New Dame Mary offered to teach Latin to royals

PROFESSOR Mary Beard said she offered to be the personal Latin tutortotheDukeandDuchessof Cambridge’s children as she collected her damehood from Buckingham Palace yesterday.

The scholar and broadcaster said she would do “anything” to ensure Princes George and Louis and Princess Charlotte grew up with an understanding of the ancient language.

Speaking after she received the honour for services to the study of classical civilisation from William, Dame Mary said: “Well, I hope he was listening. Of course he was very polite and said, ‘I’ll have to get you to teach them’. And I said ‘Anything!’.

“It’s important to learn where we’ve been and where we’ve come from, and for people to have access to some of the most extraordinary and influential literature in world culture. That kind of direct connection with something so influential, written so long ago is, I think, terribly important.”

DameMarywasatthepalace five years on from receiving her OBE for services to classical scholarship.

The Cambridge University professor, aged 63, previously said she had “a “touch of republican”abouther,butfeltmuch more comfortable accepting the honour now she was “older and wiser”. She was also joined by Shard engineer Roma Agrawal.