Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton

Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton is a writer, former soldier and SAS man, erstwhile equerry to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and former Personal Private Secretary to Princes William and Harry when they were young men in their twenties. In this wide-ranging conversation, Jamie tells Gyles about his childhood, spent in the marshes of East Suffolk, playing out until late with friends and dreaming of being a soldier when he grew up. He talks about his parents - his inspirational mother and depressive father. He talks about being plucked from the Irish Guards to work as equerry to the Queen Mother, and gives Gyles some touching and amusing stories about her and his time with her. He talks about the SAS and what defines them, and then he talks what he tried to do for Prince Wililam and Prince Harry to prepare them for public life. This is a fascinating conversation, full of insight, humanity and wisdom. Our heartfelt thanks to Jamie for sharing his energy and history with us. Jamie's novel, set in WWII, and called 'Beyond the Edge of Light', is available here https://www.waterstones.com/book/beyond-the-edge-of-light/jamie-lowther-pinkerton/9780857508843 and is highly recommended. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:02Speaker 04

  Hello again. I'm so glad you've found us, because we think of this as our own enchanted place, somewhere very special. It's the world of Rosebud, and it's wonderful that you're here. Welcome, let's cue the music.

• 1:37Speaker 04

  Hello, I'm Gyles Brandreth, and this is another episode of Rosebud. If you're listening to this on the day that we drop it onto the world, it's the 25th of September 2026. And this week, I'm sure you've noticed, there's been a lot of royal coverage in the news, much of it triggered by the publication of a book by Earl Spencer, Charles Spencer, about his sister Diana, the late Princess of Wales. Actually, if you're intrigued by Earl Spencer, you can see and hear him in the round on an earlier episode of Rosebud, one we recorded earlier this year. They're easy to find, the old episodes. You can go to our archive via our website, that's rosebudpodcast.co.uk, or you can check it out on YouTube.

• 2:21Speaker 04

  We have a lot of our interviews now on YouTube. You simply go to YouTube, look for the Rosebud channel, and there we are. It's fascinating, actually, in many ways, the Earl Spencer conversation, not least because in it he talks about the challenges and traumas of his own childhood and how they've affected the rest of his life, including his quite complicated love life. Prince Harry has been in the news this week, now back living in England, and Prince William and Catherine, of course, they've also been out and about and getting coverage on their... doing their royal duty. William and Harry, they crop up in today's episode of Rosebud, because my guest is a man called Jamie Louthair Pinkerton,

• 3:04Speaker 04

  sometimes soldier, now a novelist, who until 2013 was William and Harry's first principal private secretary. I asked him in for this week really quite by coincidence, because I've been reading a novel that he's written called Beyond the Edge of Light, and it's beautifully written. It's a Second World War novel. It's about forbidden love, Bletchley Park. But what intrigued me is that it was inspired by his own mother, and I wanted to discover more about her and about him. In some ways, you might think his story is predictable. You know, he was educated at Eton and Sandhurst, and he became a soldier, Irish Guards, then he joined the SAS. But he's not quite as predictable as the biography might suggest.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  He spent fascinating couple of years as a query to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, in the 1980s, and our conversation has lots of fun stories about her. And I think it was when he was working with her that he will first have met Prince Charles, as he then was, the Prince of Wales, because he was very close to his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth. And I think that encounter with Prince Charles, now King Charles III, is what led to him becoming the first principal private secretary to William and Harry, helping them prepare for their role as royals, helping them set up their offices for the first time. And he was with them, I think, until 2013. I know he also helped with the arrangements surrounding William and Catherine's wedding,

• 4:32Speaker 04

  and then he became one of Prince George's godfathers, you know, the future King George VII. So, actually, the conversation you're about to hear includes some fascinating advice, wise advice, I think, that Jamie gave to the young princes, which you might find useful for your own life. Anyway, he doesn't normally talk about his time in the SAS or about William and Harry, but he does here. So this is an exceptional episode of Rosebud with an unusual man with an unusual story to tell. I think you'll find this quite fascinating. This is Rosebud with Jamie Louthair Pinkerton. Cue the music.

• 5:27Speaker 04

  Now, my guest today has got quite a name, Anthony James Moxon Louthair Pinkerton. Well, some would say this is ridiculous. Where all these names come from?

• 5:38Speaker 05

  Well, Moxon is my maternal great-grandmother, who was still alive when I was a little boy, so I think it was because of that. And then the Louthair and the Pinkerton bits joined up about sort of three generations ago. Both are Anglo-Irish families. So I was lumped with this thing from the word go. And Anthony, because my father, we'll talk about in a minute, but he was very keen on tradition, and tradition extended to having two previous Antonys. And so I got lumped with that, and they called me Jamie since birth, so it's called untold carnage.

• 6:17Speaker 04

  We are thinking of you as Jamie Louthair Pinkerton. Forgot this right, born on the 28th September 1960.

• 6:23Speaker 05

  That's it.

• 6:24Speaker 04

  Good, right man, right date of birth. Jamie, what is your very first memory?

• 6:31Speaker 05

  My first memory is judging the nobly knees competition at Bognor Regis Butlins when I was about five or six. And I'd been taken there by the wonderful Suffolk lady called Sibby, who used to look after my mother. And my parents went to Ireland, and that was the first holiday I'd ever been on, and it remains one of the best, because I was allowed to stay up until 10 o'clock at night judging nobly knees competitions.

• 7:02Speaker 04

  Well, we've got to hear about Sibby and your parents. Who are your parents, and what is the Irish connection?

• 7:06Speaker 05

  My father was an Anglo-Irishman. He was called Rumpty Louthair Pinkerton, actually because "cris'n' rumpty" by Sir Henry Irving's widow, actually, who came to tea with my great-great-grandmother.

• 7:21Speaker 04

  This is a great Victorian actor?

• 7:22Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 7:23Speaker 04

  Who didn't like his wife?

• 7:24Speaker 05

  No, and I heard your episode on that, and I did wonder where she fitted in. But she said he looked like the Bishop of Rumpty-Foo and Rumpty-Stuck.

• 7:34Speaker 04

  And Rumpty-Foo is a character in some...

• 7:36Speaker 05

  In Gilbert and Sullivan, yeah. So it's sort of good Victorian stuff or Edwardian stuff, and it just stuck, and he was Rumpty all his life.

• 7:46Speaker 04

  So your dad was known as Rumpty?

• 7:47Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  What did you call him?

• 7:49Speaker 05

  I called him dad.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  Fine, but everyone else called him Rumpty?

• 7:51Speaker 05

  Everybody else called him Rumpty, including all my friends, yeah.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  And what was he?

• 7:55Speaker 05

  He was an interesting man, because he was one of those sort of people whose family had frankly been, probably quite rightly, dispossessed about six generations ago. But they could never let go of the Irish connection. And so he was a great wanderer, like a lot of Anglo-Irish people.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  When you say dispossessed, his lands were confiscated?

• 8:21Speaker 05

  Well, the family, I mean, you know, they had absolutely been part of the ascendancy in Ireland, which was not a great thing perhaps to have been all the time. But they were burnt out in 1798.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  So this is an English family?

• 8:37Speaker 05

  An English family in Ireland, yeah.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  And part of the ascendancy, meaning we are the ascendant people?

• 8:42Speaker 05

  Absolutely, yeah.

• 8:43Speaker 04

  You are the Irish peasants? And the Irish peasants said, "You've had enough."

• 8:47Speaker 05

  They said, "You've had enough."

• 8:48Speaker 04

  And this, what particular year was this?

• 8:49Speaker 05

  1798.

• 8:50Speaker 04

  1798, they torch your forbears' home?

• 8:55Speaker 05

  They do.

• 8:55Speaker 04

  And so they are then dispossessed?

• 8:58Speaker 05

  And in some ways, who can blame them, frankly? But that's when it all started, and it sort of kind of went downhill from there. But the thing I admire about him and his mother and father was that they never sort of let go, and they never allowed themselves to sort of plunge off a cliff. They maintained the most ridiculous sort of standards over these generations, really when it wasn't warranted. But as a result, he was quite a wanderer, my father. He was an adventurous Anglo-Irish exile, basically.

• 9:34Speaker 04

  And when you were born that year, 1960, what was he doing? How was he on his living? Where was he living?

• 9:39Speaker 05

  I was born in London, but we moved to East Suffolk within about six months. But my father had been in the southern Rhodesian...

• 9:51Speaker 05

  Police after the war, he was mad about horses and that was one of the places you could still ride horses. So he went off there. And I think, you know, that was one of, that was one of the great moments of his life. But he then came unstuck on a horse and transferred into the Met and he was in the Metropolitan Police Special Branch.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  You clearly speak a language that is particular. When somebody's house is burnt down, you call it being dispossessed. And he has a little trouble with a horse, meaning what?

• 10:18Speaker 05

  Meaning he fell off and the thing rolled on top of him.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 10:21Speaker 05

  And he, he was a wonderful, I mean, he was wonderful on a horse, but he, he wasn't that day, obviously. And the horse rolled over on top of him and he, he was never really able to sit on a horse for more than about fifteen minutes after that in his life. But he was, he was not the sort of person to be defeated by that sort of thing. And he sort of ploughed on. But he was in the Met Police Special Branch for a while. And that sort of ended about the time when, when I was born.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  So he was a senior police officer?

• 10:48Speaker 05

  Not very, no. He, he, he was only in his sort of, I suppose, what was he then? He was about thirty. So he did his time. And when I used to go backwards and forwards to school when I was in my teens, he used to take me to his patch in the East End of London, off the Mile End Road and show me where he had had all these contacts and the sort of communist versus fascist, all that sort of stuff, side of the house. And we'd have our, we'd have our lunch in the Blind Beggar on the way back. And he would, he would sort of tell me the stories of what happened in the East End.

