It’s publication day today for my new book QUEENS AND KINGS, AN UNUSUALLY PERSONAL HISTORY! It’s a history book but also a bit of a memoir, and here’s a taster for you!
For twenty years I checked a ring of keys called “bunch 16” out of the security office every morning, and sat in what I’m fairly sure was the coldest office in England. This video explains what it actually felt like to be Chief Curator of Britain’s Historic Royal Palaces — not the hushed, reverent job people imagine, but something colder, funnier, and a great deal noisier.
I arrived at Hampton Court aged twenty-nine, in the dark, wrestling with a set of keys I didn’t yet know how to use, having already been challenged twice at the security barriers by guards who doubted a curator could look like me.
And if you’re minded to do something really kind for a nervous author, trembling in fear of a public judgement - a book order would be wonderful. If that’s too much, just a ‘like’ on the order page would be grand. Thanks e…
