PUB JAUNTS WITH HER CHAUFFEUR

FOR Princess Margaret, her chauffeur, Larkin, was a great favourite, his discretion and loyalty absolutely trusted.

Sometimes, on the way to stay with friends on a Friday evening, she would suggest ‘stopping for a drink’ at some attractivelooking pub. Larkin would take off his chauffeur’s coat and hat and put on an old jacket kept in the boot for such occasions; the Princess would slip in and sit at a table in a dark corner while Larkin fetched the drinks.

Occasionally, Larkin would be asked as he stood at the bar whether the woman at the table was, in fact, Princess Margaret.

Larkin would laugh and reply: ‘Well, if it was Princess Margaret, she wouldn’t come in here, would she?’

To which the questioner would back off, saying: ‘Oh no, of course not.’

On other occasions his discretion was tested to the limit. On hot summer weekends, when he was driving Margaret to Royal Lodge at Windsor to stay with her mother, she would sometimes ask him: ‘Can we stop for a swim?’

Larkin would park by the lake the Snowdons used for waterskiing — for which he would often drive the boat — but which was otherwise deserted. The Princess would withdraw to a discreet distance, take off her clothes and skinny-dip.