Ephraim Hardcastle
SUGGESTIONS that honorary Grenadier Guards colonel Prince Andrew will be replaced at Trooping the Colour by regimental lieutenant colonel Major General Roland Walker haven’t been well received in the officers’ mess. One senior officer voiced concerns saying that Andrew is either fit to be colonel or not and leaving the matter unresolved risks impugning the honour of the regiment. Replacing Andrew also demotes the regiment to the second rank of the Royal procession behind the Queen followed by Charles (Welsh Guards), William (Irish) and Anne (Blues and Royals).
RETIRED Private Secretary to the Queen, Sir William Heseltine takes issue with The Crown’s claim that the monarch was involved in the leak about her rift with PM Margaret Thatcher, saying: ‘In no circumstances that I can conceive would she ever have done such a thing and I know that she did not and what transpired was almost the complete opposite of how it’s perceived in The Crown.’ Perhaps Netflix fan Harry could call William at his retirement home in Sydney and discuss.
HARRY and Meghan, thwarted in their bid to launch Sussex Royal as a brand, might gaze in envy across the pond at Prince Charles receiving £30million from Waitrose for his charitable trust. The cash injection is from the sale of Duchy Originals – now Duchy Organics – set up in 1990 by Charles using the Royal coronet and a shield from his coat of arms to adorn products.
IDENTIfIED by Harry as his first choice to play him on the big screen, Damian Lewis, pictured, already enjoys a friendly rapport with his grandmother explaining: ‘I did have a nice chat with the Queen, Her Majesty, about racing. She was nice enough to give me some advice on betting.’ No Royal tips alas.
DESCRIBING Soho during WWII, Margaret Thatcher’s Art Minister Grey Gowrie claims that it was an open secret that Royal soldiers engaged in casual homosexual sex almost ’as a regular night job’, adding: ‘There were goings on in high society in the Household Cavalry or the Guards. If you were married to a duchess and you wanted a chap, you would ring up your old regimental sergeant major and he gets you a guardsman who’s saving up for his house and marriage. A lot of that went on. And people knew about it.’ Deep waters.
JoNaTHaN Coe’s fictionalised life of Billy Wilder recounts the Hollywood director’s ambitions for a movie about Nijinsky. a colleague said: ‘are you serious? You want to make a movie about a Ukrainian ballet dancer who ends up going crazy and spending 30 years in a mental hospital, thinking he’s a horse?’ Wilder replied: ‘ah, but in our version of the story, we give it a happy ending. He ends up winning the Kentucky Derby.’