Dan Snow's History Hit - Anne Glenconner: Princess Margaret's Confidante

Episode Date: July 11, 2020

Anne Glenconner has been at the centre of the royal circle from childhood, when she met and befriended the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, the Princess Margaret. Anne spoke to me from the resplendent saloon at Holkham Hall to discuss her truly remarkable life - a story of drama, tragedy and royal secrets. A story she reflects on with a charming sense of humour and true British spirit. Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentaries, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.

Hello everyone, welcome to Dan's Knows History. I mean, I often say this, but have I got a treat for you? It is totally awesome, this podcast. This is a podcast with Anne Tennant, Baroness Glenconner, a true British aristocrat. Anne Veronica Tennant, Baroness Glenconner, born Anne Cook, which is obviously spelled Coke, because that's how aristocrats roll. It's very, very common if your name actually is spelt the way it sounds. Goodness me. Anne Tennant was born into a glittering aristocratic family in the early 1930s. She was great friends with Elizabeth II and her sister Princess Margaret growing up, and she ended up becoming a lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, who was Queen Elizabeth's

younger sister, from 1971 until she died in 2002. She's just written a book that's become an unexpected bestseller about her experiences, about the experiences with Princess Anne, but also with her extremely eccentric, at best, husband, who was Colin Tennant, the third Baron Glen Connor. And it was just an opportunity to ask her about what it was like growing up in the aristocracy in the 1930s. And of course, what it was like being intimate with the Queen and Princess Margaret. She is, as you will hear, an astonishing character, very much enjoying the fame and fortune that writing a bestseller in her late 80s has brought her. She and I were talking about projects we might work on together, might do some filming. If you want to watch the resulting documentaries,

you can do so at History Hit TV. It's my new history channel. You just go to historyhit.tv. It's like Netflix for history. You enter the code POD1 because you're a podcast listener, so it's very special. If you enter the code POD1, P-O-D-1, you get a month for free,

and then you get a second month, just one pound, euro or dollar. You can watch hundreds of the documentaries we've got up there or the exclusive audio content as well. And you can join our once weekly live Zoom podcast. I wish the Anne Glenn Connor podcast had been live this one because you would have all got to see the beautiful room in which she was sitting, the extraordinary house in Norfolk where she was born and where she's currently locking down with the Rubens painting on the wall behind her. It was fantastic. Anyway, so go over to History Hit TV and use the code POD1.

In the meantime, though, here is Anne Glenn-Connor. Anne, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Well, thank you for having me. I'm wondering what you're going to ask me. Well, it's going to be a terrible grilling, I'm afraid. Now, we are looking at each other on Zoom, and you are sitting in the most extraordinary room where are you in the world at the moment I'm sitting in the saloon at Holcombe to my left is a marble hall I have you ever been to Holcombe

I have I've been around as a tourist well I'm sitting in this wonderful room Tom Lester my cousin said you know he was doing in saloon, surrounded by really wonderful pictures, paintings. And I'm looking out. It's the hottest day of the year. I'm looking out onto the fountain, which is playing, and right up the park. It's the most lovely position I'm talking to you in. Is it the earls of Leicester have lived there for generations? Yes, absolutely. My father was a fifth earl of Leicester. So I became Lady Anne Cook.

It's spelled Coke, but it's pronounced Cook. And my ancestor, who founded the family really, was the Chief Justice in Queen Elizabeth the first day, and he prosecuted Guy Fawkes, and also, I was going to say invented, perhaps isn't the right word, common law. And when I go to America, they are thrilled because the law in America is still common law that was created by him. And Crest is an ostrich with a horseshoe in its mouth because he always said that the crooks can digest anything. Can I ask, in the 1930s when you were born, the British aristocracy, did it feel like a club? Did you all know each other? Did it feel like an exclusive band and there was inter-friendships and inter-marrying? Yeah, very much so. I mean, I was a child, obviously. I was born in 32. To begin with,

the subject I'm very interested in is primogeniture. And I knew at a very early age that I was a tremendous disappointment because my great-grandfather was alive, my grandfather and my father and there's a photograph of us in the hall, my father at my christening with my great-grandfather looking absolutely amazed, how dare she be a girl you know but yes I was expected to marry somebody, friends of my family. It was a sort of club I suppose and on the whole in those days you did marry into the aristocracy on the whole which is quite different today of course. Holcombe is famous for its shooting, covert shooting was invented here and we had the partridges, we shot more partridges here than

