An intimate glimpse of the royals at their most unstuffy

THEY are a reminder of gentler, less hurried days; a photographic treasure trove of the Royal Family at work, but mostly at play.

Such intimate and illuminating images may grace the mantelpieces of royal residences — but rarely have they been seen in public.

Now, they have come to light as part of a sale of more than 4,000 pictures taken over four decades by photographer John Scott, who was given unrivalled access to the royals from the Fifties to the Princess Diana era of the early Eighties.

The subjects, of course, have changed over the years, as everyone has grown older. But it is their attitude towards the camera that reveals a greater transformation. It provides a window into the way the Royal Family regards itself — and us.

Until Scott, a Yugoslav emigre, came along, royal photography was a torpid affair of posed studio portraits.

With Scott behind the lens, that all changed. It was a new experience for them, and there were times when they were obviously ill at ease.

But, over the years, time and practice relaxed them. Scott began recording the family at their most unstuffy, with grins and cheery informality.

Indeed, the inescapable feeling from these shots is that they are the way the royals see themselves. Mesmerising Margaret: Long before Princess Diana, the most glamorous of royal women was the Queen’s sister. Hot-headed and wilful Margaret may have been but, throughout the Fifties, she was the most talked-about young woman in Britain. Here she is in 1953 at Balmoral on a warm summer’s day, when her doomed romance with Group Captain Peter Townsend was still not known.

Girl meets boy: If this is the moment that Prince Andrew, with his back to the camera, and Sarah Ferguson — later to become his wife — meet, there is no sign of the tumult to come. It is the polo at Smith’s Lawn, Windsor, in the summer of 1970 and both are aged ten. When asked years later where the couple met, Fergie’s mother Susie Barrantes answered crisply: ‘At the polo, of course. Doesn’t everyone meet at polo?’ The Queen, however, seems more distracted by her younger son Prince Edward and his cousin, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones.

Fashion icon: No, not Princess Margaret in her headscarf, but the immaculately tailored Lord Snowdon. With his corduroy jacket, colourful cravat and bouffant hair, he could have stepped from a Carnaby Street boutique. Taken in 1970, the couple have been wed ten years and the marriage is already cracking. They were to divorce before the end of the decade.

Brotherly love: As Andrew stands beneath an umbrella and Edward, four years his junior, shelters under an outsize tweed cap, the pair are wreathed in smiles. It is 1975 and Andrew is loving life at Gordonstoun, the tough Scottish school Charles hated. Edward followed him there and also adored the spartan regime.

Teenage love: Yorkshire landowner’s daughter Katharine Worsley was just 17 when she met and fell in love with the Queen’s cousin, the Duke of Kent. He was serving with the Royal Scots Greys at Catterick. However, the Queen made them wait more than a year before she would permit them to marry. In 1961, they wed with much fanfare at York Minster. This picture was taken the same year. They later began their married life in Hong Kong as the Duke continued his military career.

Dead ringer: Blink and you’d think it was Prince Harry. It is, in fact, his father, aged 27, trying his hand at the Badminton course in 1976. Charles had just left the Navy with what the Senior Service calls a ‘full set’. His beard didn’t last long — the Queen Mother apparently didn’t like it. It was the beginning of his action man days when, along with flying, hunting and parachuting, Charles was cutting a swathe through aristocratic ‘gels’ up and down the country.

Pouting Princess: Anne’s father once said of his only daughter that ‘if it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested’. But, as this 1972 picture shows, the accomplished horsewoman had also grown into a glamorous and attractive woman. She had been linked to a number of dashing young men, including a certain Andrew Parker Bowles. A year later, she was married to another equestrian, Army officer Captain Mark Phillips.

Smile! Ever since her father, George VI, gave her a Box Brownie before World War II, the Queen rarely goes anywhere without her own camera. Here, it’s the horse trials at Badminton in 1971 and it’s not Charles with hands thrust in pockets, Andrew biting his lip or Edward picking his nose that is Her Majesty’s focus.

Royal repose: Kneeling on a picnic rug at the Badminton Horse Trials in 1962 is about as informal as the Queen gets in public. Engrossed in the action, she is accompanied by 11-year-old Princess Anne and a relaxed Earl Mountbatten of Burma.