I’m a fervent follower of the Royal Family. When I covered William and Kate’s wedding at the impartial BBC, I was overcome with such a fit of fan-girl sobbing that my reportage dwindled to sniffs and snivels. Broadcasting from the late Queen’s funeral queue, I’d willingly have swapped places with the homage-payers rather than work.
I was delighted when we were granted a day off from school for Princess Anne’s wedding to Captain Mark Phillips, and waved at Her Majesty in the Mall on her Silver Jubilee. My parents nostalgically recalled theatres and cinemas concluding with the National Anthem when the audience rose as one to its feet. Not a drop of republican blood runs through my veins.
Before the formidable research conducted by Channel 4’s Dispatches in conjunction with the Sunday Times last weekend, when asked about the Windsor’s wealth, I’d have said: ‘The palaces, acres of land and sea, jewels, paintings and assets are not truly theirs. They are mere custodians. Royal riches belong to all of us.’ I believed King Charles and his descendants lived primarily on the Sovereign Grant – £132 million next year – and supplemented their income selling biscuits and tea towels to enraptured tourists.
Along with many loyal subjects, I was shocked to discover the Monarch and Prince William do not merely preside over the Duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster, which have a value of £1.8 billion, but that they charge us to use their vast portfolio.
The Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Trust pays the King £11.4 million to store ambulances in one of his warehouses. Over time the King is likely to collect at least £28 million from wind farms as he retains the ancient right to profit from cables traversing chunks of coastline.
Prince William’s Duchy of Cornwall is set to pocket £37.5 million leasing Dartmoor prison to the Ministry of Justice over the next 25 years. Even more mind-bogglingly, William benefits from leasing space to charities including Macmillan Cancer Support and Marie Curie. Camelford House, a 1960s tower block known as “Charity Towers” because of its charitable tenants, has netted him an estimated £22 million since 2005.
There is something unsavoury about His Majesty simultaneously being a supporter of a charity and being that charity’s well-remunerated landlord. There is also something disconcerting about the King squeezing cash from our beleaguered NHS. Cutting ribbons, planting trees, shaking hands and speechmaking are what we expect from our royal figureheads. Billing us for essential services in 2024 simply because they retain the spoils of rapacious land-grabs by medieval rulers feels jarringly and disappointingly wrong.
We devoted royalists need greater transparency – and a substantial refund urgently.
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Ladies, if you want proof of progress, look no further than the sensuously seductive Nigella Lawson enticingly devouring a festive bake oozing chicken, stuffing, bacon and cranberry sauce in this year’s Greggs Christmas advertisement.
Why do Nigella’s mastications strike me as confirmation that the perception and treatment of women has evolved? Because she is 64 and, quite rightly cast as a sultry and saucy siren, eminently appealing because many men would like to make love to her and many women would like to be her.
Contrast Nigella’s role as a sex symbol with the ridicule meted out to Yootha Joyce who first appeared in Man About The House on ITV in 1973 at the age of just 49. Yootha played Mildred, a “woman of a certain age” still in the throes of sexual desire. Up for it at the age of 49? Surely not! Indeed, the show’s humour, such as it was, rested squarely on the unthinkable absurdity of any man desiring a woman of such antiquity. Yootha died at the age of 53, 11 years younger than Nigella. What would she have made of the rebranding of vintage women?
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Feathers are flying backstage at Strictly – and I don’t mean the plumes that had to be hastily hacked off Shirley’s scarlet sequinned gown after an objection from animal rights’ group PETA. The atmosphere in the Clauditorium is said to be toxic. Former lifelong chums Nancy Xu and Carlos Gu have had such a cataclysmic falling out they refuse to stand within yards of each other. Kai Widdrington and Nadiya Bychkova won’t enter one another’s orbit since their painful split. Katya and Neil Jones divorced following her street snog with celebrity partner Seann Walsh and rumours bubble of yet more seething feuds.
The small space is packed and claustrophobic. It’s a testament to the persuasive powers of Strictly’s bosses combined with Claudia’s ability to soothe and pour oil on troubled waters that when they’re stuffed into the show like sardines, these avowed foes don’t erupt in ungraceful fisticuffs.
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Has there been a palpable decline in manners? If you doubt it, note that the House of Commons has no choice but to provide its new MPs with lessons in etiquette. Steve Witherden, the MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr, was upbraided after swigging from a carton of milk in the chamber. (I disapprove of such behaviour even in the privacy of one’s own kitchen.) An as-yet unnamed MP was upbraided for strolling into the chamber barefoot. Others find it impossible to remember to address one another as “Right Honourable” and one called the Deputy Speaker Caroline Nokes “Madam Mayor” instead of “Madam Speaker”.
A walk down any street brings us into contact with those who consider spitting, shoving, swearing, taking loud calls on mobile phones and cycling on the pavement to be acceptable. How long before we roll out MP’s comportment classes to the general population?
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River Café doyenne Ruth Rogers remembers Sir Elton John telling her that “his mother had so little money they would pour water into a tiny bottle of orange juice to keep it going.”
Elton may look back on that scenario and claim it was penurious, but I don’t. Back then it was normal to eke out the can of tomato soup by adding water or a drop of milk. Swirling water around the bottle of squash to prolong the deliciousness was routine.
This hatred of waste had nothing to do with income. Our parents were war babies. They’d been brought up to make do and mend. We all cleared our plates, waited while one precious punnet of strawberries was shared out between family members with scrupulous fairness, and thought beans on toast a sumptuous Sunday evening feast. It was a state of mind.
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I don’t know which of the two broadcasting Johns, Walker or Stapleton, caused me more tears of appreciation and admiration this week. Johnny Walker, 79, signed off his final Sounds of the 70s Radio 2 show with his trademark charming self-effacing wit and warmth, saying “It’s been great connecting up for all these years. We’ve done a lot of living together you and I.” We will miss his elegant phrases and encyclopaedic knowledge dreadfully. John Stapleton, 78, has greeted his Parkinson’s disease diagnosis with typical stoicism, saying “I don’t consider myself brave at all. Someone in my position almost considers it a duty to keep people informed and get people talking about it.”
I have been fortunate to know, adore and work with both gentle gentlemen. They have been stellar ingredients in all our lives. I thank them with all my heart.
