Lady Glenconner

Princess Margaret's former lady-in-waiting talks to Daniel Pembrey about growing up at Holkham, home delicacies and the smartest sporting traditions

- Daniel Pembrey

EVEN THE walnut tree in the garden here has a venerability graced with a novel twist. “It is so old the holes are filled with polystyrene to stop water getting in,” explains Lady Glenconner, million-copy bestselling author, formerly lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, wife of Mustique creator Colin Tennant and, before all that, Lady Anne Coke, daughter of the late 5th Earl of Leicester.

Lady Glenconner lives just a few short miles from her childhood home of Holkham. These days home is a handsome 17th-century farmhouse formed of red brick and squared white clunch stone. It is well screened from the road, nestled in a pan-tiled village hugging the flat Norfolk landscape in the face of fierce winds racing in off the North Sea and military jets screaming overhead.

The sitting room is calm and light with tall Georgian-style windows and a well-made fire. Lady Glenconner, 92, has a young woman's alertness of eye. Her dark clothes are smart; timeless. She has another book out: Lady Glenconner’s Picnic Papers and other Feasts with Friends. It collects together entertaining essays on the art of the picnic from an array of voices, including her late mother; the legendary socialite Lady Diana Cooper; media veteran Tina Brown; and etiquette ‘influencer’ William Hanson.

“I expect your readers would like to know about velvet,” she says. As Lady Glenconner begins to explain velvet, the years peel back in the manner of