How apt it is that while reading Lady Glenconner’s book about the dramas she and Princes Margaret endured throughout their lives, the British Press have been creating quite their own histrionics over Meghan’s and Harry’s choice to pull back from their royal life and duties.  Their exit is hardly surprising and Lady in Waiting gives some insight into the fabricated tales published by newspapers, which can destruct the very core of any human being.

Anne Coke (pronounced Cook) was born into aristocracy, grew up with Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, married Colin Tennant (he became the 3rd Baron Glenconner), with whom she had five children, and went on to become a trusted Lady in Waiting for almost thirty years to Princess Margaret.

Anne takes us into the depths of retrospection of the fascinating life she led, making us belly-laugh in one chapter, then wrenching at our hearts with despair in the next.  Her marriage to an outrageously flamboyant and moody man, Colin, alone would send the best of us into a tailspin, as she spares no details of his excessive behaviour.  His immense wealth afforded them a life full of dichotomy between the extravagance of their aristocracy in the UK and the lack of basic utilities, like plumbing and electricity, in Mustique, the Caribbean island which Colin bought in the 50s and eventually catapulted to fame.  What their wealth did not protect their family from were tragedies.  Lady Glenconner writes about these with clarity, her British stiff-upper-lip barely wavering, and you almost have to re-read the pages to make sure your eyes didn’t just deceive you.

Throughout the years, Princess Margaret remained a very close friend to the couple and this book is as much about her life as it is about theirs.  A petite woman in stance alone, Princess Margaret was apparently assertive and confident, fiercely loyal to her sister and the Crown, and thrived in her independent freedom during the countless times she spent in Mustique at the villa gifted to her by Colin Tennant.  One wonders if she had been a young person in this century instead of the last, would she have shed tradition and protocol for a more permanent pathway of freedom, like her great-nephew Harry is choosing to do now.

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