anywhere else and my father used to have all these male shooting parties, my mother used to arrange them but she never was part of it. They used to have the tail-enders and then of course we live very near Sandringham so you know the royal family have always come over here and that's when I first met Princess Margaret when I was three and she was I think four. My family have always been part of the royal family. My father was an equerry to the Duke of York before he became king. My mother was a lady of the royal family my father was an equerry to the duke of york before he became king my mother was a lady of the bed chamber at the coronation with to the queen of course i was a maid of honor my uncle jack cook was lord in waiting to queen mary you know and so on and so

on so we've always been part like that and worked for the royal family is that something that you feel has changed in your lifetime i mean if you look around now at your wider family, there's not an immediate assumption that great-nephews and nieces, the grandchildren are all going to sort of knock about with royalty in each other. I mean, presumably that has changed, has it? It's changed completely, yes. And nowadays they marry who they like, really, you know, because when I came out just after the war, we met, I mean, we had coming, I had wonderful coming-out dance here where my father had a sort of special list of all suitable young men that were asked. And then we had lots of weekend parties

where, again, we met people, friends' children or friends' asked us. And then we moved up to Scotland to the Highland Balls where then we met all the people who lived in Scotland. But, I mean, you know, one was either Blenheim or Boughton, you know, all these big houses used to have weekend parties. And that's how we got to know each other. When you look back on that, in one way, it was probably very socially isolating

and you had to behave in a certain way. But when you look at your grandchildren or other people's grandchildren from that circle, do you miss that sort of social world and that sort of sense of being part of an elite or do you rather like the freedom that your descendants now have? Well, no, I don't agree at all with when you say freedom. Now, it isn't because they shack up with one boyfriend.

When I was young, we went out with a different man or boy every night. When you read my book, my nightmare honeymoon, I mean, I was completely naive about sex for instance I mean because we didn't do it there was no contraception you know I was terrified of getting pregnant I mean we just didn't do it and now I mean they have so little chance I mean one of my grandsons who lives in Scotland met his girlfriend at university he's still with her he's never actually had a chance to, you know, meet other girls. And I think that's very sad. I'm so glad that I live when I did. We have so

much more fun, really, you know, playing the field. You mentioned it in your book, the piece of your book that everybody talks about is your sort of marriage and honeymoon. It feels like an arranged marriage in the book. Is that fair on your parents? Well, I mean, my father wasn't at all keen on Colin, viewed him with grave suspicion. And when we did get engaged, he wrote poor Colin a letter saying, I would like you to be absolutely certain that you call me Lord and Lady Leicester. I mean, it was unbelievable.

And Colin always, he wasn't allowed to call them Tommy and Elizabeth. I mean, of course, Colin was part of the aristocracy, but my father viewed him with great suspicion, actually. And my father actually wanted me to marry Lord Stare, who was his age. And I said, no, Dad, I'm really not going to, because there's absolutely nothing between us. Oh, he said, that's very disappointing. What about his brother, Colin de Rimpel?

So all five were sent on an outing with Colin. Again, absolutely nothing happened. There was Spark. Yes, I suppose I was expected to marry somebody of, you know, the same sort of type of person. I mean, I'm not particularly only a member of the aristocracy, but, you know, people who had a proper house, I suppose. A proper house. But it was a love match, though, was it?

Well, it was. I mean, I was fascinated by... I really... You see, I'd fallen in love with Johnny Althorp, and he dumped me, very uncertain, because his father, Lord Jack Spencer, my grandmother was a Trefusis. People looked into where you came from very much more in those days, and the Trefusis were meant to have bad blood the queens had two cousins you remember sort of loony bit and Princess Margaret

the queen never visited them and I remember teasing Princess Margaret I said look you really ought to go and visit your poor cousins in this sort of lunatic asylum so I'll come with you they didn't but anyway in those days Tre Tafusis, my grandmother happened to be Tafusis. So Jack Spencer said to Johnny, you're not marrying Anne. This is our grandmothers of Tafusis. You know, people did, you know, very carefully look into bloodlines. That's what they looked into. Well, that was his loss, in my opinion. Well, Prince Charles often says to me, my life would be entirely different if you married Johnny, I might have married your daughter. If I married Johnny,

