The Queen is now the longest reigning monarch. Her coronation in 1953 was estimated to cost approximately £1.5million at the time, which would equate to more than £43million today. It was watched by 27 million people in the UK alone and was the first coronation to ever be televised. Following tradition, the Queen was flanked by eight Maids of Honour who carried her train as she walked through Westminster Abbey.

Former maid Lady Glenconner appeared on BBC Breakfast yesterday morning to promote her new memoir, ‘Lady in Waiting: My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown’, and explained what it took to be part of the Queen’s huge day.

She said: “My role was Maid of Honour. We had to be unmarried.

“We had to be daughters of Earls, Marquesses or Dukes, we obviously had to have nice figures, and then we were drilled by the Duke of Norfolk and people say, ‘Were you frightened?’ 

“In fact, I don’t think we were because we knew exactly what to do.”

In a 2013 Daily Mail article, reporter Rebecca English said the Maids of Honour were chosen for their “’decorative beauty’ as well as their ability to carry the Queen’s heavy train”. 

Lady Glenconner told the reporter at the time: “Put it this way, we wouldn’t have got picked if we were fat!”

On BBC Breakfast this week, presenter Charlie Stayt asked: “Is it true you nearly fainted?”

She said: “Yes I did, but luckily Black Rod saved the day. He was a wonderful gentleman, dressed up in black velvet with a sort of billiard cue. 

“And I started to sway and Jane Stewart [another lady in waiting] was just in front of me, and suddenly, thank goodness, he put his arm – like this – and pinioned me to the back until I recovered. 

“I remember thinking, goodness me, millions of people were watching the coronation. And you know, it was awful. Anyway, when I got behind the screen later, the Archbishop of Canterbury produced a bottle of Brandy from somewhere. 

“And he said, ‘I think perhaps, Anne, you would like a sip?’”

Lady Glenconner was only 20 at the time, but she joked that even if she had not been of the legal drinking age she said she would still have had the alcohol for “medicinal purposes”.

Lady Glenconner – then known as Lady Anne Coke – came from a wealthy background as the daughter of the Earl of Leicester and was served by footmen in her childhood home. She later married a fellow aristocrat, Colin Tennant the 3rd Baron Glenconner, and had five children. 

Mr Stayt said: “It’s no exaggeration to say that you have led an extraordinary life. You were born into what a lot of people say in privilege.”

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She said: “Holkham being very near Sandringham, she and the Queen used to come over, Princess Margaret being very near in age, we used to play and we were quite naughty actually. We had tricycles, we used to tricycle all through the passages at Holkham, with the Queen occasionally saying ‘What are you doing Anne? You mustn’t do that’. 

“She was that much older than us.”

Margaret was reportedly a “wonderful friend” to the former Maid of Honour and eventually asked her to be her Lady in Waiting. From 1971 right up until Margaret’s death in 2002, the two of them were very close. The Countess of Snowden even supported Lady Glenconner through trying times such as when her second son was suffering from AIDS.

Presenter Ms Munchetty said: “When Princess Margaret asked you to be Lady in Waiting many years later, that was almost to protect you both from certain parts of your…”

Lady Glenconner interjected: “Slightly difficult marriages, yes, it was in a way. We had always been friends and then she said to me ‘I do hope you’re not going to have any more children’ – I had five, I had twins – and I said ‘no no I’m not going to have any more children’.

“‘In that case Anne’, she said ‘would you be my lady-in-waiting?’

“She was wonderful – part of the reason I wrote this book is because so much trash has been written about Princess Margaret by people who have never met her, who never knew her.” 

Lady Glenconner’s whole life has been entwined with the Royal Family – for instance, one of her former suitors was John Spencer, the gentleman who went on to marry Frances Shand Kydd and father Princess Diana.

Diana was hoped to one day be Queen Consort but she divorced the Queen’s son Prince Charles in 1996 and died tragically in 1997.

He is now expected to ascend to the throne following the Queen’s death with his new wife, Camilla Parker Bowles.

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