Playing herself at the Borsetshire Fashion Show on The Archers in 1984, she sounded curiously flat and uninvolved, almost as though she couldn’t get to grips with her own character. After the first run-through, the producer, William Smethurst said: “That’s very good, Ma’am, but do you think you could sound as if you were enjoying yourself a little more?”“Well, I wouldn’t be, would I?” replied the princess.
Craig Brown noticed Princess Margaret's ubiquity when researching an earlier book of his. Open the biography of any public figure from the second half of the 20th century and she will be there in the index. Usually you will be directed to an anecdote about her where she appears haughty or rude.
Brown has turned these brief appearances into a study of Margaret. The tale is familiar: the failure to marry Group Captain Peter Townsend, the marriage to Lord Snowdon, the years of fun and scandal on Mustique, the decline in her health from too much tobacco and alcohol, the death a few weeks before that of her mother.
Yet I learnt plenty that was new from Ma'am Darling. Margaret's wish to marry the war hero Townsend alarmed the royal family and court because he was divorced from his first wife. She was persuaded to abandon the idea and him by pressure that went all the way up to threatening to cut her off without a penny. Today's public would be more concerned that Townsend was 16 years older than Margaret, who had been only 13 when they met. After parting from Margaret, he went on to wed an even younger woman.
The happiest time in Margaret's life seems to have been the early years of her marriage to Lord Snowdon, when they were London's most fashionable couple - this was a few years before it began to Swing - and moved in glittering social and artistic circles, But their relationship soon soured, and Snowdon treated her with calculated cruelty.
Later she sought solace in the millionaire's paradise of Mustique with the amusing (Roddy Llewelyn) and the criminal (John Bindon). Then her health began to decline and she was seen about no more. She died in 2002, aged 71.
It was not a happy life, and reading about it strengthened my belief that a strong argument against having a monarchy is the impossible lives members of the Royal Family are forced to live.
Ma'am Darling has no index - I took the story about Margaret's appearance on The Archers, which is in the book, from a Guardian article - but I think I'm right in saying that the book omits the one wholly creditable story I have heard about Margaret.
This time I am quoting BBC News on Joan Littlewood's play Oh! What a Lovely War:
Littlewood gave the show a new political bite, as befitted a nation growing tired of deference. The family of Field Marshal Douglas Haig wanted to stop the show reaching the West End, claiming the portrayal of him was a crude caricature.
But Spinetti recalls a useful royal visit when the play was still in Stratford. "One evening Princess Margaret came with Lord Cobbold, who as Lord Chamberlain was also the theatre censor.
"Afterwards Princess Margaret came backstage and said 'Well Miss Littlewood those things should have been said many years ago - don't you agree, Lord Cobbold?' He gave a thin smile and said 'Oh yes ma'am'. And Joan knew that was our permission to go into the West End."
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