Snowdon kiboshes ‘dynamite’ book on his mum Margaret

THE QUEEN’S nephew, Lord Snowdon, has been fending off calls on the Swiss slopes from publishers all over the world keen to release a book by him about his mother, Princess Margaret, with the simple riposte: ‘I am not writing a book.’

He is reacting to a number of articles which suggested he was going to defend the honour of his mother with a kindly memoir, concentrating on her elegance, lightness of humour and her interest in the arts, as well as her maternal role.

‘While there have been a flurry of books about my mother, none of which has really caught her essence, I can tell you that reports of my putting pen to paper are somewhat exaggerated as I will not be writing her biography,’ he told friends yesterday.

‘If Princess Margaret’s son wrote the intimate story of his mother, it would be publishing dynamite,’ said one London literary agent.

It is believed that hidden away are diaries and photograph albums, which she carefully preserved in her flat at Kensington Palace. But both her children, David Snowdon and Lady Sarah Chatto, are telling friends that, even with a treasure trove of information and other members of the Royal Family as literary sources, they will not be turning into royal writers.

Previously, Snowdon, who was Lord Linley until his father’s death two years ago, has written books and given lectures only about furniture.

He has been keen to quote to friends the words of the famous 19th-century constitutionalist Walter Bagehot, who always warned that too much information put out about the Royal Family was counterproductive, as it would damage their mystique.

Of course, not everyone took that advice: Queen Victoria published her Highland journals and the Duke of Windsor wrote a memoir — and the House of Windsor did not cave in.