• 11:16Speaker 04

  The Blind Beggars were the Cray Twins.

• 11:17Speaker 05

  Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  That was their manner.

• 11:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  But explain to me about the communists and the, what's going on there?

• 11:23Speaker 05

  Well, because that was his, his job was sort of counter extremism or at least intelligence on extremism in the East End. So it was an overhang of, do you remember those times in the nineteen thirties when the fascists and the communists were having a go at each other? And I suppose it was, that was his, that was his manner.

• 11:42Speaker 04

  So here is an adventurer who has travelled the world, who is nomadic, who loved horses, damaged, comes back. This is Rumpty. He's now working in the police, but sort of some of it's a little bit, we don't quite know what's going on. Your recollections of him when you were small, what are they in the nineteen sixties? What's, picture dad to us?

• 12:04Speaker 05

  Great, great big fella. He, he was either through the ceiling in a sort of joyous way and, and absolutely the life and soul of the party, which was actually his external projection. So all of my friends used to come back, even when I wasn't there and stay with him and, and spin the bar with him. But he could go through the floor. He was one of these up and down people. And he was totally gentle and sweet to Sarah, my sister and I. But he used to go into, I suppose, you know, what Churchill have called the black dog, pretty, pretty.

• 12:35Speaker 04

  What we might call bipolar. I mean, he had highs and lows or?

• 12:38Speaker 05

  Possibly, actually. He was, he was that, he was that sort of extreme. We knew when, when not to, not to poke the bear, you know, because he otherwise. But my mother was the great sort of leveler and kept him.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  And who was she?

• 12:50Speaker 05

  She was the daughter of an Indian army general in the nineteen thirty. She grew up in, in what's now north, the northwest frontier of Pakistan. So in Peshaw and, actually, Peshaw during the winter. And then when the plains got too hot in the summer, she would be up in Kashmir. And so she had this very sort of free life with my grandfather and grandmother, living in, in a, in a bungalow in a cantunment in, in the northwest frontier of India. So that was her sort of, her young life. And then she inevitably, like a lot of them were, she was sent back to school in England, not least to get her out of the, out of the sort of, you know, the very, very high casualty rates for, for European children

• 13:35Speaker 05

  in, in that part of the world.

• 13:37Speaker 04

  Because of health?

• 13:38Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. So to get her back and she went to, I think she went to four boarding schools in about three years where this sort of wild, lovely upbringing she had had just didn't pay off when you had to.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  She couldn't be contained?

• 13:51Speaker 05

  Couldn't be contained.

• 13:52Speaker 04

  So she moved from Cheltenham Ladies College to Rodeen to, was it a bit like that?

• 13:56Speaker 05

  Well, they used to go to Bexhill-on-Sea, that was the place. And there were these girls boarding schools all lined up for basically the daughters of empire and trade and that sort of thing, all where their parents were around the world. And she got chucked out of, she got chucked out of four of them, I think. And, you know, I mean, wonderful sort of stuff with sort of her jumping down when they had that traversing camera for the school photograph.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  Oh, yes. And you could hear twice in the picture.

• 14:21Speaker 05

  And she was twice in the picture and, you know, got to the stage where all the names were printed, everything, and somebody spotted it. And so my poor grandfather, the general, had to sign his cheque in the northwest frontier. And then I think the last time was when she, she got into the, she got into the staff accommodation and borrowed all her friends' dressing gown cords and tied the dressing gown cords over the, around the doorknob so nobody could get out. And so chapel didn't happen, the first lessons of the day didn't happen. And her future education didn't happen. As a result, she was sent home at fifteen, I think.

• 14:56Speaker 04

  Gosh. We're going to come back to her because she has inspired you with the novel you've written, hasn't she?

• 15:00Speaker 05

  She has. She's the main character, basically.

• 15:02Speaker 04

  How did your parents meet?

• 15:05Speaker 05

  They met in about nineteen fifty. And I, I'm not a hundred percent sure, actually, but my father at that stage was in the special branch and my mother was in MI5 at that point. So it might have been some sort of link up with that, something around that time.

• 15:22Speaker 04

  And when you were a little boy, you had no idea about her MI5 life?

• 15:26Speaker 05

  No, no, we didn't know until I was in my late twenties, actually. And she had this sort of double life where the first half of it was a life of adventure, northwest frontier, ATS during the war, dispatch rider on a motorcycle, dispatch rider during the war, military intelligence after the war, and then MI5 sort of during the Cold War, or at least six or seven years of the Cold War. And, and then the second half was Miss Marple. And she was making jam in Suffolk and knitting cardigans for godchildren. And actually, she was sort of kind of mother to everybody, everybody.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  But was she also being Miss Marple in the sense of doing undercover work?

• 16:02Speaker 05

  No, no, I think it was, it was a sort of, it was a distinctly, you know, it was half and half. So she came, when we went to Suffolk, she became Miss Marple.

• 16:11Speaker 04

  She was the cosy lady.

• 16:11Speaker 05

  And then we didn't realise that she had done the first bit until my sister and I were home for, for Christmas. And my father wanted to watch a programme about the fifth man. And the chap doing the documentary said, and of course, the other person it could have been was Sir Roger Hollis, the director general of MI5, at which my mother, without even missing a stitch, said, absolute nonsense. He was a, he was a great man and a total patriot. And we both looked at her as if she'd gone completely mad. But that was the first we ever knew about it. And the last, practically.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  How extraordinary. You had a mother who was a, a secret MI5 operative, but seemed to you to be your cosy mother.

• 16:48Speaker 05

  Absolutely.

• 16:49Speaker 04

  Married to Rumpty?

• 16:50Speaker 05

  Married to Rumpty.

• 16:51Speaker 04

  Rumpty, did he know what was going on?

• 16:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, he did. He burst into fits of laughter when we sort of looked all sort of slack-jawed about it.

• 16:57Speaker 04

  And were they good together?

• 16:59Speaker 05

  They were very good together. I mean, he, she, she managed to sort of guide him through these ups and downs. And my classic sort of story of that was when we were having Sunday lunch and he was in a real mood down the other end of the dining room table. Sarah and I were opposite each other. And my mum, it's the only time I've ever really saw her snap. But she used to make these very, very sharp roast potatoes. And because she had grown up in the northwest frontier with an elder brother, she knew how to bowl a cricket ball and to throw a cricket ball and things. And she picked up one of these roast potatoes and she flew it flat arm, like you would trying to hit the top of the stumps. And it hit my father clean between the eyes and just went crack and spread out across his

• 17:43Speaker 05

  forehead. Sarah and I just looked at our plates and didn't dare look down the, and when we did look, he was, he was crying with laughter.

• 17:51Speaker 04

  Oh, great.

• 17:52Speaker 05

  And so she just knew and she was, she had got on with her lunch. So, you know, she was a, she was a pretty cool woman, actually.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  What did you think of your parents when you were a small boy, before you were a teenager? What did you make of them?

• 18:07Speaker 05

  I adored them. And it was an idyllic childhood. I mean, I have, you know, there's no, there's no, there's no dusty corners there.

• 18:13Speaker 04

  Describe a day, describe a day in your idyllic childhood.

• 18:16Speaker 05

  Well, we lived just on the edge of the marshes, which go across to the North Sea. So last bit of sort of dry land in the middle of nowhere in a tiny little village on a peninsula that sticks out into the North Sea. So my day, you know, lovely breakfast, which mum would cook, and it would be anything from kidneys and bacon to scrambled eggs and bacon and whatever. And then we, then we would head out. And I, when I was a boy, before I went away to school, you know, my mates were all the, were all the guys, the other guys in the village. And we would just head out onto the marshes. And they were incredibly, you know, it's quite a, it's quite a dodgy place, you know, there are these very deep dykes and things all over the place. But it never seemed to bother them.

• 18:59Speaker 05

  And off we would go. And we were given a time when we had to come back for, not even lunch necessarily, but sort of supper or whatever it was. And if we didn't come back in time, my mother would give us a roasting. My father was always too gentle, actually, to, to, to be the one administering the discipline. It was mum. So it was a life of complete freedom. And, you know, I went to day school in Suffolk. So, you know, it was an uninterrupted heavenly period, actually.

• 19:29Speaker 04

  You mentioned his black dogs, his depressions. Were you were aware of them? You mustn't touch, leave dad alone. Did it worry you or just take it for granted?

• 19:38Speaker 05

  No, I took it for granted. And to a, to a degree, I've got the same thing. I mean, I, I go very, very sort of up and down, actually. Not, not in, not, not, I hasten to add, I'm not claiming that I have any mental health issues, but I have that same sort of character. And luckily, I've got the same sort of wife who knows how to, how to sort of pull me out of it, actually.

• 19:59Speaker 04

  And how does she pull you? How do you pull yourself out of it?

• 20:02Speaker 05

  I think you have to be, you have to have your space, actually. I think you have to go off and, and I remember my mother used to do the same thing as, as Susie, you know, just go off and do whatever you're going to do. Go for a walk, take the dogs for a walk and you come back and you're right as rain. But it's, it's, it's a funny sort of up and down. And, and we both, my father and I, had the unbelievable good fortune of marrying these amazing women who knew how to deal with us.

• 20:25Speaker 04

  And did their marriage last and be happy?

