This Much Is True

I was keen to respond so, once more ignoring her request for my silence, I blurted: ‘But, you see, Your Majesty, we are so lucky to be born English and to have English as our first language, because we have the finest literature in the world. And we can read it in the original. We don’t need translations to read Shakespeare and Dickens and Keats and Wordsworth and Shelley and Browning and Mrs Gaskell and the Brontës and Jane Austen…’ I was going right through the syllabus. I could sense the Queen was getting a bit restless. I stepped closer to Her Majesty, recklessly warming to my theme: ‘You see, Your Majesty, we are so lucky that we’re born English, that English is our language. Imagine, for example, Your Majesty, if we had been born’ — I paused, searching for a country that I assumed didn’t boast much of a literature and I came up with — ‘Albanian!’

Well, that was altogether too much for the Queen. I supposed it smacked of the political. Alarm crossed her face and she moved away, anxious to put some distance between herself and this clearly crazed woman. Clutching the handbag even more closely and murmuring ‘Yes, yes’ vaguely to herself, she disappeared into the throng.

In 2002, another thick, creamy-white envelope, embossed with the royal insignia, was delivered, announcing that I had been awarded an OBE for Services to Drama.

A lot of people were quite surprised, none so more so than me. Some people think that because of my political views, I shouldn’t have accepted my OBE. Of course, I shouldn’t have; I know that. It goes against everything I believe in, but I most certainly wasn’t going to turn it down.

When you get ‘the nod’, you’re not supposed to tell anybody, and I didn’t. But the only way I could keep it to myself was to go swimming; I swam on my back and whispered happily into the chlorine-scented air, ‘I’ve got an OBE. I’ve got an OBE!’ Against all the odds I had made it, I had been honoured by the Establishment.

As the Queen was observing mourning for her mother who had just died, it was Prince Charles who performed the presentation at Buckingham Palace that day. And as he pinned on my gong, he said, ‘Oh, I am so delighted to be able to give you this.’ I was delighted too, because we have got to know each other a little over the years. I think perhaps he enjoys my enthusiasm more than his mother did: he has done more than anyone to make me a royalist.

I have to say I think Australia should choose to be a republic, but I would be very happy to have King Charles. It all started when HRH wrote me a lovely letter out of the blue about my 1998 unabridged audiobook of Oliver Twist. It was four pages in his own handwriting. Of course, I wrote back. I always write in pen, on good writing paper. I never take a copy.

I feel protective about Prince Charles. We have met a handful of times over the years but I was amazed when Lindy my agent rang to say, ‘Prince Charles has invited you to go and spend three nights at a house party in Sandringham.’ I said, ‘Give over, that’s nonsense.’ She said, ‘No, really, they contacted us because they didn’t know your home address. They’ve sent a long list of all the things that you might need to wear.’

I decided to go by train — I wasn’t going to take my Nissan to Sandringham with all those Rolls Royces. Then I thought, ‘Well, I’d better go First Class, because that shows that I know how to behave.’ I had decent clothes to wear on the journey, but decided to wear my trainers on the train. I thought, ‘I’ll just wear those and then when I get out, I’ll put on smart shoes.’ Thanks again to Hodge, I was properly kitted out, even down to the required ballgown. She had even upgraded my handbag to one of those posh Longchamp totes, and I put the court shoes and my bits and bobs in that.

As we approached King’s Lynn station, I changed my shoes, putting my trainers in the Longchamp bag. I teetered down the platform in my uncomfortable, polite heels to be greeted by a gentleman in a dark suit and an elegant, smiling lady. I shook hands with the gentleman. ‘How kind of you to meet me, thank you so much.’ That was my first mistake: he was the chauffeur.

The smiling lady and I got into the car. She introduced herself. I didn’t catch her name and asked again. I didn’t catch it the second time, but let it pass. The whole way to Sandringham, which was about twenty-five minutes, she chatted away to me in the friendliest way imaginable, but her upper-class accent was so inpenetrable that I couldn’t understand a single word. I just kept nodding, looking interested and saying, ‘Oh, goodness, yes!’