complex, it was completely guarded and safe, and for me it was bliss not having to worry about security, leaving windows and doors unlocked and the keys in the car. A luxury I don’t imagine Princess Margaret had any awareness of, but something I really valued.
Upstairs, she had the most beautiful bedroom and a stunning bathroom that Carl Toms and Tony had designed, with Gothic paneling and pink walls and a great big roll-top bath. My room was wonderfully done up in blue silk and I slept in a four-poster bed, with views across the garden. It had a door that went into a museum, which was open to the public, and often I could hear people go around it. I was always worried in case I had forgotten to lock the door, and visitors came in and viewed me lying in bed.
When I moved in, Princess Margaret said, “We’ll see each other now and again.” But in fact we spent a lot of time together. If we were both in the house, we would eat together. When I got back from an evening out, I would be tired and would want to go to bed, but Princess Margaret always stayed up late and loved to hold conversations that would last for hours. I would creep through the door and along the corridor as quietly as I could, and then I would hear her call out, “Anne, is that you?”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I would reply.
“Hello. Come and see me—come and have a nightcap.”
So there I would be for another few hours. I was used to this, having spent so much time with her at Glen and on Mustique, but normally everybody would take turns to sit up with her. Sometimes I would stay only briefly, before saying, “Do you mind? I must go to bed now.”
One day she came and found me in the house and asked whether I would like to go with her to Washington, DC, to see the Royal Ballet perform. The ballet was her greatest passion although, secretly, I’d always wished she had loved the opera, which was mine, but I was still thrilled and accepted at once. Over the years we went to Washington to watch the ballet three times and each time we also visited the White House: twice when Ronald Reagan was in office, and once when George Bush Senior was President.
My experiences of the two Presidents and their First Ladies were mixed. Unlike Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush was absolutely lovely and completely welcoming, taking a genuine interest and including me in whatever was going on. She was relaxed and rather fun, holding good conversations and making everybody feel at ease.
Nancy Reagan was the opposite. When we arrived at the White House we all made our way to the lift that goes to the private apartments. Before I’d even got my foot in the door, Nancy Reagan said, “Oh, no, Lady Glenconner, not you. Miss Brown will take you down to see the Present Room.”
Princess Margaret looked rather worried, not wanting me to go. The whole point of her having a Lady in Waiting was that she had someone from her own household with her at all times and she mouthed, “Help!” as the lift’s doors closed, but there was nothing either of us could do.
I had been looking forward to seeing the Oval Office and was conscious that Princess Margaret wanted me to be with her, but soon enough I was disappearing into a huge basement room to see all the presents to the President instead. Eventually Miss Brown reunited me with Princess Margaret, who looked very glad when I reappeared.
Returning to the White House some months later, I dreaded being sent off to the Present Room once more, but this time, before I’d even stepped inside, I had to deal with an unexpected case of mistaken identity. As I got out of the car, President Reagan, who was expecting Princess Margaret to get out of that side, mistook me for her and, taking hold of my arm, said, “Hello, little lady.”
As Princess Margaret and I looked nothing alike, I was very surprised and immediately tried to correct him, but he wasn’t having it. As he walked me off, I could see Princess Margaret and Nancy Reagan looking livid, although I’m not sure who they were cross with—me or him. I managed to untangle myself, ushering Princess Margaret forward.
I bore the President and his First Lady no ill will, of course, and when we visited them years later, at their house in California, Ronald Reagan was very unwell and didn’t come for lunch. By then he was suffering from Alzheimer’s, and it was distressing to hear him moaning in the background—he had been such an upstanding and significant presence on the world stage, and it was very sad to know his health was in a steep decline. I did wonder whether perhaps he was already suffering from dementia when he had so vehemently decided that I was Princess Margaret.
Not all the time was spent doing extraordinary things. While I lived with her, we did very ordinary things together, like listen to the wireless or go on trips to Peter Jones. Sometimes we would go out for lunch: her favorite place was the Ritz and she was always saying she thought it was “the prettiest dining room in London.” We would go with friends—Carolina and Reinaldo Herrera when they were visiting from New York, or Rupert Loewenstein, and Colin, if he was in London, and the hotel manager would meet us in the lobby and walk us to our table. People would notice Princess Margaret but, with no entourage except John Harding, the fuss and attention were minimal and generally people gave her space and were very polite. After lunch, especially if Colin was there, Princess Margaret would suggest having a look down Bond Street, where he would invariably buy her something, especially if she came across some blue glass, which she collected, or a piece of jewelry that caught her eye.