• 20:27Speaker 05

  Absolutely. Yeah, he died very young. I mean, she was, she was thirty years a widow. And he died when he was sort of sixty-four. Yeah, just of a heart attack, went straight away, which my sister, who's ever the pragmatist, said, I mean, the only thing we need to be really thankful for is he didn't, he didn't get to the stage where he's burning his trousers. You know, he just went like that. And, you know, bomb of a, full of fun, dining room.

• 20:54Speaker 04

  I love your turns of phrase, get to the age where you start burning your trousers.

• 20:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, well, I mean, you don't.

• 20:59Speaker 04

  I know, I know exactly what you mean. It's a very evocative phrase. I'm dreading it happening to me. Anyway, so you are this little boy, leading this idyllic childhood. Happy with your sister? You and she are best friends?

• 21:12Speaker 05

  Best friends.

• 21:12Speaker 04

  Yeah. And why did your parents aspire to send you to Eton?

• 21:17Speaker 05

  This was my father, and it's all part and parcel of that sort of not lowering the not lowering the expectation, the standards, even though, to be brutally honest with you, Giles, I mean, it was it was long, long ago that that it would have warranted that. But they never let go, and I rather admire them for that.

• 21:35Speaker 04

  A TV to eat in himself.

• 21:36Speaker 05

  They, he went to Bradfield.

• 21:38Speaker 04

  And is Eton what makes you the person you are? What makes you the person you are?

• 21:42Speaker 05

  I think it does in a way. I mean, I was pretty overawed by it, actually, because coming from a tiny little school in East Suffolk. But the great thing about Eton is is that the boys, when they're there, they they're not conscious of of how privileged they are, actually, but at the same time, they're not conscious of being any different. And so there's no sort of one-upmanship based on sort of wealth or anything like that. You're just all in it together. I wasn't a taller, successful Etonian. I was quite quite shy, and I think that that initial period sort of sort of set me in that in that mode. But I did love it. I mean, I played rugby there and I got lots of lots of friends and we we meet up, you know.

• 22:25Speaker 04

  Where are you on the signal it sends out? I know, because we're going to touch on this later, that you're godfather to the future King George the Seventh, who has just started at Eton. But it definitely sends out a signal to the world, doesn't it, Eton? Where are you on that? Does it worry you? Did it? Did it? When you were a boy, were you conscious?

• 22:45Speaker 05

  We were very conscious. And I sent my son to Eton. So so I was

• 22:49Speaker 04

  You thought this through.

• 22:50Speaker 05

  We had a lot of a lot of conversations about exactly this point. And I mean, I suppose I came around to the point, if you're privileged enough to go to Eton, and it is a real privilege, then you've got at some point to pay back. And and there's a sort of public service thing, which I think goes with it. It's not, it's a very competitive place. So, you know, every the end of every half or term, we call them har- terms, halves at Eton, you know, you would have sort of full exams, and it was published, you know, who had come first, who had come two hundred and sixty fourth. No prizes for guessing which I was closest to. But what Eton did for me is it taught me about failure. Because I longed,

• 23:33Speaker 05

  like everybody else did, to be in pop, which is this prefect thing, and I longed to do this and that and the other thing, but I didn't manage it. And when I left Eton, I thought, actually, one of the really sort of burning things was I'm not going to let that happen again. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get stuck in.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  It's quite a tough school, that, in the sense, learning that way.

• 23:52Speaker 05

  It is. I mean, it's, it's, it's a great place. And actually, it it it provides a lot to the country. I think it always has done. We're very, very lucky to go there.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  And did you perform reasonably academically?

• 24:03Speaker 05

  Okay, I was, I was sort of halfway up the school. But the problem was, and I feel huge guilt about it now, is that I, I, I didn't work for my A levels, because in those days, you could get into the army with five O levels, one of which needed to be maths C grade, and one of which needed to be English C grade. So my last two years were, were shock, I was shockingly idle, particularly if I think about what my parents were going through to get me there.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  Why did you know that you were going into the army? How did that come to you?

• 24:33Speaker 05

  Because I always wanted to be a soldier.

• 24:34Speaker 04

  From what age?

• 24:35Speaker 05

  From, from nought. This, this goes actually to a little thing my father did. I've still got him on my desk, but there's a little knight, which he plonked down beside my bed, I mean, before I can, my earliest memory, I think. And it was a, he had painted it in the, in the, in the, in the, in the colors, the sir coat of of my family, because one of these characters in the diminutive past had fought at the Battle of Agincourt. And so I, he told me the story of the Battle of Agincourt, putting this thing in front of me and said, that's, you know, that's kind of what we've always done. And I thought, well, that's absolutely great. And I, you know, I repainted it all through my life.

• 25:17Speaker 04

  I can picture these little toy models.

• 25:19Speaker 05

  It's a little, it's a, it's a lead soldier, about that big. And he's there, and he's got his shield slung over his back, and he's got his sir coat on and this sort of thing. And it's got the, it's got the, the coat of arms or the, the armorial, whatever it is.

• 25:32Speaker 04

  Of either loathers or pigottos.

• 25:33Speaker 05

  Of a, of a loather. Yeah.

• 25:35Speaker 04

  Of a loather. Yeah. So you had, as your role model, there, your destiny was for you. You had to be as good as the loather who'd been at the Battle of Agincourt.

• 25:45Speaker 05

  Well, it was that wonderful. Do you remember that Lady Bird book about Henry the Fifth?

• 25:48Speaker 04

  I can picture it.

• 25:49Speaker 05

  I can, so that, you know, that was another part of it. So, so very, very sort of, a very sort of rather innocent and basic reason for being a soldier, but it was so strong.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  And you never thought, no, this is it. This is going to be it.

• 26:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  And there was no distraction. That was it. In your teenage years, did, did, did the boys at Eton get to meet girls?

• 26:07Speaker 05

  No, not at all. I was completely, utterly hopeless with, with, with girls. And really, you know, I'd been at a boys' prep school. I'd lived this life in Suffolk, virtually on my, on my own with the lads in the village, and then on to, on to Eton, and then into the army. So I was, you know, very, very, very slow developing in that, in that way. And lived really a life of, of sort of fly-by-night, sort of idiocy, frankly, in lots of ways. I mean, a lot of the people who I, who I probably behaved very badly with are still my friends, so I don't think I was too awful, but.

• 26:46Speaker 04

  You mean girls?

• 26:46Speaker 05

  Yeah. When, when, when it last it happened, you know, and I started to sort of have girlfriends. But then I had a, a very sort of, absolutely one of those ones which tears your heart in half, when I was about twenty-five. And from that moment onwards, I, I actually can definitively say I treated people better and differently.

• 27:05Speaker 04

  You grew up.

• 27:06Speaker 05

  I grew up.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  We'll come back to that. Let's get you into the army. What do you do? Do you go to Sandhurst?

• 27:10Speaker 05

  Went to Sandhurst.

• 27:11Speaker 04

  And is that automatic? I mean, you know,

• 27:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:14Speaker 04

  With your family?

• 27:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  You just apply and they take you?

• 27:16Speaker 05

  Well, you have to go through the, through the

• 27:18Speaker 04

  Officer training.

• 27:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, all that sort of rigmarole. And then it was very short. It was about six months. So it wasn't a hugely impactful thing. The first thing that you, that I had to do was go to the Guards Depot, because I was joining the Irish Guards, again, for the sort of the historical reasons. And, and that was much tougher. I mean, that was far tougher than Sandhurst. So they treated you like a sort of, you know, a recruit guardsman, and you were put through your paces for three or four months, or whatever it was. And actually, it made Sandhurst really almost irrelevant, because it was a sort of six-month course. And they didn't teach leadership in a sort of formal way at all. I don't think I ever sort of had a lesson on leadership. But you were given these fantastic role models at Sandhurst, the sergeant, the colored sergeants and that sort of thing. And that's how they

• 28:03Speaker 05

  did it. And then I was commissioned in the Irish Guards.

• 28:05Speaker 04

  And in, as an Irish Guardsman, when did you realise, I'm now a soldier? Was there a day or a moment you thought, yes, I've now become a soldier?

• 28:14Speaker 05

  No, I, I think because, because actually, the Irish Guards were on, on sort of ceremonial duties when I joined. If I thought I was anything, I was a sort of chocolate soldier marching up and down in a red coat and a bearskin for the first year or so. When we went to, to, when we went to Germany, it became quite serious, because at that stage, you know, it was a very, very serious setup in Germany with the height of the Cold War, four British armored, armored divisions over there, you know, fifty-five thousand men permanently there, highly trained. And that was, that was a moment to, you know, thank God, we didn't, we didn't have to do anything. But we were prepared to do it. And it was quite interesting to get that feeling of, of, of we were up for this, you know, we

• 28:58Speaker 05

  know we're properly trained, we've got all the ammunition we want, unlike today, I'm afraid, all the ammunition we want, we've got all the right kit. And, you know, we will face down whatever comes at us. That, that was the feeling. Now, thank God, we were never tested on it.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  What is the essence of being a soldier? We'll come to leadership in a moment. But actually being ready to be a fighting man? What is the, what do you, or indeed now, a woman, what do you need to have?

