How much do you know about your grandmother’s life? When she was young, what did she have for breakfast? When she was 40, what did her friends think of her?
In Craig Brown’s new book, Voyage around the Queen, he points out Her Maj’s life has been so faithfully chronicled, that even anti-monarchists probably know more about the late Queen than their own grandparents. “Like it or not — like them or not— the royal family are under our skin”, Brown says. In this new book, published tomorrow, he puts the late Queen Elizabeth II’s life (for ease, I will follow Brown’s lead and refer to her as ‘the Queen’) into historical context, presenting a portrait of the monarch by exploring the recollections of those who orbited and encountered her, from the civilians to the politicians to the celebrities.
