I am sure I am not alone in deploring Craig Brown’s vulgar “biography” of Princess Margaret. It is a scurrilous hotch-potch of unreliable, disloyal and deeply offensive gossip garnered from a muck heap of diaries and newspaper articles.
Some of his “sources” did not even have the courage to publish their slanderous lies in this country. Mr Brown, sitting in his seaside cottage only a short tumbril ride from Sandringham, shows none of the devotion his namesake gave to Queen Victoria. His lack of respect is breath-taking. He conjures up a scene in which a naked Anthony Armstrong-Jones flaunts his manhood to a butler at Royal Lodge. Surely, in the unlikely event that this is true, it is superfluous in the biography of such an important public figure as Princess Margaret; surely it is deeply offensive to her sister, the Queen?
Nevertheless, it is possible for a book in the poorest taste to be extremely funny. I would not want my servants to read it but it has given me a great deal of amusement. He has trawled the diaries of James Lees-Milne, Cynthia Gladwyn, Nöel Coward, Roy Strong, Chips Channon et al and come up with some most disobliging material much of which you will have read before. Indeed some of it has appeared here. He takes flights of fancy in which he imagines Margaret living in France as a Commoner married to Peter Townsend and chumming up with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Alternatively he describes her marriage to Jeremy Thorpe and her old age in Kensington Palace with two pugs for company, Betty and Phil.
There are two unexpected appearances. TH White, writing to his old friend David Garnett about his novel Aspects of Love ends his criticism of the book with this non sequitur.
Before I end this letter – which is bound to wound you – I must make one other confession. I was truly delighted a week or two ago to learn that Princess Margaret had decided not to marry Group Captain Townsend.
On Mustique PM strikes up a friendship with John Bindon, a taxi driver’s son born in Fulham, educated at borstal and Brixton prison who became an actor. “They found they had a surprising amount in common, and spoke of PG Wodehouse, acting and show business.”
An authorised “straight” biography would be unreadable. Well done Craig Brown but don’t expect a knighthood for your endeavours.
I don’t mind you feeling sorry for PM although I have reasons to believe she was very very difficult at best but you cannot describe her as an “important” public figure. Save that for people who did things of merit.
Very droll. As you say, it’s hugely amusing but I feel HM The Q must be annoyed by such easily accessible gossip. I was eyeballing D Linley at a PV the other evening but felt it inappropriate to say how much I was enjoying the book.
I met Lady Llewllyn recently and asked her if she had read the book. Like Bill Clinton she said that they have a copy but haven’t opened it. By the way, I greatly admire D Linley aka Lord Snowden and his Irish wife and feel a bit guilty about mobbing up, you will remember the expression Tom, his mother.