Gyles Brandreth

Queen Camilla loves a book. Almost any book will do. ‘There’s something so tactile about a book,’ she says. ‘I like the smell of the pages when you open the cover. I like turning the pages and folding down a corner ready for next time…’ The Queen, 78, has loved books for as long as she can remember. She says her father, Bruce Shand, inspired this lifelong passion: ‘He read to us as children. He chose the books, and we listened. He was probably the best-read man I’ve come across anywhere. He devoured books.’ Bruce Shand was a soldier. His father was a writer, about architecture, food and wine. His father was another writer, who, incidentally, was briefly and secretly engaged to Constance Lloyd, who went on to marry Oscar Wilde.

Given the way the world is right now, I am avoiding it in the main. For the sake of my mental wellbeing, I require less bad news and more fun company. Just as George V collected postage stamps and Rod Stewart collects toy trains, I have been collecting theatrical dames since the beginning of the 1970s when I first worked with Dame Peggy Ashcroft. It’s an odd hobby, but it has proved hugely rewarding. From Dame Flora Robson (who gave me a very useful book on window boxes when I bought my first flat) to Dame Joan Plowright (who bequeathed me her husband Laurence Olivier’s favourite sun hat, which I’ve worn with pride all summer), I have bagged more than 50 of them over the years. I recently had lunch with one of my favourites: Dame Eileen Atkins, 91.

I have had a good idea. It may even be an important idea. See what you think. The other day I interviewed Keir Starmer for my weekly podcast, Rosebud. It’s so called because of the Orson Welles film Citizen Kane. Rosebud, you will recall, was the trade name of the sledge on which Kane, as a boy, was playing the day he was taken away from his home and his mother. My podcast is about the early memories of people in the public eye. I wanted to talk to Sir Keir because he aspires to be prime minister and I didn’t know much about him. We met at St George’s Park, the FA’s national football centre, near Burton upon Trent. He had had a full morning, chairing a shadow cabinet meeting, giving soundbites about football and avoiding giving soundbites about Angela Rayner.

This week I have been working with the great Dame Judi Dench. We have been rehearsing a song by Noël Coward for a show we are doing together at the Royal Albert Hall next Friday. Judi met Sir Noël not long before he died in 1973. What she remembers best is his amused smile and the strong scent of the fragrance he wore. Whenever I think of him, I recall his wise advice to anyone confronted with unfair criticism: ‘Rise above it.’ I hope that is what the King is going to do in the face of the bewildering brouhaha that has come with the publication of Omid Scobie’s book Endgame. Charles is not a racist. Not remotely. Anyone who has spent any time with him over any number of years will tell you that. I don’t know if Scobie-Doo has met him. In fact, I am not sure who he has met.

Once, years ago, making small talk with Elizabeth II, I asked her if it was true that many peers attending her coronation in 1953 had taken sandwiches into Westminster Abbey hidden inside their coronets. ‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘They were in the abbey for something like six hours, you know. The Archbishop of Canterbury even had a flask of brandy tucked inside his cassock.’ Apparently, His Grace offered Her Majesty a discreet nip, but she declined. When I pressed the Queen for any amusing recollections of the great day, she did recall the moment, after the crowning, when England’s premier baron, William Stourton (22nd Baron Stourton, 26th Baron Segrave and 25th Baron Mowbray), came forward to pay homage.

When it comes to the Harry & Meghan ‘this is our truth’ Netflix documentary, the senior members of the royal family have decided to do what the Queen Mother’s friend Noël Coward always did when faced with adversity or criticism. They are simply going ‘to rise above it’. It won’t be difficult. While the Queen Mother loved Dad’s Army and Elizabeth II did her best to get to grips with Line of Duty during lockdown, Charles III watches almost no television. The Queen Consort told me that she had persuaded His Majesty to catch a bit of the Channel 4 series about canal-boating that I do with Dame Sheila Hancock, but I think she only said that to indulge me. Our new sovereign is a workaholic with a wide variety of private passions. TV is not one of them.

Every Christmas I find I am living in the past. I blame my father. He was born in 1910 — before radio, before TV, before cinema had sound, so he and his siblings made their own entertainment at Christmas. He brought up his children to do the same, which is why my unfortunate offspring have a Christmas that’s essentially a century out of date. There are three elements at its heart: board games that end in rows, parlour games that end in tears, and party pieces performed around the Christmas tree. I owe my very existence to my father’s love of board games. As a boy, his favourite was a game of military strategy called L’Attaque, invented in France in 1908.

Every Christmas I find I am living in the past. I blame my father. He was born in 1910 — before radio, before TV, before cinema had sound, so he and his siblings made their own entertainment at Christmas. He brought up his children to do the same, which is why my unfortunate offspring have a Christmas that’s essentially a century out of date. There are three elements at its heart: board games that end in rows, parlour games that end in tears, and party pieces performed around the Christmas tree. I owe my very existence to my father’s love of board games. As a boy, his favourite was a game of military strategy called L’Attaque, invented in France in 1908.

Hard on the heels of the 90th birthday of Nicholas Parsons (10 October) comes the 65th birthday of the Prince of Wales (14 November). Neither is due for retirement any day soon. Indeed, I suspect retirement would be the death of the long-serving host of Radio 4’s Just A Minute. The Duchess of Cornwall listens to his programme, I know. Perhaps her husband does too. Either way, Parsons is a perfect role model for Prince Charles. Nicholas is young at heart, unfailingly charming and wholly committed to the strange lot that fate has accorded him. He has been hosting Just A Minute for 46 years and not missed a single recording. He will be at it until he drops. For his birthday I gave Nicholas a copy of my book The Seven Secrets of Happiness.