HM’s adventuress cousin takes on Desert Of Death

THE Queen’s cousin Rosie Stancer shows no sign of losing her taste for adventure.

Rosie, 58, whose grandmother was the Queen Mum’s sister, is to cross the 600-mile Taklamakan Desert — known as the Desert Of Death — in China on a camel. ‘Only one other person has done it and lived to tell the tale,’ says 5ft 3in Rosie, who cut off two frostbitten toes with a penknife during a failed solo attempt to reach the North Pole.

Her new expedition seems to have alarmed the Royal Family. Her husband, William, tells me: ‘The Duke of Edinburgh looked at me and said: “This is all your bloody idea, isn’t it?” ’