WHY PRINCESS MARGARET LIKED DOLLY PARTON

IN HIS thought-provoking BBC Radio 4 series, How Others See Us, the former British Museum director Neil MacGregor illustrated the enduring fascination with the Anglo-American relationship by pointing out that while statues to politicians are generally ‘un-regarded and unloved’, the one of Churchill and Roosevelt in the middle of London’s Bond Street is immensely popular.

There is a space between the life-size bronze casts of the war-time leaders, in which visitors can sit, as MacGregor writes, to ‘take a selfie with two men who saved the world from fascism’: and they do, in their many thousands.

This makes my wife very pleased, since (in her capacity as boss of the London branch of U. S. jewellers Tiffany & Co) she was chairman of the Bond Street Association, which pushed this project to mark 50 years of peace since the end of World War II. One person not so happy, at the time, was Churchill’s formidable daughter Mary Soames: she told my wife she hated it because it was such a poor likeness of her father. She had a point.

Nevertheless, it went ahead, and on May 2, 1995, it was unveiled by Princess Margaret, accompanied by the then U.S. Ambassador, Admiral William Crowe.

Afterwards they came to lunch at Tiffany’s. To my surprise — though, as the saying goes, drink had been taken — the Queen’s sister and the admiral formed an impromptu duet singing popular songs from the war. She had a rather good, if smokey, voice. Somehow, this led into a discussion about the U.S. singer Dolly Parton.

Margaret declared: ‘We met Dolly Parton once. We like her. She is shorter than us.’

The Princess was alluding to the fact that she herself was tiny, so rarely met anyone on whom she could look down (at least physically). But I will not forget the look of puzzlement on Bill Crowe’s face as he grappled with the Royal ‘we’ in conversation.

Truly, we are two friendly peoples divided by a common language.