Lady Glenconner spills the Sandringham secrets

If anyone knows how aristocratic life can tangle and occasionally strangle it’s Lady Anne Glenconner. 

At 93, the former maid of honour at Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and longtime lady in waiting to Princess Margaret is releasing a new memoir on November 6th, promising fresh revelations about royal life, the quirks of Britain’s aristocracy, and the lessons she’s learned along the way.

It begins with Diana’s formidable grandmother, Lady Fermoy, who snagged a home on the Sandringham Estate and became Woman of the Bedchamber to the Queen Mother. 

Her daughter Frances married the dashing Johnny Althorp once engaged, incidentally, to Lady Glenconner herself. 

“When I heard about Johnny’s engagement, it was like a dagger to the heart,” she recalls. “But perhaps I had a lucky escape he didn’t treat Frances kindly.”

Frances’s messy divorce was social dynamite, and her mother’s betrayal in court handed Johnny custody of their children including little Diana, who toddled off to nursery with her lunchbox in hand. 

“My sister, who ran the nursery, said Diana had a tenuous grasp on the truth,” she muses.

Years later, a grown up Diana hired Glenconner’s nanny, Barbara Barnes only to dismiss her after the princes grew too attached. Barbara rebounded as Belgravia’s chicest shop assistant.

By 1992, Lady Glenconner was back aboard the Royal Yacht with Princess Margaret proof that in her world, scandal fades, heartbreak heals, and the tiaras always stay polished.