• 29:23Speaker 05

  I think it, I think it depends. It, it depends very much on, on, on your age, actually, and, and your, and the, your, where you are in your development as a sort of man and as, and as a soldier. In the Irish Guards, yes, we were very professional in those days, but I was twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, and I wasn't there for sort of great king and queen and country stuff necessarily. I mean, it was there, and you thought about it once in a blue moon. You were there to have fun with your mates and to, and to be as proficient a soldier as you possibly could. So the sort of, the motivation behind it then was competition. When I, when I was in the SAS, it was a completely different thing. And actually, that's part of the growing up thing, because in a very sort of bizarre

• 30:08Speaker 05

  way, that love affair I had, it was a bit beugeux-like. It, it sent me off into, into wanting to get away from everything and joining the, joining the SAS is what I did. But actually, once getting there, you suddenly realised you were surrounded by the most charming people, I have to say, but incredibly proficient soldiers, highly, highly intelligent people. And, and people who were really idealistic. And I mean that in, in, I think I mean that in two ways. What, one is that, you know, we were, we were there to do the, we really, really believed in the, in the democracy of our country, to the degree that we didn't

• 30:50Speaker 05

  necessarily vote. I mean, myself and a number of other officers, we didn't vote intentionally in elections, because to have done so would have compromised what we were there for, which was to serve whichever government was in power, because we believed in the parliamentary democracy. And we, we, we did sort of think like that.

• 31:19Speaker 03

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• 31:53Speaker 04

  I want to hear about the SAS, but just explain this transition. You clearly have an affair with someone when you're 25 that makes you, that is the growing up moment.

• 32:04Speaker 05

  It is, yeah.

• 32:05Speaker 04

  And it makes you realize the Irish Guards has been fun and interesting. I've enjoyed that, but actually I want to do real soldiering, in quotes. And that changes you. Tell us about the relationship and how it affected you, how it changed you, how you grew up.

• 32:20Speaker 05

  Well, I think I, you know, it's that classic first love, actually. And I sort of fell very, very, very deeply for the person who who I ended up going out with only for about a year. But it ended very abruptly in an almost entirely unpredictable way. Should be very indiscreet of me to say how, but it was a sudden off the end of.

• 32:44Speaker 04

  But give us a flavor, just only give us the details. How dramatic, obviously it was dramatic.

• 32:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, it got to the stage where we had been talking about sort of our future life together, marriage and this sort of thing. And then, you know, I rang up, I was away with the Queen Mother, actually, because it was one of my jobs I did in the Irish Guards. And I rang her up from Scotland and there was just a change in the voice. And they said, we must, we must talk, you know, this sort of thing. And, and that was it. So I sort of suddenly thought, well, everything up until now has been moving towards this one wonderful moment. And I must go off and find another, another thing to do, something to take my mind off of.

• 33:28Speaker 04

  So before we have this gear change initiated clearly by this phone call, you mentioned that you were working for the Queen Mother. This is because when you were in the Irish Guards, you're in Germany and somebody taps you on the shoulder and say, oh, boy, have you ever thought of being in a quarry? We like a Guards officer and Queen Elizabeth, as they used to call the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth is neither somebody new, we think you might be rather, you might be right for it, rather than. What do you think? Is that basically what happened?

• 33:55Speaker 05

  That's exactly what happened. I think I was actually on an exercise in the bottom of a trench, being poured, pouring rain coming through my sort of little gap I had to look out of, out over the front of the trench. And the, I got a tap on the shoulder from my company commander and said, right, you get back, get back, get yourself scrubbed up, get on the aeroplane, you're having lunch at Clarence House, two days' time. And I didn't, I didn't know where Clarence House was.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  Why did they pick you?

• 34:20Speaker 05

  I don't know, I don't know. I literally don't know, but, but the Irish Guards is not a very big organization. The Queen Mother had a thing, had a thing for the Irish.

• 34:29Speaker 04

  Mother in chief.

• 34:31Speaker 05

  She was nothing to do with this, but she had a soft spot for the Irish and felt that the Irish Guards in particular had been sort of slightly left out by never having a royal colonel and all this sort of thing. So she was our fairy godmother.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  Explain to people who don't know what an inquiry is or does, why there is a military inquiry attached to senior royalty.

• 34:49Speaker 05

  I mean, it's, it's, it's a, it's a very junior officer, well, usually a pretty junior officer. And I was very junior and Queen Mother's was always a very junior officer. And I think it stems, I mean, the clue is in the word inquiry is to do with sort of, you know, holding the Queen's bridle, et cetera, on the battlefield or whatever it might have been originally. But you were a sort of junior staff officer and you, you, you worked for, within the royal household and you worked for the private secretary of the Queen Mother, who was this amazing man called Sir Martin Gilliot, who, you know, who had been the adjutant of Colditz, this guy. So he, you know, he wasn't, and he was no slouch and he was completely delightful and became one of the great sort of influences on my life.

• 35:31Speaker 05

  But I ended up back there and the Queen Mother, of course, wouldn't let you do a stroke of work.

• 35:35Speaker 04

  Well, describe the lunch, first of all, where you go for an audition. She's got to approve you.

• 35:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 35:40Speaker 04

  And what did you wear, a suit or a uniform?

• 35:42Speaker 05

  And I wore a suit and I went there and there was Martin, I think, and, and the Queen Mother and one of her lovely ladies in waiting, who are all like the Queen Mother. And she, she challenged me halfway through lunch. She said, when I was a little girl, looking up at this, this sort of bowl chandelier, we used to have this thing in the nursery that, that we would have a competition who could flick peas into the bowl. And I said, well, that sounds quite challenging, ma'am. And Laura said, well, have a go. So I ended up on my, on my sort of interview lunch, flicking peas into the Queen Mother's chandelier. I don't think I got one in, but the fact that I probably tried was enough for her.

• 36:22Speaker 04

  The ultimate test, I'm sure she did it every time.

• 36:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:24Speaker 04

  Oh, he passed the pea test. He sounds rather fun, actually. He looks very nice as well.

• 36:30Speaker 05

  She was, she was amazing. I mean, she was an extraordinary woman.

• 36:34Speaker 04

  Why do you say that? I mean, because it's a nice thing to say, but give me an example of why she was an extraordinary woman.

• 36:39Speaker 05

  Shall I, shall I tell you a story about when, when I got married to Susie? I'd, I'd left the SAS, this is many, many years later, and she never let go of her inquiries. So she would always, if she heard you were in London, she would ask you for lunch or she would ask you to go and stay.

• 36:54Speaker 04

  Because it's a two-year tour of duty.

• 36:55Speaker 05

  It's a two-year tour of duty. So ever, ever after, she would be sort of asking you to go and stay for four or five days in the Castle of May or, and because I was in the SAS, I couldn't do, do it really. But I, I used to have the odd, the odd lunch. And I then went off to staff college and decided I was going to ask Susie. I'd left the SAS, so that was fine. And I would ask Susie to marry me and that, that's what happened. And she got me in and said, you know, would you like to come and spend your honeymoon? Because I think you've got a bit of leave at staff college at the Castle of May. And I thought, well, this is an incredible offer, but, you know, I have actually all got, Susie's 10 years younger than me, so she's been 24. And I'd got this lovely sort of, you know, Spanish honeymoon all jacked up.

• 37:39Speaker 05

  And I said, well, ma'am, that's very, very kind of you, but I, I have got this, you know. She said, oh, just come for a few days at the end. So I said, well, that's very kind, ma'am. So anyway, cut a long story short, we land at Wick Airport, which you probably know, right up on the top of Scotland. And we got there very early because there's only one flight a day and we had fish and chips sitting on the harbor wall waiting. Because as you know, you get invited for come tea time this day and leave after breakfast this day, which is. And sooner or later, this highly polished Land Rover turned up with a bloke in a cap, you know, and drove us across the moonscape of Caithness, down in front of the castle. And on the, on the grass in front was this little figure, surrounded by corgis, wearing a sort of, you know, that sort of blue raincoat she used to have.

• 38:24Speaker 05

  And as we got out, Susie's tummy ache, which had been building all through the afternoon, got sort of to a point where she was literally groaning next to me. And the Queen Mother came up and said, you know, she always used to raise her finger and say, hello, everybody, like this. She said, I'd like a quick word with Susie. And Susie sort of pea green and anyway, Queen Mother put her arm through and led her off into the middle of this grass. And anyway, we all got, got put in our room, classic Edwardian stuff, you know, Susie in a four-poster bed, me in a little connecting passage down to where my pajamas have been laid out. And, and I said to Susie, what did she, what did she say?

• 39:06Speaker 05

  And what did she had said was, I know how you're feeling. Just imagine what it was like for me and as far as I'm concerned, you don't have to see me for the rest of the week. You can get up whatever time you like and this is your honeymoon, so over to you. And of course, Susie adored her from that moment on and we spent the whole, the whole week with her. I mean, I mean, she was, that's, that's an illustration of how she was. I mean, the other side of her was that she was, she was very, very strong. She, you know, she knew what was right and that was her, her moral compass was set in, set in stone. And if you, if you, if you transgressed on that, you know, she would let you know.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  What was your worst moment with her then? When did you get it wrong?

• 39:50Speaker 05

  Worst moment with her was, was, was my predecessor. We decided to go out and give him a sort of party and it was the night before the Trooping the Colour, which is the one day of the year as a quarry, you have to wear that very high collared sort of red coat. And we went out on the Friday night and it, you know, it started getting later and later and later. We went to these clubs and in the end they all shut. And there was a bar in my office in Clarence House, where you used to give people a drink before they went through for lunch with her. And I said, come back to my place, I've got this bar there. So we went past the policeman and then things started getting way out of hand, you know, and things crashing. And Queen Elizabeth was in London because she was going to Trooping the Colour rather than being at Windsor.

