Ephraim Hardcastle

THe Duchess of Cornwall appeared at the Cheltenham Festival yesterday to present the trophy after the Queen Mother Champion Chase. Would the Queen Mother have approved? ‘She would probably have expected Charles to do the Cheltenham honours in her place but almost certainly not Camilla,’ says my source. The personal thoughts of the Queen Mother on the Diana-Charles-Camilla triangle might never to be known, even to those with privileged access to the royal Archives. Princess Margaret burned hundreds of her mother’s letters which mentioned it.