Skip to main content

At Home With the Queen by Brian Hoey: book review





At Home With the Queen: Life Through the Keyhole of the Royal Household (2003, revised version 2013) is about the royal household of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. It is a comprehensive and extremely (excessively) detailed account of absolutely everything concerned with the operations and management of Britain’s royalty – from the Queen to all who serve her and her family.

Although there is some repetition, this is a dense and compact book of the interesting and the minutiae. It includes the people – nannies, nursemaids, dressers, the Master of the Household, the valets, the finance staff, the ladies-in-waiting, the police and bodyguards, the press secretaries, and all else.

It includes invitations to the Palace, the pomp and circumstance, and royal travel. It also mentions, of course, the royal horses and royal dogs. No question is left unanswered, no fact left unturned.

I’m reading the book at the time of the announcement of the renovations to Buckingham Palace, which will commence in April 2017 and cost an estimated $457 million. Officials described the renovations to Queen Elizabeth II’s home as ‘essential’ because some of the electrical wiring is 60 years old, and 5,000 light fittings and 2,500 radiators/heaters will need to be replaced.

The cost of the renovations will come from the soverign grant, which is an allowance provided by the British government from profits on the Crown Estate (a collection of land and properties in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch). In 2015 the 15% profits that the Queen received from the Crown Estate was $49.7 million, but in order to fund the renovations this will be increased to 25% of the profits for the next 10 years. In 2027 it will revert to 15%. In other words, the profits of the monarch’s entire estate goes to the government, who then give back to the Queen 15% of the profits to live on. This is also mentioned in the book in great detail.

Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms with 19 state rooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff bedrooms, and 78 bathrooms. The last time it was redecorated was in 1952. The Queen will continue to live in Buckingham Palace while the renovations take place.





MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh  (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That
1 comment
Read more

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass
Post a Comment
Read more

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou
8 comments
Read more