• 40:33Speaker 05

  And in the end, I sort of suddenly saw sense and shot everybody out and had to sort of throw somebody else, throw somebody else. So they all disappeared and then I disappeared. And the next morning I turned up, Martin Gilliot, you know, wasn't fooled by anything. And I came and he gave me a huge rocket. And as I got through to put her in her carriage and I was going to get on a horse, if you can believe it. She said, Jamie, did you have a party last night? And I thought, oh, God, well, that's it, you know. So I came clean, I said, I did, and I'm really, really sorry. I hope we didn't keep you awake. And she said, it was a bit like the war, but, but this place should have more parties.

• 41:16Speaker 04

  Lovely. It was a bit like the war, but this place should have more parties. My brief encounters included quite a lot of drinking, I do remember. I can't remember who it was who used to serve the wine, but literally up to the top of the glass. And if you put your hand over, you'd be pouring it through your fingers.

• 41:30Speaker 05

  I mean, because one of the jobs, which I should have mentioned, probably the job, was to mix the martini as the equerry. But she was very, very clever about this. There's a sort of slight myth about Queen Mother and drink, because what she used to do, and the martini was seven to one, you know, so it was a proper quick kick between the eyes. But actually, what she would do, she would have one, lots of ice, and everybody would be like, and I'd go around with the jug, and she would just say, could have a little bit more ice. And so she'd have one martini, everybody else would have about seven and be rolling into dinner. But the Queen Mother would have created a wonderful atmosphere, but had kept totally in control.

• 42:13Speaker 04

  Your funniest moment with her?

• 42:15Speaker 05

  My funniest moment was probably in Venice. We went on the Royal Yacht to Venice, a sort of gang of people, Hugh Casson and Hugh Grafton and various other people, and it was in aid of Venice in Peril and John Julius Norwich. And we went to all these churches, and Kate Adie, I think, was on a bit of a break from being a war correspondent, she was the BBC person. And Martin Gilliot, who was this fantastic chap, wasn't hugely sort of steeped in culture. And we were going into the church of the Jersey Wheaties or whatever, and Queen Mother was saying hello in the receiving line to all the sort of priests, et cetera. And Martin sort of got hold of Kate Adie's cameraman's camera and was going around filming,

• 42:59Speaker 05

  you know, he's the private secretary, filming people and looking through the lens and things. And Kate Adie said, so Martin, aren't these churches absolutely, absolutely wonderful? And Martin said, well, to be honest, Kate, if you've seen one church, you've seen a lot. And the Queen Mother turned around and went, because he said it intentionally just loud enough for her to hear, because that was their relationship. And Queen Mother turned around, looked at him and went, Martin, like this, raised her finger, and that was with a sort of slight smile, you know.

• 43:33Speaker 04

  I mean, she died at a great age, how old was she when she died, over a hundred?

• 43:36Speaker 05

  I think she was a hundred and one, or perhaps just shy of a hundred and one.

• 43:40Speaker 04

  And I assume you went to the funeral?

• 43:42Speaker 05

  I did, which was very, very moving, actually. The bit where they read out her titles and her decorations, it was like listening to something out of Henry V, you know, it was fantastic, I like that sort of thing, so it was lovely to hear, yeah.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  And do you miss her still?

• 44:02Speaker 05

  I do, I mean, people like that, people like my father and these sort of formative people, I do still miss them. I think about her quite a lot. When I, later I became the private secretary to William and Harry, and when we had to set their household up, I mean, with the exception of the SAS, I've never been part of something which was slicker and better run than that little household which she had. I mean, she spent lots of money doing it, but the people who worked for her had done so much else in life, like Martin, you know, who'd been escaped seven times during the war and this sort of thing, they knew how to run things.

• 44:39Speaker 05

  And I think the sort of, the whole bit about the Queen Mother, you know, I thought about it a lot when I was asked to set up the household of William and Harry. For the modern age, it had to be different, but there were lots of little elements within that, which I drew on from those days, thirty years before.

• 44:59Speaker 04

  And from her personally, what did you learn? What is in you now that you learned from Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother?

• 45:07Speaker 05

  I think what she was able to do in terms of mixing complete charm with having to really show your teeth on occasion, and by that I mean, I'll leave it up to Adolf Hitler, you know, he called her the most dangerous woman in Europe, and you can't do better than that.

• 45:27Speaker 04

  Why did he call her that?

• 45:28Speaker 05

  Because she was, because she kept things going, you know. In nineteen forty, she was his absolute beit noire, one of them.

• 45:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, so someone said, was it meringue with a touch of acid, or was that somebody else?

• 45:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, I wouldn't say acid, I'd say, I'd say good, healthy, British steel, you know.

• 45:47Speaker 04

  So, you have your two years working for the Queen Mother as an equerry, where clearly you do rather well, and then you go back into the Irish Guards, but you realise, this moment happens to you when you're about twenty-five, you get the call from Scotland, that is not going to end as you thought it might, so my life, you actually makes you reassess, you think, actually, what am I going to do now? And the SAS beckons. What is the SAS? When you joined it, what was it? What drew you to it?

• 46:14Speaker 05

  What drew me to it was, I tell you, I tell you, I was sort of investigating it a bit, and there was, when I was in Germany, there was an officer, actually, he was a military policeman who had served in the SAS as a troop commander, and I thought, well, I'll go and talk to him, he was, I didn't know him from Adam, but I knew of his name, and I rang him up, and he said, come round and talk to me. And, you know, I was twenty-three at this time, or whatever I was, and he said, and I said to him, you know, what's it like being in the SAS? And he said, he was a sort of Welshman, so I'm not even trying his accent, but it was one of those ones which gave gravitas, you know, and he said, well, Jamie, what you've got to understand is, as a twenty-four-year-old, you can be sent on something that if you get it wrong will bring the government down.

• 46:58Speaker 05

  And, you know, it's down to you as a sort of officer, whether that happens or not.

• 47:05Speaker 04

  How long were you with the SAS, and what was your most significant operation that you were involved in?

• 47:12Speaker 05

  I was there for about eight years, eight and a half years, I suppose, and I think the operational side, I've got to keep quiet about, actually.

• 47:20Speaker 04

  But give us a flavour of the kind of, the kind of thing that you were doing.

• 47:25Speaker 05

  Well, you could be, I mean, the great thing about it in those days was that you weren't really part of, I think nowadays it's different after Iraq and Afghanistan, you weren't really part of the sort of, in fact, the order of battle of the British Army. So you did stuff really where you were the only British soldiers, probably quite often in civilian clothes or whatever, in that, could be in that region, on that continent or whatever. And the tasks varied hugely, but they were always directed at the strategic level, so with...

• 48:01Speaker 04

  What does that mean?

• 48:01Speaker 05

  That means with as few layers of command between you and pretty much politically-directed tasks, so you were commanded at the strategic level, so political direction promulgated as rapidly straight to the headquarters of the regiment as possible.

• 48:20Speaker 04

  And how many were in the regiment in those days?

• 48:22Speaker 05

  About two hundred and fifty, I think.

• 48:24Speaker 04

  So two hundred and fifty people, and you are self, you are a contained unit, you're not working within the usual British Army operation?

• 48:31Speaker 05

  You were on occasion, when things like the first Gulf War happened, and the Bosnia operations and those sort of things, but still, even within that context, you were operating to the highest level, and that's one of David Sterling's original...

• 48:47Speaker 04

  He was the founder of it.

• 48:48Speaker 05

  Yeah, his original criteria was that, you know, you need to be used properly at the strategic level.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  And are you doing this because of the adrenaline rush? What is it that's motivating these two hundred and fifty people?

• 49:03Speaker 05

  Well, I think it's, I think that, I've already mentioned the fact that they were idealists in many ways, they were charming, they realised that, you know, contrary to sort of popular opinion, I mean, some of these, we haven't done, had any favours done to us by things like the rogue heroes of the SAS, or the television programme on BBC One, or the Iranian Embassy, for instance, because it's sort of typecast us, and actually...

• 49:30Speaker 04

  Were you the people who broke the Iranian siege?

• 49:33Speaker 05

  The SAS were, yeah.

• 49:34Speaker 04

  You were sent in?

• 49:35Speaker 05

  No, I wasn't.

• 49:36Speaker 04

  No, but it was an SAS operation.

• 49:38Speaker 05

  But the fact is that, you know, if you could achieve things without firing a shot, then that was much, much better, because you were operating at the strategic level, and you didn't want to, you know, there were very few of you apart from everything else, so, you know, you wouldn't be able to fight a sort of battle, if you like. But I think the, I think the point about it was that they were, you know, these people were really, really good, decent people. And the other element to their motivation was that, I think, universally SAS soldiers abhor bullies, so they're there to stop bullies doing whatever they do to innocent people,

• 50:20Speaker 05

  and that is the bottom line, you know, you're there to do the country's bidding and to fight for the country as best you possibly can, in whatever way they ask you to do it. But the bottom line is, you go out into the night and you confront violent people who are trying to kill innocent people, and that appeals, I think, to every SAS man.

• 50:44Speaker 04

  And why did you leave?

• 50:46Speaker 05

  Because you you run out of road frankly, um you know.

• 50:49Speaker 04

  You get to forty or something, what age were you when you left?

• 50:51Speaker 05

  Um I was thirty thirty eight, I think.

• 50:54Speaker 04

  And it's physically run out of road and mentally and?

• 50:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, um it's quite funny because, you know, all this sort of reserve stuff going on at the moment, they've put this form, I hope I'm not saying anything out of out of out of court, but they they sent a form saying all reservists below the age of sixty six, please tick which you what do you think you're still capable of? You know, serving in the frontline unit, to da da da, you know, backroom boy, all the rest of it. And everybody ticks the whole bloody lot, but so, uh, no, you never think.

• 51:23Speaker 04

  So you're always a reservist, are you? You are S S, you are available.

