Princess Margaret And Me

She was Princess Margaret’s best friend, a maid of honour at the Queen’s coronation and an aristocratic socialite. Lady Anne Glenconner tells Juliet Rieden about the highs and lows of her extraordinary life.

- Juliet Rieden

Aristocratic blood doesn’t come much bluer than Anne Glenconner’s. She was born Lady Anne Veronica Coke, eldest child of the 5th Earl of Leicester, her family established in Tudor times, and raised at Holkham Hall. This massive stately pile in the county of Norfolk is the fifth largest estate in England and just 10 miles from Sandringham, the royal family’s private home. Anne’s father was Equerry to the Duke of York – later King George VI – and her mother a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth II. [Yes, archaic though it sounds, this is still a royal court title which these days denotes a high-ranking lady-in-waiting.]

As a young girl, Anne’s playmates were Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret and as a teenager Prince Charles became “like a younger brother”, sharing happy afternoons mucking around on the local beach. From those childhood days in Norfolk, Anne forged an unbreakable bond with the Windsors which went on to shape her life.

Now 87, she’s ready to reflect on incredible times gone by in a revealing and sporadically shocking autobiography, Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of The Crown. The book is courageous, candid, very personal and, she admits, something of a love letter to her friend Princess Margaret, who she believes has been unfairly maligned since her death, depicted as haughty and difficult in the media and TV dramas including Netflix hit The Crown.

“I think I have redressed some of the very trashy things that have been said about her by people who don’t know her,” Anne says. “I wanted to because I really loved her. She was so much a part of my life, and having also lived with her at Kensington Palace for a whole year, I got to know her really very well.”