I felt sorry for t Queen.. the pala was shoddy an reminded me o the house in Th Addams Family

Michael Fagan has many memories of the day he broke into the Queen’s bedroom, but the image of Her Majesty tucked up in bed is oddly not the most abiding.

What he remembers best is the drab state of her home – and how l onely she looked in the middle of her huge bedroom.

Fagan is the man who went from obscurity to global fame in 1982 when he broke into Buckingham Palace not once, but twice – the second time walking into the Queen’s bedroom.

This week, the spotlight is back on the retired painter and decorator as the world gorges on the new series of hit Netf lix drama, The Crown. Amid the raging controversy surrounding Her Majesty was 56 when Fagan broke in its portrayal of Charles and Di’s ill-fated nuptials, it is the episode focusing on Fagan’s bizarre security breach and meeting with the Queen – played by Olivia Colman – that is proving most extraordinary of all to viewers. Recalling the monarch’s bedroom, Fagan, 70, says: “It surprised me how shoddy it was. I wiped my hands on the curtains because I got some muck on my hands climbing the drainpipe and they were falling to pieces, these 20ft drapes.

“It was like The Addams Family house, just old and flaky.

“And the isolation. It was a big, big room with one little person in it. I could just see this little bundle under the covers.

“I ended up feeling a bit sorry for her. The loneliness of being in that position. I cheered her up, I think!”

O ver th e years, when asked why he wanted to get inside the palace at all , Fagan has always struggled to give an

wer. At the time, his marriage was king down and he was worried ut the custody of his six children – uding two stepchildren. gan admits he was in the process of ng a breakdown. But today, he says s motivation: “I wanted to underd how she lived.”

The Crown, Fagan is played by Tom oke although he doesn’t approve of casting – “not good-looking enough”. e is shown discussing Thatcher’s ain with the monarch, who is clearly ed by the voice of the common man. ut Fagan says angrily: “It’s a work of on, it’s rude to the Queen.” s first entry to the palace, in the mer of 1982, went unnoticed after idn’t encounter a soul. ter scaling a high wall and drainpipe t to a flat roof, Fagan found an open dow in a maid’s bedroom and spent and-a-half hours inside the palace re leaving again. was waiting for someone to come o me so I could say I was there to see Queen,” he explains. just wanted a quiet discourse. I n’t that insane I had lost my ners.” Instead, he spent most of his

Michael Fagan made front-page news several times after the palace break-in

they were discovered on the roof two years later. Fagan says that, as he entered the palace, he struggled to get through mesh put in place to keep pigeons out.

Knowing he would need to cut the mesh to get out, he says he smashed a glass ashtray inside the palace and put a shard in his pocket, cutting his hand.

A cleaner saw him but did nothing, perhaps thinking he was a workman.

So he continued to explore, walking past doors labelled with various Royals’ names, before opening one with nothing on it. It was the Queen’s room.

By now, it was around 6am. The police officer who had been guarding the door had clocked off and the valet who had taken his place was nowhere to be seen.

Fagan recalls of seeing the Queen in bed: “It looked too small to be the Queen’s, it wasn’t a four-poster. I drew back the curtains and she sat up.” He struggles to recall the exact words they

said but insists the exchange was less than a minute long.

“She said, ‘What are you doing here?’ and ‘Hang on one minute’, and walked out the room,” he remembers of the encounter.

“She didn’t look frightened, not really. I think she was quite brave. She scared me!

“Then the footman comes and says, ‘ You look like you need a drink.’ He took me out to the Queen’s pantry and poured me a whisky, Famous Grouse.

“So I had a drink both times I was in there,” he says, proudly. Following the incident, Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw offered to resign and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher apologised – but Fagan was not charged with trespass, as he got in through an open window. He was later charged with stealing the wine he drank during his first break-in, but was acquitted.

He did spend three months in a

Fagan is recovering from a heart attack

psychiatric hospital and says of the experience: “It was like One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest…but I survived it. I had a breakdown but I’m very blessed I came out the other side.”

His ‘visits’ to Buckingham Palace weren’t the only time Fagan was, in his own words, a “naughty boy”.

He was convicted of various offences, including conspiring to supply heroin in 1997. He went to prison for four years.

The palace intrusions led to a further brush with fame, when he released a version of God Save the Queen with punk band the B*****k Brothers in 1983.

Today, he is recovering from a heart attack and Covid-19, and has a carer.

He insists he doesn’t talk about his infamous brush with royalty to his children, seven grandkids or two greatgrandkids, saying with a shrug: “It was just a couple of days in my life.”

There are no mementoes of his escapades or of the Royal Family on the walls of his North London flat but neither does he regret what he did.

“I don’t really see it as a mistake,” he explains. “I was enlightened by it.”