Ephraim Hardcastle
PRINCE Edward can’t resist the dressing-up box, wearing his London Regiment uniform at Trooping the Colour. This, despite other royals including the Duke of Gloucester and Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence opting for morning suits without medals. Gloucester is colonel of four Army regiments and Sir Laurence is a career naval officer. Edward served an unfortunate four months with the Royal Marines. Yet with his Garter Star and chain, his Royal Victorian Star, various other medals and the gold braid, as Her Majesty’s personal aide-de-camp, wasn’t he wearing sufficient chest candy to impress an aspiring South American dictator?
PAUL Burrell reveals to ITV’s Lorraine Kelly the contents of the Queen’s handbag: ‘A handkerchief with her initials on it, a powder compact, her lippy and her little bunch of keys that open her red boxes. And on her keys, there’s a beautiful gold St Christopher medal which her father gave her to keep her safe when she travels.’ So how does the blabbermouth ex-royal flunkey explain the marmalade sandwich Her Majesty produced during her Jubilee tea with Paddington?
HOW apt that Katie Razzall, pictured, should make her debut as a Radio 4 Today programme presenter on the day Conservative MPs lost patience with Boris Johnson. She’s married to an Old Etonian and narrated the lyrics to the pop song Unsustainable. The 2012 rap was described as ‘doom-drenched’ and was accompanied by newsreel reports from the end of civilisation. Razzall, 51, is also the daughter of Lib Dem peer ‘Lord Razzall of Dazzle’, and once dated actor Damian Lewis.
SOPRANO Katherine Jenkins, born in 1980, might have yodelled a distress signal as she trundled up The Mall atop a bus featuring figures from the 1950s. She was alongside fellow youngster Chris Eubank, born in 1966. At least the charabanc contained a genuine OAP – Peter Pan of Pop Cliff Richard, 81.
AFTER her Party At The Palace warble, soul and disco legend Diana Ross dashed below stage and hopped into her VIP buggy for the short journey to the after-gig Buck House shindig. Alas, she had to queue for 20 minutes until all the royals exited. ‘Despite being the last star to arrive she remained calm,’ says my witness. ‘She didn’t throw a diva-like tantrum.’
FOUR decades after June Mendoza first painted the Queen, she reveals that Her Majesty asked her to repaint the portrait because she feared her long white dress looked like a dressing gown. June, 95, recalls: ‘So with Ma’am’s approval, I went back to the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, took down the painting, redid the dress and put it back on the wall – and nobody noticed.’