Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait

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The music in the abbey was wonderful (mostly British), with a dozen new pieces specially composed for the occasion, all of it carefully chosen and curated by the new King, and performed by a range of world-class orchestras, ensembles, choirs and soloists, occasionally interrupted by a loud cougher seated close to us. I was singing along to the familiar words of Brandreth’s chapters on the Queen Mother, when I noticed that he had slipped in for the first time some disparaging remarks the Duke of Edinburgh had made about his mother-in-law, complaining that she had an emotional hold over Prince Charles “that’s not always been to his benefit, in my opinion”, and opining that she was “occasionally irritatingly gushing”. One of the key themes Brandreth broaches in this book for the first time is that the Queen flourished following her mother’s death in 2002 because she had previously been wary of exciting her disapproval – she would not have taken part in something like the Olympics James Bond sketch if her mother had still been alive, he asserts – and found a new self-confidence in old age.

After a small mishap — I tried to sit in the seat reserved for the American singer Lionel Richie — I found my place. On my immediate right was Sir Michael Peat, 73, accountant, former Keeper of the Privy Purse and Treasurer to Elizabeth II, and later, for nearly ten years, private secretary to the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.

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This being an “intimate portrait”, most readers will enjoy that the author has impeccable access, as he recounts (mostly trivial) conversations he had with the Queen. He is admiring of his subject, even when remembering a discussion with the monarch at a drinks party in 1990, in which his small talk led her to comment that being a vegetarian, like his wife, “must be very dull”.

Rochelle Humes reveals what husband Marvin's secret signal could REALLY mean as he taps his heart four times on I'm A CelebrityYes, I am responsible. In 2003, I interviewed Deborah Bean, Her Majesty's long-serving Correspondence Secretary, and during our conversation Mrs Bean revealed to me that the Queen had once told her that she loved the songs of George Formby, knew all of them, could sing them - and frequently did. What Mrs Bean told me I then told the world - and as a consequence George Formby has now become the go-to repertoire when people want to play the kind of music they think Her Majesty will enjoy.