Margaret Rhodes was first cousin and confidante of the Queen, a constant presence throughout her life from their blissful childhood summer days at Balmoral, through the dark years of the abdication and war, up to and beyond the death of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on Holy Saturday 2002.
Her spirited and bubbly nature was never far away. She was having a dancing lesson in Edinburgh on the day Edward VIII’s abdication was announced in 1936 and, to her “eternal shame”, she skipped round the room chanting: “My uncle Bertie is going to be king.” Yet 65 years later she was one of four family members present at the Queen Mother’s death. Only minutes later Peter Sissons, the BBC newsreader, pressed her on live television