• 51:26Speaker 05

  I mean, it's the first I'd heard of it, actually, so so I don't.

• 51:28Speaker 04

  Well, they're so desperate now for anybody, they're sending forms through old men saying, are you capable still of killing someone?

• 51:34Speaker 05

  I think it's still happening across, it's happening across the army, but it was quite amusing that all my friends who I rang up, have you seen this form? And they would all put, we're not gonna say we can't go in the sort of, you know, but it's quite interesting to see us all on our crutches.

• 51:48Speaker 04

  Still attempting to climb the white cliffs of Dover overnight.

• 51:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 51:52Speaker 04

  Well done. So what did you do next? This extraordinary life you've been leading.

• 51:56Speaker 05

  I then I then had a a two or three year period where I worked in the Ministry of Defence, which sort of cured me of the of the idea of wanting to stay as a soldier, actually, because that would become more the norm. But I worked for um some amazing officers there, actually, um worked for Charles Guthrie, who was um the chief of the defence staff at the time and uh but at the end of that, um we, Susie, Sue, we had our first child, I left the army and we went back to where we now live in Suffolk. All in the same month. So it was it was one of those moments. It was a bit like the love affair. It was another great end of a chapter and off I went.

• 52:36Speaker 04

  And then you got a tap on the shoulder saying, we have got the the young royal household needs somebody to look after them and you used to work for.

• 52:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:44Speaker 04

  Maybe you're the right chap.

• 52:45Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:45Speaker 04

  And how did that come about?

• 52:46Speaker 05

  Well, um I I had a sort of period of about three or four years where I was just, um I had a lovely time, actually. I was going off to Afghanistan, Iraq and places like that for a girls' education charity, but very infrequently to see whether they could set up their operations there. And I'd write a report and I'd come back and of course I had two children and three children. Um so I was able to sort of see them in their early years.

• 53:08Speaker 04

  Well done, trying to set up girls' education in Afghanistan. I mean, my God, anyway.

• 53:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, that's another whole nother story.

• 53:15Speaker 04

  We won't go there, we won't go there.

• 53:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 53:17Speaker 04

  So.

• 53:18Speaker 05

  And then and then I I got a tap on the shoulder, actually. Um I think probably based on the on the fact that I'd known the the then Prince of Wales a bit when he, because he was so close to his grandmother when I was a query twenty years before.

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 53:32Speaker 05

  And the fact that the princes both wanted to be soldiers and I was quite a recent sort of soldier and a lot of the senior guys in the army by that stage were my contemporaries. So it sort of made made sense. Actually, I initially I said, no, no, I've done that, you know, did that with with the Queen Mother. And Charlie McGrath, who's my sort of greatest greatest mate, really, he uh he's Brian McGrath's son.

• 53:54Speaker 04

  Ah, because I knew Brian, as as you know, we may, I think we may have talked about this. Anyway, go on.

• 54:00Speaker 05

  He he said, come on, just hang fire, this is this would be good fun. And it was, and I you know, I loved those those two boys, I really, I really.

• 54:10Speaker 04

  Explain why it was good fun.

• 54:12Speaker 05

  Because it was because you were your own boss again. It was a bit like being back in the regiment because um Michael Pete, who who was Prince of Wales's private secretary, literally just said, take him away. And he was incredibly supportive, I hasten to add, but he said, take him away, go and set up their household, talk. And so we we between the three of us.

• 54:31Speaker 04

  And how old were they at the time?

• 54:32Speaker 05

  Um nineteen and twenty one, I think. So I had sort of ten years, I had the ten years of their twenties. Um and I'd have been I'd have been crap as a as a private secretary with red boxes and this sort of thing, but I always used to say the, you know, the criteria for me being their private secretary was I could ride a trial bike across the hills after them. They're very good motorcyclists, by the way, but but but it was that sort of thing and and gently introducing them to to some of the others, some of the stuff that they would need to do. But, you know, my my dear old father used to have that lovely Irish expression, which was, you know, in your twenties and when you're young, you need to

• 55:12Speaker 05

  you need to get it right and have done things so that later on you can say, um what he used to say was, we have known the days. So we've got it right in here. So for me, it was about as much about trying to protect, you know, them so that they could hit their own goals. So Harry could fly as Apache helicopter on operations. William flew his, you know, you can look anybody in the eye if you've been out in a seeking out into the Irish Sea or or Snowdonia or whatever in a in a force force nine. Um so that they could do those things, so that actually when when life became more serious, you know, they could look back and say, you know, I've known the days.

• 55:53Speaker 04

  That's the most significant thing you feel you taught them. Or they learned from you.

• 55:57Speaker 05

  I think that was the thing I I enabled them to learn, probably. Um there were some amazing people who who I worked with doing that and we we had overseas tours and we we patronages and and the princes and a little bit of help from me created the Royal Foundation and that sort of thing. So it was a it was a good sort of.

• 56:17Speaker 04

  How did you make them feel? Take William, for example, this is worth doing. As as you may know, I worked for the late Duke of Edinburgh and he wrote his biography. And he was very clear about that, how it should be done. But he came from a different generation. And uh he accepted from the moment he married Prince Elizabeth, who became the Queen, he accepted his destiny and simply got on with it, um though there were frustrations. How did you ensure that, I mean, because if you're William, you think, God almighty, I've got to be king. I mean, how do you prepare someone for that?

• 56:58Speaker 05

  It's a very, very good question. I I think um I think that um that he was he was there already. He he um I think one of the great things about William is that he's not, he hasn't been a reluctant prince, like a lot of people talk about it, but but you know, he would have been hugely happy and probably very successful in any any walk of life that he he, you know, had felt passionate about. But he accepted and has always accepted, to my knowledge, the fact that what's coming is coming. Um and when it comes to how he did it, whether he sort of signed up to the sort of traditional way of doing it, absolutely not. And, you know, that was probably one of the conversations that

• 57:41Speaker 05

  we may have had over the years, which is, you know, how how do you want to do it? Because there's no point in trying to fit a round peg into a square hole and he knows better than me, he was a forty four year old at the time. Um, you know, what what the modern world holds, frankly, you know, I've been away in jungles and deserts and God knows what else, so I was completely out of touch with what reality was here. He wasn't, you know, and nor was his brother. So you know, they knew they knew what they were after.

• 58:07Speaker 04

  What was the worst row you had where you disagreed?

• 58:11Speaker 05

  Um, I I don't think, this sounds really odd, I don't think I ever disagreed with them. I I sometimes we had a sort of moment where the adjutant had to take over and say, why are you ten minutes late for something? But that was pretty infrequent. Um I'll give you an example of why I why I think he's he's got the potential to be, you know, a great king is is that when he, at one point, we did a sort of tour of all the helicopter forces and he he was at Odeon, which is where the Chinooks, those huge ones with the with the two rotors. And one of the things they had to practise was landing in people's fields. So they're practising, if you like, offloading troops and then taking off quickly.

• 58:53Speaker 05

  And an unscheduled one he did, because farmers used to get fifty quid a time, so they were quite pleased about it. But an unscheduled one was actually in the Middleton's paddock. And everybody waved their hand keys and things, it was all great fun, but somebody got hold of it and the press then said Prince William wasting taxpayers' money and thinks, actually, it was another land on as part of it. And I went into overdrive with the communications secretary back here and said, right, come on, we've got to give me some options, you know, how are we going to deal with this? I went down to see him and I said, right, the first option, and he just went, whoa, whoa, whoa, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie, Jamie. The most important thing here is that the air crew do not get it in the neck.

• 59:33Speaker 05

  It was my idea and I don't care what else you say or what else you achieve, but they are not to suffer because of this, because it was my my thing. And I went, you know, forty four year old learns from a twenty three year old how how these things should be done. I said, right, so tore everything else up. And, you know, he was, because he's lived it all his life and he did it from total moral reasons, but you know, three days down the line, you'll know, Giles, this far better than I do, but the sort of the the newsroom mailbag suddenly switched into uh, you you you know, good old bloke for owning up and this sort of thing. And of course, then all the sort of editorials say what a good chap he is for sort of wanting to. So, but but that's that's a that's that's that to me is William all over, you know.

• 1:00:17Speaker 04

  I mean, I I remember doing a thing um with them uh years ago with William and Catherine and putting in my diary how they reminded me of the best of their grandparents, that they had the calm of the Queen combined with the gung ho of the Duke of Edinburgh, but it was gentler, it was slightly more, it was more modern.

• 1:00:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:41Speaker 04

  And and they could do, they could do both. And you but you've likened Catherine, I think, to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

• 1:00:47Speaker 05

  I think, well, I think she's amazing. Uh uh and that that sounds sort of sycophantic stuff, but it it's not. I think she's you know, if you had looked north, you know, north, south, east, west, he would have been hard pushed to find somebody who who who gets it like she does. I think she's fantastic, yeah.

• 1:01:06Speaker 04

  And and then you become godfather to their firstborn, who's going to be George the Seventh.

• 1:01:13Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:01:14Speaker 04

  God willing, in the years to come, do you do you think about that?

• 1:01:17Speaker 05

  Uh, no, I'm I'm not very, I I I really enjoy, and I'm saying this as much for the benefit of mine, I really enjoy um being godfather to to people, but I like it when they're when you can have fun with them, which is about eighteen, nineteen, as far as I'm concerned.

• 1:01:34Speaker 04

  So you're pacing yourself, you're not doing, but you do send a Christmas, you send a birthday cards and Christmas presents.

• 1:01:39Speaker 05

  I do all that sort of stuff because Susie's brilliant at prodding me.

