No slave of the ordinary

“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.”

Words to live by! Indeed, Cecil Beaton was certainly no "slave of the ordinary". From the Sitwells to the Jaggers, from Hollywood royalty to the late HM the Queen, from Garbo to Monroe, from Coward to Capote, from Lord Mountbatten to Tallulah Bankhead, he knew (and photographed) them all.

Cecil Beaton's first love, of course, was... Cecil Beaton - and no doubt he would have loved the fact that the first major exhibition mounted by the National Portrait Gallery in the heart of London since re-opening after a major refurb was a tribute to him, his work, and his life! And so it was that Hils, Crog, John-John, Bence, Madam Arcati and I went to see it today.

It was delightful - everything from his "Bright Young Things" era, through Vogue fashion shoots, the War, Hollywood and semi-respectable old age was on show. Here's a mere soupçon...

I was drooling over the sheer camp decadence and magnificence of it all...

Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World is on at the National Portrait Gallery until 11th January 2026 - catch it if you can!

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Oh, yes she did!

It's a lesser-known fact that when they were evacuated from Buckingham Palace during WW2 and stayed at the Royal Lodge in Windsor, the Royal Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret loved nothing better than to organise an annual pantomime with children from the Royal School, produced by the school's headmaster Hubert Tannar!

Her love for dressing-up parties and mischief continued well into adulthood, it seems...

Twice a year, the Queen wore evening gown and tiara to judge the staff fancy dress party at Balmoral Castle.

On one occasion, the Queen's dressers asked if they could don their fancy dress before helping her. She walked down to dinner, telling her guests: "I've just been dressed by Queen Victoria... and, I believe, Cheryl Cole!"

Bless her.

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The last Princess

"I'm no angel, but I'm no Bo-Peep either." - Princess Margaret

Ten years ago today, Great Britain lost its last true Princess...

Margaret Rose was not born of the modern school of royalty: all sporty like Anne, environmentally conscious like Charles, or - heaven forfend - a be-jumpered bicyclist like the Dutch or Scandinavians. Hers was a more glittering, ultra-regal world of balls, parties, society functions and lots and lots of tours of duty (opening things, awarding things, attending things).

Her education was mainly supervised by her mother, who in the words of Randolph Churchill "never aimed at bringing her daughters up to be more than nicely behaved young ladies". Margaret took to fashion in a way her sister, as Monarch, could not, and as a consequence she was noted as one of the most glamorous, well-dressed women in the world. She obviously adored her role as Princess, and in the eyes of the media she was everything they could have hoped for - seemingly permanently in diamonds, and always photographed in the most enchanting company at all the best clubs and parties.

Unfortunately her prominent profile and constitutional role meant she was not permitted to be so free and easy in her choice of suitors (in public at least). Famously the pillars of the establishment prevented her from marrying her choice of man, the handsome but divorced Captain Peter Townsend, a decision she was upset by for the rest of her life.



Her eventual approved relationship, with spouse Lord Snowdon, was a rocky one. The couple argued frequently (and occasionally in public). Eventually, inevitably, it all fizzled to a halt with the first Royal divorce of the 20th century in 1978. However, Margaret's many close male "friends" were readily talked about even during her marriage - Mick Jagger, David Niven, cricketer Keith Miller, wine producer Anthony Barton, the notoriously well-hung gangster John Bindon, and of course Roddy Llewellyn.

As she grew older, the Princess's partying became more "jet-set" than dutiful - a large proportion of this magnificently dissolute life taking place on her beloved island of Mustique, where she resided much of the year on an estate gifted to her by Colin Tennant, later Lord Glenconner (nephew of the decadent "Bright Young Thing" and favourite of the Queen Mother Stephen Tennant). Until her later illness (that led to her untimely death) this was where she preferred to be, and where she would always say she had her happiest times.

One of her close male "friends" Peter Sellers even involved the Princess in one of his famous video projects...

Peter Sellers featuring Princess Margaret, Lord Snowdon and Britt Ekland - I say I say I say

We miss her!