RUSSELL GARETH

This is a biography of the Queen Mother with all the dull bits stripped out.When told that Lady Mountbatten was being buried at sea, the Queen Mother replied cheerfully. Dear old Edwina, she always did like to make a splash!During her lifetime, the Queen Mother was as famous for her clever quips, pointed observations and dry-as-a-Martini delivery style as she was for being a member of the Royal Family. She was also famed for her fondness for drinky-poos usually a gin and Dubonnet or three. Now, Do Lets Have Another Drink recounts 101 biographical vignettes one for each year of her long, remarkable life, including her coming-of-age during World War I, the abdication of her brother-in-law, the truth about her tragic nieces and her relationship with her two daughters over half a century of widowhood.The book is a skimming-stone biography the story of a life without the boring bits and a travel guide to a world that no longer exists. Stepping into the Queen Mothers rarefied universe is a little like falling through the looking glass. The book rightly celebrates her sense of humour but also explores her enmities and feuds, including the truth about her behaviour towards Wallis Simpson, Nerissa Bowes-Lyon and Diana, Princess of Wales.For fans of The Crown and featuring new revelations, never before published, and colourful anecdotes about the woman the high society photographer Cecil Beaton once described as a marshmallow made on a welding machine, Do Lets Have Another Drink is a delightful celebration of one of the most consistently popular members of the Royal Family.

Books like this don t come along very often Told with Gareth Russell s characteristic verve and exquisite eye for detail it is a story so compelling and surprising that it feels as if it has been hiding in plain sight for 400 years TRACY BORMAN A warts and all story told with compassion PHILIPPA GREGORY Elizabeth was king Then James was queen English author 1603 James Stuart King of England Scotland and Ireland did not always love wisely but he never failed to do so boldly James Stuart King of England Scotland and Ireland did not always love wisely but he never failed to do so boldly He fell in love three times with a Scottish lord a knight and George Villiers the handsomest man in the whole world He was infatuated three more times with a Highland earl a Welsh lord and an English spy We know so much about the six wives of Henry VIII why not the six loves of James I This groundbreaking new book puts James genius liar spendthrift idealist witch hunter and the men he loved at the centre of one of the most dramatic stories in British royal history Beginning with the brutal and mysterious murder of his father in 1567 James s life encompassed kidnapping witchcraft trials torture his mother s beheading poison political radica

If a house could gossip this is the book that Hampton Court would whisper An enjoyable and readable stroll through 500 years of Hampton Court history royal residents common visitors thieves inv