Most of the time we would have lunch in Kensington Palace, then go for a walk in the gardens afterwards, which she liked, although she hated gray squirrels—she had a vendetta against them. Once we were out walking and she suddenly clapped eyes on a woman who was sitting on a park bench, happily feeding the squirrels. She marched straight up to her and started whacking them with her umbrella. John Harding had to intervene, politely suggesting to Princess Margaret that she move on and leave the squirrels alone, while the woman was left looking utterly bemused.
The three weeks I was supposed to stay went on and on. The flat I had bought in Holland Park took ages to finish, but Princess Margaret didn’t mind. In the end I stayed for the whole of 1990, finally moving out early in 1991. I couldn’t have enjoyed it more. She was so easy to live with—I think we both felt that about one another, especially compared to living with Tony or Colin.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Lost Ones
ALTHOUGH DURING THE years as Lady in Waiting I got to do many exciting things, by the time Charlie was in his late teens, Colin and I had gone to Hell and back with him. As well as his strange rituals, Charlie was too charismatic for his own good. He was good-looking, with boundless energy and a twinkling, mischievous nature, and he found the world of drugs too irresistible to ignore. There was nothing he wouldn’t experiment with and soon he was on every drug you could think of, having his first fix of heroin in 1973, when he was only sixteen.
We noticed a change in his behavior before we realized what was happening, by which time it was too late—he was addicted. When Colin found out he started yelling and yelling: “Charlie, you’re a disgrace, an absolute disgrace!” Cannabis was one thing, but heroin was terrifying. Colin’s patient approach had clearly fallen on deaf ears. His solution of homeschooling Charlie had obviously failed, and what was left was anger born from fear. But by that point words were irrelevant. Charlie later told me that during the six years he was on heroin it was like being in an “iron grip.”
For me and the family, it was nothing short of a disaster. I was ill-equipped to deal with a heroin-addict son. I had never touched drugs and didn’t have the first idea how to handle Charlie, who was moody, gaunt, and often high as a kite. He was also untrustworthy and over the years stole vast amounts of money from us to buy drugs. He was increasingly erratic, and I grew worried that his behavior would affect the other children.
It was such a surreal time. There I was, immersed in royal life, while my eldest son was running wild. Knowing that Colin was better at dealing with Charlie, I gave up trying to help, concentrating on the other children while Colin tried to sort him out.<
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The twins were only five when Charlie first got on to heroin, and I was worried they would stumble across needles or be frightened by Charlie when he was high. Together, Barbara and I kept a close eye on them and tried to keep life as normal as possible for them. Our two other sons were so innocent in comparison: Henry was flourishing at Eton, taking everything in his stride, and Christopher was at prep school, dreaming about cars. The worst thing he ever did was smash the window of his headmaster’s study with an overzealous throw of a cricket ball.
Throughout the second half of the seventies, Charlie went off to various rehab clinics, which were invariably filled with other members of high society, such as Andrew Cavendish, 11th Duke of Devonshire, and Jamie Blandford, the current Duke of Marlborough. When rehab didn’t work, Colin sent Charlie to distant places in the hope that the combination of remoteness and hard labor would make a difference, but Charlie seemed determined not to be straightened out. There was a sheep farm in Australia, which he never even got to because he was denied entry, and an estate in the Scottish Highlands, but somehow, he managed to find drugs, defeating the point entirely.
Soon enough he was back in London shooting up, and then he went to New York, which in the late seventies was probably the very worst place an addict could have gone. He was lionized, becoming an instant hit with the pop artist Andy Warhol and up-and-coming photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, immersing himself in the scene of the iconic drug-fueled nightclub Studio 54 to his detriment. I remember him ringing me up from a hotel, saying, “Mum, the only thing I ever want in life is room service.” He told people he wanted to be a “professional heroin addict”—that he wanted to be known for being able to survive the biggest doses.
When he came back to England, he was in a very bad way and we sent him back to rehab but the doctors kept saying the same thing: that he wouldn’t give up unless he wanted to. They advised us to stop supporting him, in the hope that, if he didn’t have money or home comforts, he would reach such a desperate state he would hit rock bottom and decide to get off drugs.
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