I might have had a daughter who Prince Charles might have married. I mean, I mean, that we were just sort of teasing each other. And then on your honeymoon was a bit of a shock. Appalling shock. Why, Colin thought. I mean, I was, I suppose, very naive, because in those days, I mean, all the young men and fathers used to take that. So there's a sort of upmarket brothel run by Mrs. Featherstone Hoard. Do you know about her? No, I have to say. You probably would have gone there too. I mean, that's what young men did, you know. So Colin, I don't think he'd ever made love to a virgin. I think that was a trouble. And so for some unknown reason,

when I thought I was being taken off to the Ritz, you know, put on my best dress, he took me to this absolutely appalling seedy hotel where we went into this room. I mean, luckily, we sat in two wing-back chairs because I sat with my eyes closed. It was an appalling sight in front of me, these awful pasty bodies squelching appalling sight in front of me, these awful

pasty bodies squelching into each other in front of us and I thought this is simply nightmarish. The honeymoon after that wasn't all that easy but it did improve. The thing about Colin was that one was never bored. He had a very quick, he was very clever, amazingly well read. He always had slightly mad ideas, some of them, but he always had ideas. In fact, he was a very exciting person to live with, too exciting sometimes. And how was the balance? Because you became the Queen's sister, Princess Margaret. You were her sort of best friend, confident lady-in-waiting. How did you divide up your time between husband and family and this sort of job? Well, I mean, what was so nice,

often the royal family in those days, I won't actually go into details about this, but when they saw somebody having a difficult marriage and they liked them, they asked them to be a lady-in-waiting because then one had the perfect excuse. You know, I mean, the husband couldn't say you can't go to Valoo with the Queen or the Princess Margaret you know I mean Colin unfortunately thought he could come too that was

a mistake he made he was thrilled when I was asked to be a lady waiting and said oh marvellous in fact he did occasionally come actually no it fitted very well I mean people have jobs now don't they wives and husbands both work now it was a sort job, but it was a job that Colin was thrilled about. He was very pleased I'd been asked. And, of course, my mother, being a lady in waiting of the Queen, was able to give me a lot of tips and tell me about things. Because a court life is quite complicated, can be. What does lady in waiting mean?

What do you do for lady in waiting of Princess Margaret? Well, she chairs on the whole friends because a lot of the time you're alone with her. And the thing is, when you first join, you're asked if you've got any charities you're really interested in. You see all her charities and you pick ones that you feel you'd like to work with. And therefore, then once in charge of those charities,

they write to one. There is an office too, and you go into the office and then you write all the thank you letters say after Australia I went round Australia but I mean I wrote a lot of the thank you letters but the great moment is you're with the person with Princess Margaret the whole time and in the evening you know when we used to go upstairs we used to talk over the day, we'd laugh. She had a wonderful sense of humour, Princess Margaret, and sometimes when I was with her in front of other people, she'd make me laugh, you know.

I tried not to. And I'd say afterwards, Mammy, please don't make me laugh. You know, I couldn't keep a straight face. And I had her to stay. I mean, I lived with her for a whole year at Kensington Palace because I was doing up a flat. Colin, being very flaky, he always sold our houses without telling me. And then he'd say, oh, Anne, I've just sold the house today.

We've got to get out in a fortnight. I got used to that. But anyway, I then, in the end, bought a flat for myself. And Princess Margaret said, do come. And I said, well, it'll be about three weeks. Turned out it was a year. I really enjoyed being with her. And she had a very difficult husband.

And at the end of it, we both said, well, really, we got on so well. By that time, she was divorced. So much easier to be with each other than have these very difficult husbands. with each other than have these very difficult houses. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed.

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There are new episodes every week. always in there, but we used to have tricycles when she used to come, and there'd be endless passages here, miles and miles of stone passage, and we had a wonderful time triking around, you know, and I saw her when I was a child, and then, of course, the war came, and that, I didn't see her in the war. My sister and I were so proud of having Princess Margaret and Princess Elizabeth in England, because so many of our friends had been sent to Canada and America and we felt we were sort of part of the whole thing you know and we used to listen because the Queen used to address the children and we used to sit on the carpet listening this very old wireless and we always thought they were sort of in the wireless or they were behind them you know but we loved that and then of course Mrs Margaret came to my coming-out dance here. When she married Tony, I didn't see her so much. And then when they married, she came on our honeymoon, you know, to Mustique. We gave them a piece of land.

