Ephraim Hardcastle
Will the new Prince of Wales, expected to succeed his grandmother overseeing the Royal Collection, wreak havoc with the world’s largest private art collection? William – a passionate campaigner against the use of elephant ivory – will be unhappy that more than a thousand items from the collection’s furniture, musical instruments and statuary through to ornaments, miniatures and trinkets contain ivory. There are nervous gulps among RC curators. Should William demand a clear-out, their only hope is that King Charles may use his powers of veto. But when William succeeds dad, he may be unstoppable.
WILLIAM’S anti-ivory antagonism could be stirred by his father’s Coronation. Camilla’s Queen Consort sceptre is an ivory rod topped by a dove, made for James II’s wife Mary in 1685. She will be preceded to her crowning by Westminster Abbey’s Ivory Cross, the same cross that led Diana’s coffin into the Abbey. It is carved from a tusk presented to the church in 1924 by emperor Haile Selassie. And did William know, standing vigil at his grandmother’s lying-in-state, that above him was the great processional cross of the Abbey, made from gold, silver, diamonds, sapphires and ivory?
PREVIEW snippets of the next edition of The Crown reveal its first howler with actor Salim Dau, playing Mohamed Fayed, wearing a wrist watch. Dodi’s dad never wore a watch even though his store Harrods sold a vast array of expensive timepieces. ‘When he wanted to know the time,’ says one former employee. ‘He asked the nearest flunkey.’
ANGELA Lansbury’s lookalike daughter
Deirdre was saved from heroin addiction when her mother upped sticks and moved to County Cork in 1970. Sharon Tate’s murderer Charles
Manson had tried to recruit Deirdre, pictured with Angela. She used her mother’s credit cards to subsidise him and his followers. Angela recalled of her Irish sojourn: ‘There were no temptations, no pushers and no memories.’
THE New Statesman’s Rachel Cunliffe might have swallowed a gramophone needle, so loquacious was she reviewing yesterday’s newspapers on Sky News with my colleague Andrew Pierce. But when he referred to the apparent blundering of the Bank of England she remained mute as a Trappist. Did she want to avoid daddy, Sir Jon Cunliffe, deputy governor of the Old lady of Threadneedle Street, spluttering over his bedtime cocoa?
WILL PM Liz, fresh from her inaugural audience with King Charles, still be in situ for the Coronation? The last time a prime minister at the time of accession didn’t make it to the Coronation was in 1902 when Lord Salisbury said cheerio to Edward VII and was replaced by Arthur Balfour.
LIZ, who went to school in leeds, needs no reminding of the late Brian Clough’s disastrous stint as manager of leeds United in 1974. He lasted 44 days and the club didn’t win a title for 18 years.