Second in 3 part series ~ When the Queen was a Tyke

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

The first time I had  tea with the new King and Queen at Buckingham Palace, I was invited to sit down in a magnificent pink and gold chair.
Suddenly, I heard an ominous ripping sound. Within seconds the chair —which hadn’t been re-caned since Queen Victoria’s day — had dissolved.
You may think a royal palace is the last word in up-to-date luxury but nothing could be further from the truth. Living at Buckingham Palace was rather like camping in a museum — one that’s dropping to bits, with equipment three decades behind the times.

As the governess to Princess Elizabeth (known as Lilibet) and her sister Margaret, I had to help settle them in when we moved there in 1937, from the tall, narrow house in Piccadilly where their parents had lived as Duke and Duchess of York. That first night, the wind moaned in the chimneys like  1,000 ghosts.
 The palace had only recently had electricity installed, and with little thought to those who had to live there. My bedroom light, for instance, could only be turned on and off by a switch two yards outside in the passage.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2147347/Diamond-Jubilee-Playing-castle-dungeons-Nazi-bombs-fell-Elizabeth-panto-princess.html#ixzz1vTiGIAZZ