Anne Glenconner's Reflections on Her Extraordinary Life as a Lady in Waiting to the British Royal Family

Commander Straker: A very readable account of her extraordinary life. I found it, sad and tragic at times but most of all uplifting and inspiring.

United Kingdom on Sep 16, 2023

Accompanist: After visiting Holkham Hall in Norfolk and having this book recommended by the guide I bought it. Very interesting stories of the Earl of Leicester's daughter from the hall who became lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret

United Kingdom on Sep 13, 2023

Mark A. Smith: Lovely account of an amazing life. Candid account of great joys and deep tragedies. Candid but authentic insight into the real Royal Family.
Highly recommend

United States on Sep 01, 2023

Chesney Hoagland-Fuchs: Lady Glenconner has a pleasant style and has led an incredible, interesting life. Unfortunately, much of the really interesting things about that life are glossed over or merely hinted at while the tedious details of court protocol are given much more attention and detail.
For instance:
* A minor detail about Prince Philip being permitted to have 17 year old Lady Glenconner and her 15 year old sister dress as maids to perform as photo models for himself. He claimed to be working on a game inspired by Battleship. Really. Battleship does not involve photos of any kind. These were very pretty blond aristocratic teens.
* Compare that entry with the pages and pages on how to hold the queen's train for Coronation.
*That's when I started to think that Harry has been trying to communicate with a public that has not been allowed to see the full picture.

Reflecting further on the game of smoke and mirrors played by the British Royal Family I can absolutely believe everything Harry wrote about them in Spare.
Lovely as she seems, and she's elderly so literally from another century, Lady Glenconner strikes me as the exact embodiment of the "sources" quoted constantly in...

United States on Jul 11, 2023

Maria: It was well written, insight to a world most of us don't know.

Germany on Jun 13, 2023

kawzal: The book is delightful to read and informative about how members of the Royal Family look to those who see them daily and feel priveleged to do so. So closely was the author's life entwined with theirs, that she cannot really write about the latter without alluding to her own, which also had its share of peaches with hard stones. My standard for judging books that blend biography with autobiography is, after reading it, would I like to spend an evening with the author? In this case, very much indeed.

Germany on May 11, 2023

Siltone: In all fairness, I really wasn't the target audience for this memoir. I only gave it my time and patience because it was put forward by a fellow member of our local reading group. In the opening chapters we get to find out about her early life, and despite Anne Glenconner being born into an aristocratic family, she wasn't exactly pampered as a child. In fact, her father gave her a very hard time from the very beginning, outwardly demonstrating his disappointment that she was a girl - and not the male heir he sought. However, her father's lack of affection, and the way females were treated at the time (they had their place as it were) didn't cause Anne to resort to self-pity. She was (and is) a strong-willed person, and has managed to have a fair few exciting adventures in her life.

Truthfully though, it was only the first part of the book, where she relates her childhood, and early work experiences that held any real interest for me. Once she got to the section where she wrote about the part she played in Queen Elizabeth's Coronation Day my eyes started to glaze over. Not long after that experience she falls in love with a gent who she became engaged to - he was later to...

United Kingdom on Jan 29, 2021

John D. Cofield: Anne, Lady Glenconner has led a life that is decidedly uncommon. The eldest daughter of an Earl, she was born and brought up in a stately home where she was neighbors to and freely mixed with the Royal Family. Although her childhood, teenage, and early adulthood were spent during the Great Depression, World War II, and post-war Austerity, she was largely unaffected by them beyond having to put up with inferior materials for her debutante dresses. She was one of the Queen's trainbearers at the Coronation in 1953, was courted by a number of wealthy and titled men, and eventually married a flamboyant, mercurial, and highly talented member of the aristocracy by whom she had five children. She was a lady in waiting and close friend to Princess Margaret for three decades, and in her later years continues to enjoy a rich life, traveling widely and mixing with the Great and the Good.

So what can Anne Glenconner's memoir of her life possibly tell the great majority of her readers, the ones who aren't wealthy aristocrats? Quite a bit, actually. As we are so often reminded, wealth and fame aren't all that they are cracked up to be. Anne's early family life was often dysfunctional with...

United States on Jul 14, 2020

prisrob: The Crown, is a Netflix television series, about Queen Elizabeth and her reign, that most of us enjoy. Lady Anne Glenconner, the author, was asked to assist several of the stars as they played the parts of Princess Margaret and her Lady In Waiting. She loved every minute of it.

Living life in a great manor, the Holkham Hall, with servants and some wealth was not the best of times. Father, Earl of Leicester and a mother who showed little emotion, except ‘keep a stiff upper lip’ to see you through the bad times, and the good times if there were any. Veronica Coke, now known as Lady Anne Glenconner, tells us the story of her life, and quite a story it is.

As a child her hands were tied to the head of the bedstead at night by her nanny. Her parents did not know since they were seldom around. Somehow she managed to grow up with the British reserve, but also with naivitivity In life.

Anne and Princess Margaret had been childhood friends, and as young women they took up their friendship again. Anne was one of Queen Elizabeth’s six Maids of Honor at her coronation, which was the thrill of a lifetime As a young woman,Anne fell in love with a young man who broke...

United States on Mar 25, 2020