Ephraim Hardcastle
WHY no royal presence at the Southwark Cathedral funeral of stabbed terrorist victim PC Keith Palmer, whose body, with the Queen’s permission, lay at rest overnight in the Palace of Westminster? The same question was asked after the funeral of Merseyside PC Dave Phillips, killed by a hit-and-run teenage criminal in 2015. The royals keep their distance from the bobbies. When it was once suggested that a prince should be seconded to the police – rather than the Armed Forces – this idea was said to be ‘inappropriate’.
APROPOS the Palmer service, when late film maker Michael Winner founded the Police Memorial Trust in 1984, he lobbied in vain for a royal patron. In 2005, he persuaded the Queen to unveil the National Police Memorial in St James’s Park but still failed to fix a royal patron for the charity. So he declined the OBE offered for his trust efforts, saying: ‘It’s what you get if you clean the toilets well at King’s Cross Station.’
WILL Prince George, three, regret being a pageboy at the forthcoming wedding of Pippa Middleton and James Matthews? His father, William, then aged four, appeared in a Pirates of Penzance-style outfit (pictured) complete with straw boater, for the 1986 wedding of the Duke and Duchess of York. He fidgeted during vows and stuck out his tongue at the flower girls. HM His Grandmother was not amused.
THE Matthews-Middleton match isn’t a royal wedding as such, but Kensington Palace officials are involved, liaising with the media, which means it is, sort of. Did Prince Harry and his girlfriend Meghan Markle have to put their engagement and/or nuptials on hold to avoid overshadowing Pippa’s big day? For all I know, Princess Eugenie and her posh-barman beau, Jack Brooksbank, who have sported his-and-hers engagement rings for months, have had to do this.
THE new Bishop of Sheffield, Dr Pete Wilcox, has ‘a mildly obsessive interest in all ball sports’, according to his appointment announcement from No 10. How boring. Why not mention that his wife writes raunchy novels, described as ‘cassock rippers’, under the name Catherine Fox, which include a Christian spoof entitled Fifty Shades Of Purple. And that Bishop Pete reads her manuscripts prior to publication!?
CROONER Peter Sarstedt, who died in January aged 75, gave an interview to The Beat magazine, now published, saying the late chanteur Sacha Distel, who died aged 71 in 2004, ‘came up to me, picked me up, and swung me around like a child and said, “You have made me so happy!” ’ Why so? The lyrics of Sarstedt’s 1969 song, Where Do You Go To, My Lovely? included the line: ‘You live in a fancy apartment / Off the Boulevard of St Michel / Where you keep your Rolling Stone records / And [you’re] a friend of Sacha Distel.’ Sarstedt admitted: ‘I’d only included Sacha Distel because his name rhymed with Boulevard Saint-Michel!’