• 1:01:43Speaker 04

  And maybe choosing what's to be given, because that may not be your forte.

• 1:01:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. Um but um, you know, the time will come where I have have a lot of fun, I think.

• 1:02:02Speaker 03

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• 1:02:36Speaker 04

  What's your funniest recollection of your years working for William and Harry?

• 1:02:40Speaker 05

  My funniest was actually about three days into the job and it was with Prince Harry and we're having one of a meeting in St. James's Palace in one of those amazing sort of Georgian rooms where they had sort of very, very grand doors, about three of them, four of them. And we were meeting with the boss of the Red Cross and very, very high, slightly terrifying people at that stage and I was, and I was chairing it, but I had to go early. And I got up and I said, right, let's go, having thought I've done that rather well, you know. And I set off and I opened the door, which I thought was the way out, and it was a stationery cupboard. And I actually, idiotically, I went kind of further than, you know, and suddenly you're

• 1:03:22Speaker 05

  confronted with this thing of being in the dark and thinking, do I stay in this cupboard? And then risk the fact that everybody will have seen me leave and then come and join me in the cupboard at the end of the meeting? Or do I come out? And in the end, I thought, I've got to, so I came out and I, and I sort of looked at them, I said, stationery cupboard, and walked behind Harry. And Harry just looked at them and said, he's new. But that was a terrible moment in that cupboard, thinking, you know, should I do, should I do a run or should I just stay here in the dark?

• 1:03:53Speaker 04

  I recall the Duke of Edinburgh, the late Duke of Edinburgh, grandfather to these two, saying to me that when the Queen became Queen in 1952, he didn't know what to do. And people were saying to him, in fact, keep up, we don't want you. And the problem for Harry, I mean, it's clear, if you are going to be looking after a future king, there is a kind of role set up by destiny and you can do your best to set up an office for it and help them establish their style and do their thing. And it, for each generation, is different. The way that the present king is so different from his mother, and yet people accept it because it seems authentic. And that will be true of William. What I felt talking to the Duke of Edinburgh was that he, he was left on his own to make

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  up a role for himself. That in a sense is if you are the second son, that, I mean, were you aware of that when you were working for them and what did you do to help?

• 1:04:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, I was aware of it. I mean, I left, I left their service in 2014. So at that stage, you know, Harry had just, Prince Harry had just created in Victus, he'd been on two tours of Afghanistan. And he was, I mean, I think, you know, he was one of the most popular young men of his age in the world. And stuff subsequent to that, you know, I've, I've always kept very quiet about it because there's nothing worse than people who weren't there opining, particularly has-beens like me, opining on it. So I, if I'm, forgive me, but I won't go any, any further than that.

• 1:05:29Speaker 05

  But I, what I would say is that they were, they were a fearsomely powerful pairing during my years. You didn't do it all the time, but if you put them together on a project or something rather like Help for Heroes, for instance, then the sort of chemistry between them in those years was, was pretty irresistible, actually.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  So that, you don't need to say anything at all, but that is the frustration, that chemistry is no longer working. What I was really asking you though, was how you help and train someone whose role is not so distinctive. I'm, I'm saying that what I understood from the Duke of Edinburgh was that if you're going to be the sovereign, it's actually clear. He said that for the Queen, she knew what she had to do and she did it. And there was a pathway for her to follow. And if you're not that person, everybody else, it takes you time to find your pathway. And I think the Duke of Edinburgh felt that, for example, Princess Anne, now the Princess Royal, quite quickly found her pathway and followed it, which is why he admired her

• 1:06:31Speaker 04

  and they almost competed as people who were not the sovereign, but actually felt, we can serve and we're doing it in this way and this is how we're doing it. What I'm really asking you is, how did you advise Harry on that? What, what ideas did you have and share?

• 1:06:45Speaker 05

  Well, I mean, I'll use a sort of an analogy. I mean, I, I thought that they were, you know, this is during my time when I worked for them, I thought they were both, they both had great talents in different, very different ways. I mean, one was instinctive, one was very considered. I mean, I always, always used to say, you look at the helicopters they fly in order to get a feel for their character, you know, Harry would be clipping the trees at 130 knots or whatever it was, with 35 things to do in an attack helicopter, you know. Prince William was in a great big yellow helicopter and he had to go out into the storm, literally, for 300 miles in a straight line, make sure load, fuel loads were precise, et cetera, et cetera, being buffeted left and right to pick up somebody out of, one of, you know,

• 1:07:29Speaker 05

  somebody out of the organ who was in trouble. And I think that those, those two helicopters slightly, you know, described them. But having said that, because of the difference, the way I looked at it in a historical sense was one was John of Gaunt and one was, one was, one was the Black Prince. You know, they were, they were both equally powerful and I think had the potential to be, when I say equally powerful, I don't mean in, in terms of the, the roles they were going to have to fill, but they had the potential to be very, very powerful, actually, the two of them. And as you say, you know, it didn't turn out like that.

• 1:08:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. So now, you've just published a novel and it's about, in a sense, it's inspired by your mother. Before we get on to it, is she the person you admire most? Who's, who's the person who is your personal hero?

• 1:08:23Speaker 05

  I think it's her, actually. Yeah. I think, yeah. I don't think it, I know it, actually.

• 1:08:31Speaker 04

  And why is that?

• 1:08:33Speaker 05

  Because she was, she never, but because she was everything, you know, a boy needs. I mean, when I had my sort of moment of, of sort of heartrending moment, you know, she was there, she listened to everything I had to say, she, I could tell her anything. She came back with the most wonderful advice, sensible stuff, not trying to sort of create false hope, but just, just being.

• 1:09:03Speaker 04

  Can I just throw in something there? How lucky you were, because I don't think many 25-year-olds would have felt able to talk about emotional things at the heart with their mother.

• 1:09:13Speaker 05

  Well, I think we'd always done it. And my, my father, who, you know, was gorgeous, but, but, you know, his, his thing then was, slapped me on the knee once, you know, when we were driving to the pub and said, don't worry, old boy, there are plenty more fish in the sea. And, you know, it was lovely, but it was not really what you wanted to hear. You wanted to sort of, and so, but she could do that with him. She was a mother to everybody. I mean, literally, it wasn't just Sarah and I, but so many people used to come and see her and have tea with her, had, had special relationships with her that, and my, my children, you know, Granny Sue, as they called her, I mean, she was, she was just remarkable. And I know, I know boys say that about their mothers, but she was, she was stunningly beautiful and, but never knew it.

• 1:09:58Speaker 05

  She was, as was her mother, actually. She was highly intelligent. She had this ability to unlock people, hence the reason I think she was probably a very good intelligence officer. And, and she, she had a, she just had a way about her, which I've never, I'd never seen in anybody else, you know.

• 1:10:17Speaker 04

  I'm picturing the night painted by your father, who was at the Battle of Agincourt. Do you feel you've delivered for him in that respect? Did you do your, you did your best?

• 1:10:29Speaker 05

  I did my, I did my best to do that. I mean, I, I know, the man from Agincourt still holds, still holds the flame, doesn't he? Let's face it.

• 1:10:40Speaker 04

  Yes, you can't quite be, but still is pretty impressive.

• 1:10:43Speaker 05

  No, well, not.

• 1:10:44Speaker 04

  So, we get to three final questions. And the first is for you to give me a moment of joy. When I say moment of joy, whatever comes into your head.

• 1:10:52Speaker 05

  Well, the truth is, I, I have, I have things and I have had things through my life where I have a frisson and it's completely unexpected and I'm walking down the street and I suddenly feel, this is great. And I get a sort of rush in the back of, this is all exciting and there's more chapters to come and boy, am I enjoying myself. And then it goes. So I've had those all through my life and I've talked to other people and I haven't yet come across anybody who has, it's a physical thing.

• 1:11:27Speaker 04

  When did you have the last one?

• 1:11:29Speaker 05

  About a year ago, I suppose.

• 1:11:31Speaker 04

  Oh, good.

• 1:11:32Speaker 05

  But you just feel, you know, it's almost a chemical reaction happening inside me where I feel, I feel sort of overjoyed with the opportunities.

• 1:11:42Speaker 04

  And it takes you to the next stage.

• 1:11:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, and you're going, you know, let's get in there.

• 1:11:45Speaker 04

  So which is the best, which of those is the one that you're going to say yes?

• 1:11:51Speaker 05

  I suppose, to be honest, passing SAS selection was my, you know, when they get you in the theatre at the end of it and you still, you don't know whether you've passed or not and the commanding officer comes in with a big typical SAS with a black bin liner, puts his hand in, puts the fag in his mouth and just flings the SAS berry at you and you catch it like this and you look at the wing dagger on the front and you think, my goodness, you know.

• 1:12:20Speaker 04

  I'm in.

• 1:12:21Speaker 05

  And, you know, the fact is that this thing about imposter syndrome, which is one of the great things in life, as long as you keep it under control, there was never a morning, I didn't wake up pinching myself thinking, is this really me, you know, but that was a great moment.

• 1:12:38Speaker 04

  And they were the best days, the SAS days.

• 1:12:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, they were the best days of my life.

• 1:12:41Speaker 04

  Because you, I mean, we can cut this out if you don't want it, you named one of your children Dare.

• 1:12:48Speaker 05

  Well, Dare.

• 1:12:49Speaker 04

  Which is quite a bold name because it echoes the motto.

• 1:12:54Speaker 05

  And she was going to be Dare, whether she was a boy or a girl. I mean, Dare is actually, within Susie's family sort of story, there are Dares.

