In a candid revelation she detailed how Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret’s mother adored one of the BBC’s most enduring sitcoms Dad’s Army. She often made guests at her Windsor residence watch it with her, Princess Margaret’s lady-in-waiting Lady Anne Glenconner said. The widow of Colin Tennant, third Baron Glenconner and close friend of Margaret, opened up on the alcohol-fuelled evenings spent at the Royal Lodge with the Countess Snowdon and the Queen Mother. 

She told the Daily Mail: “Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret would invite Colin and me to stay at Royal Lodge.

“It was a relatively modest house.

“The bathroom had a cracked lino floor and a lot of the rooms were a little tired, but the Queen Mother didn’t want to change anything.”

The evenings usually started with the household’s guests finding the Queen Mother in front of the TV enjoying her favourite TV show – and being forced to stand by the rigid rules of the royal protocol.  

She continued: “Every evening, we had drinks in the drawing room, where we’d often find her standing in front of the television, transfixed by Dad’s Army.

“One of the protocols of being in the company of a member of the Royal Family is that if they’re standing, you can’t sit down until they do.

“So we’d just stand with the Queen Mother as she watched her favourite TV programme — she was a big fan of Captain Mainwaring — sipping a dry martini, laughing until the credits ran.”

Dinner followed, Lady Anne recalled, and as wine was poured with each course the Queen Mother invited her guests to join her in a long “ritual of toasts”.

The former lady-in-waiting said: “Once Dad’s Army had finished, we’d all go to the dining room.

“Wine was served with each course, and the highlight was when she started her ritual of toasts.

“She’d say the name of someone she liked and raise her glass above her head.

“And we’d all follow suit.

“For anybody she didn’t like, she’d lower her glass under the table and say their name, and we’d do the same.

“These toasts went on for ages, accompanied by roars of laughter and copious amounts of alcohol.”

The nights usually ended with songs and dances led by Princess Margaret, who loved to play the piano.  

Lady Anne said: “Afterwards, Princess Margaret would play the piano and we’d all sing.

“If we were feeling particularly merry, we’d dance to gramophone music on the carpet.”

These nights at the Royal Lodge were “always fun”, Lady Anne recalls, but were often interrupted by “bouts of bickering between the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, who at times had a slightly strained relationship.” 

Lady Anne, who was chosen by Margaret as lady-in-waiting in 1971, continued: “One of them would do things like opening all the windows, only for the other to go around shutting them.

“Or one would suggest an idea, and the other would dismiss it immediately. Perhaps they were too similar.”

The Queen Mother died at the end of March 2002, just a few weeks after her youngest daughter Princess Margaret.

The Royal Lodge has since become the official residence of Prince Harry, where he brought up his children Princess Beatrice and Eugenie alongside his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson.   

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