I am wondering why I read this book. I cannot really think of a reason why. But I did.
Princess Margaret was, by all accounts, a difficult person, haughty and hard to please and incredibly Royal and demanding. This seems to be the general consensus and it is hard to find the real Princess reading between the lines of all the press she has received. Without exception it has been hostile and vicious. When she became older she said 'the press left her alone now and went after somebody else' but even in her declining years and suffering from ill health the criticism and snide comments persisted. After her death all the nasty little bits about here were resurrected again.
Princess Margaret was the Diana of her day - glamorous,sophisticated, witty and the leader of what became known as the 'Margaret Set'. Every move scrutinised and commented on she was the polar opposite of her sister, the Queen, and suffered accordingly. I remember well
the Townsend affair which was emblazoned across the papers day after day. In this book we learn that she developed a crush on the Group Captain when she was a teenager and it seems he did nothing to squash it despite being a married man of 32 with two children. In the papers today there have been rumours resurfacing that their affair may have started when she was just 17, a vulnerable teenager. It is also worth mentioning that Townsend's second wife was years younger than him and he first met her when she was just 15 years old. Bear that in mind when judging her...
I remember, difficult thought it is to believe now, that we had a day off school so we could watch the wedding of Princess Margaret to Anthony Armstrong-Jones.She looked, as a bride should look, beautiful and radiant but I do know and this is not in hindsight, that I thought he was a bit of a nasty piece of work and looked a right drip in his trendy clothes and hair style. Trying a bit too hard to be cool. The marriage was pretty awful as we now know and, once again, PM got all the blame because she was having an affair and Tony A-J took the high moral ground even though he was having a long term affair as well (he later married the lady, had a child, they divorced and he then had a long term mistress who killed herself when he dumped her) and generally behaved like the shit I always thought he was.
It is intriguing to read about these events now when I remember them so well as a child and teenager. I have recently watched the series The Crown and because I do recall many of the happenings portrayed I am able to say that I think the writers and producers have got it more or less right. The portrayal of Margaret is not an easy one but enables the viewer to feel some sympathy for her. I was also pleased to see that the character of Anthony Armstrong-Jones in the second series is as I have always viewed him.
Every single anecdote in this biography shows Princess Margaret in a bad light. Her so called friends of the glitterati of the day are all, without exception, bitchy and nasty with a story to tell about her rudeness and hauteur. Nice to her face and vicious behind her back they are all pretty repulsive. I have a feeling that she knew exactly what they were like, knew they were not real friends and decided to give them what they wanted. 'F**k it' I would have said ' they want me to be snotty and nasty, well I will be'.
One thing to remember, she had two children who seem to be eminently sensible and sane and both with long lasting and happy marriages (hope I am not putting the kibosh on this by saying so) and who seem to have escaped the disfunction at the heart of the Windsors. Many years ago I used to work in Camden libraries and got to know a lady there who was a regular visitor. I got chatting to her one day over a coffee and she told me she was a lady in waiting to the Queen. She brought in a huge envelope one day and gave it to me saying do not show them to anybody and let me have them back. I was intrigued as you can imagine and was thrilled to see loads of photographs of the Royal Family on board the Royal Yacht and all letting their hair down and having fun. I gave them back to her the next day and never mentioned them to anybody. She would probably have lost her job. One thing she said to me was that Prince Charles was polite and charming but, on the whole, the Queen's children were pretty obnoxious. She then told me that Princess Margaret's two were delightful, beautifully mannered and well behaved. So make of that what you will...
So back to this book and to the writer. I did not notice until I had finished the book that Stephen Fry has written that 'Craig Brown is the wittiest writer in Britain today' and AN Wilson thinks it is 'howlingly funny'. Wilson is acerbic and too pleased with himself and Stephen Fry is, in my opinion, insufferable and pompous. Perhaps if I had spotted these comments earlier I may not have bothered reading this title.
I could say, I suppose, that this book is witty, amusing, perceptive, satirical and full of pointed observations. I could but I feel those descriptions would give Ma'am Darling a status it does not deserve. It is a nasty self satisfied little book. There is one word to describe it:
Unkind.
