Buckingham Palace is not a home

FOR the past few hundred years, the sovereign has lived at Buckingham Palace, though none of our current Royal Family actually likes it. Several have apartments there, including the Queen and Prince Philip, but none of them thinks of it as home. The Queen was forced by Winston Churchill to give up Clarence House and move there when her father died. But she was very young and not sufficiently confident to dig in her heels. Charles, now approaching 70, is unlikely to be such a pushover. He and Camilla are very happy at Clarence House and have transformed the private quarters into a real home. And although they have plenty of grander properties to choose from, the house where they are at their best and most normal is Birkhall — the Queen Mother’s former residence at Balmoral. So there will be much angst over whether to forfeit this Scottish home for the pomp of Balmoral Castle itself.