Lady In Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown ~ Anne Glenconner

I’m writing this review whilst watching The Crown. It is actually since finishing this book that my love for The Crown has been reignited and I have decided to start watching it again from the beginning. I actually pre-ordered this book after watching Lady Glenconnor being interviewed alongside Olivia Coleman and Helena Bonham Carter on the Graham Norton show. On the show she detailed some of her life which I thought was hilarious and was baffled by the fact that I didn’t really know who she was. Only having to wait a couple of weeks before the book arrived I was quite excited to say the least but unfortunately my focus was taken up by other books on my TBR list and it has sat on my bookshelf till now. However, having all this time off due to the madness that is going on around us, my pace for reading has definitely picked up and I’m ploughing through book after book. I thought this would be a nice break from all the fiction I have been reading.

In this book Anne covers the nearly 9 decades of her life from her birth, being raised around the Royals, her father being the right-hand man of the King and then in turn her mother being the lady in waiting for the Queen. Which years later she would do the same for Princess Margaret. She tells tales of her husband Lord Colin Glenconnor and the five children they eventually had during their marriage. Colin’s mad idea to buy the island of Mustique led them to have a very ostentatious lifestyle flitting back between the Caribbean, England and Scotland but also highlighted that not everyone’s life is what it seems on the outside. Anne’s life was rife with grief after losing her two eldest sons, one from AIDS and one from drug abuse. Whilst also having to nurse her third son out of a coma after having a horrendous motorbike accident on his gap year.

I was absolutely enthralled by the way she wrote so matter-of-factly, so straight to the point. No detail too small, she covered every emotion and feeling possible and showed through her writing that although they had money and a glamorous lifestyle their life was no different from any other persons. The grief she felt throughout her life and the marriage to a man for 56 years in which his eccentricity prevailed throughout and how she dealt with that as a mother and a wife.

It was also wonderful to see an outsider’s view on The Queen Mother, the Queen and Princess Margaret of whom she was very close to from a young child. That they like any other, dealt with difficulty throughout their lives. From death, grief to forbidden love, betrayal and not being worthy for the parents approval. I absolutely love this book from cover to cover and I can’t wait to see Nancy Carroll portray Anne in the later seasons of The Crown. 

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in the royal family or British history or just wants a good non-fiction book to read. I give this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5 stars. It truly was eye-opening.
M🌸