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half of the 20th century”? Author Andrew Duncan remembers her well and in this week’s edition of Radio Times shares insights including the fact that far from being as imperious as her reputation suggested she was rather more down-to-earth.
They first met when she was 39 and in a “difficult marriage” to the photographer Anthony Armstrong-Jones, the commoner she married on the rebound from Townsend and who was then given the title Earl of Snowdon.
The volatile couple had a reputation as the “black sheep” of the family but Duncan recalls being immediately charmed on meeting the Princess nearly 50 years ago, when she was in her late-30s.
“I found her then, and in all subsequent meetings, amusing, relaxed and helpful, not at all the allegedly imperious, controversial and mocked royal figure of popular imagination,” he recalls.
HAVING been met by her son Viscount Linley, then eight, who helped himself to a Coca-Cola with the words “I’m sorry she’s keeping you waiting”, Duncan was greeted by Margaret wearing an inexpensive orange dress.
After warmly welcoming him – “although we’d never met” – she poured herself a gin and tonic, lit a cigarette in a black holder, and turned on the television.
“Sit down,” said the free-spirited royal, patting the sofa next to her. While claiming that she had “never been imperious” she believed that her reputation as being “wicked as hell” was the natural counterpoint to her sister’s “goody-goody one”, but in a telling aside admitted that she was “an absolute wreck” after some of the publicity she had received for her wayward ways.
On the Queen, however, she was quite clear about her role. “In my own humble way I’ve always tried to take some of the burden off my sister. She can’t do it all, you know, and I leap at the opportunity to help,” she said. “I’m enormously impressed when she walks into a room. It’s a kind of magic. She’s a pretty young woman and the longer she’s sovereign the more her experience will affect decisions by prime ministers.”
Prescient words indeed.