• 1:13:03Speaker 04

  Oh, so it wasn't just who dares wins?

• 1:13:05Speaker 05

  No, in fact, it definitively wasn't because it would have been terribly cheesy to have done that.

• 1:13:10Speaker 04

  Well, that's, well, I'm glad you've told me because I assumed it was.

• 1:13:12Speaker 05

  Well, everybody dares.

• 1:13:13Speaker 04

  The SAS is so much to this man that he's actually called his daughter Dare.

• 1:13:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, no, and that is, that is, that is the flip side of the coin, which is one I didn't want actually, but it, but it suits up. She's a daring girl.

• 1:13:27Speaker 04

  Very good. Is being daring important in life?

• 1:13:30Speaker 05

  I think so. I think it's that thing, you know, King George VI's great address to the nation in 1940, where you're safer than a known way, you know, you choose a path which is safer than a known way. I try it if something is a challenge.

• 1:13:46Speaker 04

  Say that again, choose a path that is?

• 1:13:48Speaker 05

  Which is, which is safer than a known way. So you could go down the trodden, trodden route, but if you go down the trodden route, you're going to get ambushed left and right and all the rest of it and it's, it's not going to be anything, anything that gives you that rush. Whereas actually if you go off, off, off route and you cut through the undergrowth and you go around the side, you know, you're going to discover all sorts of things that you wouldn't, you wouldn't otherwise, you know.

• 1:14:16Speaker 04

  So now the saddest memory that comes into your head, moment of sadness?

• 1:14:22Speaker 05

  Saddest memory is, is the, was the death of, of, of my sort of great mate growing up when I was about 10 in Suffolk. He was the son of the village butcher and he was a guy called Clinton and I don't want to upset his parents if they're listening, if they're still alive, I don't know, they moved away after his death. But he was everything to everybody. He was a talented young guy of 10 years old, gorgeous looking, good fun, great sense of humour, great sportsman. And my parents came into my bedroom one morning early and said, listen, we've got very bad news. Clinton died of a, he had asthma, he

• 1:15:03Speaker 05

  had an asthma attack and which killed him. And I think about, I, I, over the years, I think about him probably more than I do about others in the sense of, you know, where would he have got to? I mean, he was just the best of us, you know, of our little gang in Alderton growing up. And I think that was the saddest moment of my life, actually.

• 1:15:24Speaker 04

  10 years old?

• 1:15:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:27Speaker 04

  What has life taught you, Jamie? This is the end of the road. Your extraordinary life, what has it taught you?

• 1:15:35Speaker 05

  Well, I've been very, very lucky. I think, I think the thing is to have a go at things and I know this is what other people have said, but, you know, there, there were cues of people who would have been a much better SAS officer than me, there would have been cues of people who would have been much better at being private secretary than me, but they didn't go for it. And so old muggins, Mr Mediocre got through and enjoyed it and really, really benefited from it. But I, I, I think it's, I think it's down to that. I think you just, you know, you know that X over here is fitter than you, tougher than you, all the rest of it, or somebody would have been much more considered and better

• 1:16:18Speaker 05

  at being the prince's private secretary, but they didn't go for it, you know, and if you go for it, you, who knows? Aim at the stars, you hit the, hit the bloody moon, you know.

• 1:16:29Speaker 04

  Go for it.

• 1:16:30Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:30Speaker 04

  That's a great message. I think you're a great man. You clearly are. Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, thank you very much for joining us on Rosebud.

• 1:16:36Speaker 05

  Thank you so much. I've enjoyed it very much.

• 1:16:44Speaker 04

  Well, I found that conversation with Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton completely fascinating. I hope you enjoyed it too. And I felt I learnt quite a bit from it. It's funny the way guests end up on Rosebud. I mean, he was here because I am reading and loving his novel, Beyond the Edge of Light, I should say, published by Bantam, priced 16.99. It really is worth reading. But he's also, he kindly agreed to come because I know him for family reasons. His daughter Dare and my granddaughter Isolde happened to be at school together and happened to be friends. So that helped persuade him to come in, which

• 1:17:24Speaker 04

  was marvellous. Speaking of books, I've had a week really involved in the world of books because last weekend I was at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, taking part in the Queen's Reading Room Festival. The Queen's Reading Room is the project launched by Queen Camilla, where basically she shares her joy of books and her particular favourite books with people who follow her website online, the Queen's Reading Room. And there's now a charity of which I'm one of the trustees. And basically our, our work is to encourage the joy of reading for, for everyone. And we organised, well, I say we, it was actually the team,

• 1:18:06Speaker 04

  Vicky Perrin and her team, the people who actually run the Queen's Reading Room, they organised the most wonderful festival last weekend at Chatsworth. I mean, more than 10,000 people come, done up, more than 10,000 tickets sold. It really was amazing. Queen Camilla was there, which was fantastic, but I was there in a more minor capacity to have a conversation with Larry Lamb, which you can hear on Rosebud. And he read some of his poetry. He's writing, this actor Larry Lamb now writes poetry and it's amazing. But at this festival, there were a number of graduates from Rosebud, including Larry Lamb, Harlan Coburn was there, Jeffrey Archer was there. His new novel, Adam and Eve, is

• 1:18:47Speaker 04

  just out. He claims it's his 50th novel and his last. Anyway, it's, it's a blockbuster and I think it's already, if not yet, at the top of the bestseller list. It's well on its way there. Speaking of books actually, and poetry, Larry Lamb's poetry isn't yet published, but we have a listener whose poetry collection is just published and he's a member of the Rosebud family. People who belong to the Rosebud family, they've joined us on a Sunday afternoon when we have an extra episode and ad free listening and all the other things that go with belonging to the family. If you're interested in joining the family, just go to patreon.com forward slash Rosebud, P A T R E O N dot com forward

• 1:19:29Speaker 04

  slash Rosebud and you can find out how to join. Well, Matt Jarvis is a member of the Rosebud family and he has just published a collection of poetry called Compass of the Soul, Poems of Healing and Connection. And I've not read them all, but I've dipped into the book and it delivers on the title. They are poems of healing and connection, compass of the soul. It's available on Amazon and on Kindle. And I wish, we, we all wish Matt all the best with his exciting publication. So well done him. And speaking of shout outs for listeners, here's a shout out for a birthday. Lovely letter to me and to Harriet Jane,

• 1:20:14Speaker 04

  our producer. Dear Giles and Harriet, I'm sitting at my desk on Monday morning, listening to your wonderful podcast. My oldest friend Joanna Sal, S W A L, Joanna Sal, introduced me to Rosebud back in May and I've been a firm fan ever since. She told me, Sarah, you'll love this podcast because Giles has such wonderful conversations about people's lives, funny, sad and so informative. She knows me well. Anyway, on the 28th of September, it's this weekend, Joanna and I are setting off on a road trip to Enfleur to celebrate her 50th birthday. Wow, it's a historic trip to an historic place in France. We made a similar trip to France over 30 years ago, so doing it again feels very special. Joanna

• 1:20:59Speaker 04

  is part of the Rosebud family and I know a special happy birthday message from you would make her day. Oh, well, we want to make your day, Joanna, so we wish you a very happy birthday. We wish a happy birthday to all Rosebud listeners, whenever your birthday is. And she ends up, please keep doing what you're doing, Giles. Rosebud brings so much joy and pleasure to the listeners. With best wishes, Sarah Day. And speaking of upcoming birthdays, the 29th of September, that's next Tuesday, if you're listening in real time, will be the 80th birthday, it's incredible, of Patricia Hodge, the actress.

• 1:21:37Speaker 04

  And I really recommend her episode of Rosebud, which we aired only a few weeks ago. If you have not heard it yet, you must, and you can catch that on our YouTube channel as well. Next Tuesday, 29th of September, is also, actually, the anniversary of the death of Harriet's mother, Harriet, our producer's mother. Those of you who are regular listeners will know, we talk a lot about Harriet's mother, Patience, and who took her own life on the 29th of September. And we'll be thinking of her then. We're thinking, actually, I'll be thinking of my mother. And so, really, what I'm suggesting is, maybe this is a week not only wishing happy birthday

• 1:22:20Speaker 04

  to friends who are having a birthday, but also remembering our mothers, particularly if they're no longer with us. So, think about your mother, as Harriet is thinking of hers next Tuesday, and as I'm thinking of mine. Mothers are so key to us, as we discovered. Well, you know, here's Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton. His novel has been inspired by the story of his remarkable mother. Mothers are everything. A childhood lasts a lifetime. That's what Rosebud is about. Thank you very much for listening to what I hope you found was another intriguing episode of Rosebud. We will be back, if you're a family member, on Sunday. We'll be back next Tuesday, possibly with a guest, possibly with all my diaries, I

• 1:23:05Speaker 04

  can't remember what Tuesday we're on. And the next Friday, we have got, well, a very special guest indeed. Oh, I'm not supposed to say they're very special, I've been reprimanded for saying they're very special. People say, oh, can't you, can't all be special. But funnily enough, they are all special to me. Anyway, that's it from me. Thanks for being with us. This has been Rosebud, produced by Harriet Jane, edited by Alec Cadell, and presented by me, Giles Brandtham. Until next time, goodbye. Cue the music.

• 1:24:20Speaker 04

  That was another episode of Rosebud, produced by Harriet Jane for Plain Jane Media, presented by me, Giles Brandtham, edited by Alec Cadell, and recorded at Grosvenor House in Mayfair, London.

• 1:24:36Speaker 04

  United Kingdom, Western Europe, the world. Oh, when I was a little boy, I loved saying all of that.

• 1:24:46Speaker 03

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