WHEN THE QUEEN READ “THE LINK” ON HER SUMMER HOLIDAY 

Ten books for each of the seven decades of the Queen’s reign have been selected by a panel of librarians, booksellers and literature experts from readers’ recommendations spanning 31 countries. 

The ‘Big Jubilee Read’ includes “brilliant, beautiful and thrilling writing” in novels, anthologies of short stories and poetry published since 1952, say the organisers. They were “shared stories that define our social and cultural heritage.” 

In the late 1970s I was involved in healing sessions with the late Sir Angus Ogilvy who was married to the Queen’s cousin, Princess Alexandra. For a while I came to know them quite well as they invited me for dinner on several occasions to Thatched House Lodge, their residence in Richmond Park. 

On one occasion they had joined the royal family aboard HMS Britannia for a summer holiday, taking with them a copy of my newly-published first book “The Link”. As soon as Princess Alexandra had finished reading it, the Queen asked for it and avidly read it from cover to cover. 

Whilst understandably “The Link” doesn’t appear on ‘The Big Jubilee Read’, I’m enormously flattered and proud to know that Her Majesty actually read it.