And it was that moment she rang me up and said, Anne, is it true? Have I got a bit of land in Mustique? Because can I come out? And I said, well, ma'am, it's not really very easy. We've got no hot water, or water, really. A lot of mosquitoes, no electric light. And anyway, she came and adored it. I want to come on to Mystique in a second,

but just quickly with Princess Margaret. Her reputation is of a sort of socialite and drinker. And what would you have to say about that? Was she a sort of hardworking member of the royal family? I hope that's why I wrote my book, actually, because I was so fed up of people writing rubbish about her. They didn't know her. So I wanted, from my point of view,

I put that over quite well in my book, judging by hundreds of letters I've had from people saying, I'm so glad you have shown a different side to Princess Margaret. I mean, with me, you had to, in a rude way, handle her properly, you know. I mean, to me, you had to, in a rude way, handle her properly. You know, I mean, to me, she was very royal. I mean, she was brought up, her father was king-emperor. Half the world was pink when she was brought up.

There was only four of them. And, you know, she was very royal. And I didn't mind those royal moments which she had occasionally. But the great thing was to ask her what she wanted to do as long as she knew what she was going to do people didn't spring surprises on her she didn't like that and ask her what she wanted to eat I mean to me it seemed quite simple if you're going to have somebody like that you want to please them you want to say what do you want to do and quite often she went to stay with people and

they'd arranged mayor and the chief of police and the bishop to come to lunch on sunday you know she said you know the weekends are meant to be my time off i find perhaps because i knew her and i really loved her i didn't find her difficult i could what i, steer her sometimes, you know, like I did when we were in Australia and she refused to go onto Bondi Beach. Oh, she said, Anne, I can't possibly have sand in my shoes. And they always come to me, that's part of being a lady in waiting. They always ring one up saying what she's going to wear, what colour, because we want the flowers we're going to give her to match. Anyway, this instance, they ran me up and said, can you do anything?

You know, it's vital in Australia to go on to Bondi Beach. So I said, well, leave it to me. I managed to get a pair of her flat shoes. Just as we got there, I said, look, ma'am, would you think again? Because going on to Bondi Beach is rather like kissing the blow on his stone, you know. All right, ma'am, look at my shoes. And so I took the flat one.

I said, well, actually, I've got a flat pair. And she looked at me and she just said, OK, Anne, you win this time. And actually, she got her own back later. She was asked to hold a koala bear. And she said, no, I don't think I will, but my lady-in-waiting would love to hold it. And this beastly koala bear, wee-wee, peed all the way down my dress and i said sir i said

well you got your own back on me didn't you you know we had a very nice relationship fun it was fun and what about mystique because your husband and you went to this sort of jungly tropical island the west indies undeveloped and it's now the most exclusive resort on planet earth so how did that all come about i was horrified when i first colin bought it he didn't land he just sailed around went to st vincent and bought it off these two old ladies it was a small cotton estate it was a nightmare i mean when we land we can hardly get through the jungle the wild cows and it wasn't called mustique for nothing huge mosquitoes and no water and it was a sort

of dust I was awful I said you're mad Colin nobody's going to want to come here and of course he said to me mark my words and I'll make it a household name and he did and then she came and adored it and then first person actually was one of the Guinnesses, Honor Guinness, was married to Chips Channing, you know. She came with her second husband and was fed up on her boat, her yacht, with a rather drunken husband, and said, can I buy a piece of land? And that was the first beginnings of it.

And then Colin, quite rightly, ran it like an English country estate. I mean, he was very, very good with the indigenous population. He built them a new village. We lived alone there, Colin and me, for 12 years and he said we can't sell and build smart posh homes, we've got to build a new village first and see they all adored him, all the people out there adored him. David Bowie, a great list of people came. And then Colin loved giving parties. They were fantastic. I said, you know, he can't afford it, he couldn't really afford it.

And he said, well, this is publicity. People are going to see photographs of the parties I give and they're going to want to come. And he said, I'll take somebody swimming in macaroni, this is a wonderful beat, and by the time we come out of the sea, I will have sold them a plot. And he did quite often. And that was the famous time when the Queen came

to see Princess Margaret's house. And she never swims because of being photographed. Anyway, the great thing in Mustique is we can stop any photographers coming because there's no proper hotel. I mean, they're just sent away if they arrive. And anyway, she did swim. A young man who helped Colin was taking some visitors past the following week. And he said, you know, the Queen swam there last week and we haven't changed the water since.

