Tantrums and tiaras

The Queen fighting depression is an entertaining story, writes Daphne Guinness.

ALAN BENNETT imagined the Queen as an avid book lover in The Uncommon Reader.

Now a United States historian imagines her AWOL from Buckingham Palace, attempting to lift herself out of depression.

First-time novelist William Kuhn makes a jokey reference to his English competitorcounterpart, the chap whose idea he knocked off but whom he acknowledges on page 167. ‘‘Didn’t read it. Fancy making me out to be a reader,’’ Her Majesty protests of Bennett’s characterisation.

No matter. Kuhn has pulled off an entertaining ride inside the head of the Queen, enabling us to see her as she really is.

She has just learned she cannot take the private train to Balmoral Castle in Scotland because of government penny-pinching. This, together with the decommissioning of the royal yacht Britannia, on the grounds that she doesn’t really need it, plus the computer playing up and