That was a sort of idiotic. I mean, there were lots of jokes. Colin was very good at sort of jokes. Something that's so extraordinary to me about inherited wealth is it can cause such extraordinary chaos within families. And your husband left all his money to somebody else. And a system like yours, which involves these passing these houses down and properties and estates and things, that must have been hugely problematic. He'd already given a Glen, which is a family home, to his son, Henry, so he was living there. Colin, in the end, lived in St Lucia. He was a resident. But, of course, what was really difficult for me and the children, because in the West Indies, the will is read the night of the funeral,

and we had this amazing Caribbean funeral. I've written about it in my book. He changed his will, I suppose, five months before he died, leaving everything to Kent, who was his valet's servant, really. And that was a final sort of nail in the coffin slightly for me, you know. I'd been married to him 54 years, and there's nothing you can do in St Lucia. The law is quite different. So I went, I thought, well, I can surely, you know, get something. And they said, no, women don't count for anything. So, you know, anyway, I've written a bestseller now, grand old age of nearly 88, making some money for the first time.

Well, congratulations. Final question, really, which is about writing bestsellers, because as a member of the public, and indeed, as someone who loves history, we are desperate for people to write honestly about their experiences. So you read all these political biographies, and they're terrible, because they're sort of polite about people, and they can't make the enemies and burn bridges. You've been scorchingly honest, which is why this is such a big success. But is that difficult for the people around you when you're that honest? I couldn't have written the book if Princess Margaret or Colin had been alive. I simply couldn't have. I had to wait until, you know, they died.

No, I mean, I've got grandchildren. I've got great-grandchildren too. I've got two great-grandchildren. And I sent the book to Henry's son and Charlie's son, and they were both about three when their fathers died. I rang up rather nervously and said, what do you think of the book? Are you okay with it? And they both said, yes, Gran. We didn't know how, especially Henry, who died of AIDS.

Ewan said, I didn't really know. Nobody talked to me about it. I'm so glad you've written it down. Children have all been very positive, which is great. But I do think that when people write books, I mean, since I've written my bestseller, people said, oh, I've got a book, I want to write a book. But I do think you've got to have a story. You've got to have something to say. You know, you can't just write a book because you didn't have any shoes in the war or something like that. You know, you've really got to have something to say.

It seems rather rude to actually say to people, well, what is your story? Are people going to be interested in it? I mean, I have always told stories, as you'll probably gather, as I'm guessing to you now, and a young publisher I sat next to at lunch one day, Tim Pones, and he said, have you ever thought of writing a book? I said, no, I can't write.

He said, yes, you can. You've got the stories, and I dictated it. My book has got my voice because I didn't write it. I dictated it. Somebody else wrote it up, and then we edited it every evening together. But I sat in my sitting room looking out of my garden, and somebody said, did you have writer's block?

And I said, no, I had writer's diarrhoea. I couldn't stop it all came flooding out but that's what I do think about books is you do have to have a story don't you agree I completely agree my last question and I'm not expecting you to answer but are there lots of juicy stories that didn't make it into the book of course yes of course I mean oh god yes some of the juices didn't go well I couldn't because the book went to a lawyer. Well, you probably know. And the lawyer, I think, was absolutely horrified. I didn't want to possibly put that in Lady Glenconner. You've got to take that out,

which I did. But I got it all on tape. So my children, when I'm gathered, which will probably be quite soon, my children can do what they like with it. I mean, the rest of us are very excited to hear about that. Lady Glenconagh, thank you very much. Tell everyone what the book's called so you can go out and buy it. Oh yes, there is Lady in Waiting, My Life in the Shadow of the Crown. If I say so myself, a lot of other people have said it to me. It's a jolly good read. It's being passed around my family at the moment, so thank you for writing it. I feel very honoured that you should think, you know think you know i am history i suppose in a way that you feel my story

is worthwhile to be you know kept somewhere hi everyone it's me dan snow just a quick request it's me, Dan Snow. Just a quick request. It's so annoying, and I hate it when other podcasts do this, but now I'm doing it, and I hate myself. Please, please go onto iTunes, wherever you get your podcasts, and give us a five-star rating and a review. It really helps, and basically boosts up the chart,

which is good, and then more people listen, which is nice. So if you could do that, I'd be very grateful. I understand if you don't want to subscribe to my TV channel. I understand if you don't want to buy my calendar, but this is free. Come on, do me a favour. Thanks.