Margaret: The Secret Princess

Princess Margaret rose of York was born on the 21st of August 1930 a birth heralded by a 41 gun salute and the peel of church bells throughout the land [Music] 71 years later in the Bleak setting of a council crematorium flames consumed her illness wracked body the sad ignominious end for a princess full of so much promise she chose to be the woman she was she chose the many affairs in her life she chose to betray Lord Snowdon she chose to be an adulteress she was a kind of royal you didn't step over the line with Princess Margaret because you just wouldn't dare go near the line yet learn to step over it she was very royal a very grand and people often complain about her being grand she was a terrible flirt she was an unbelievable flirt knowing Mick Jagger I think you heard of him very pleased and had a royal notch on his bedpost Princess Margaret reputedly had her first sexual relationship with a woman Margaret was a self-obsessed snork she became a heavy drinking heavy smoking dictatorial bitter old lady tonight 12 months after her death a timely reappraisal of the extraordinary life of Marvin the secret to princess [Music] the tiny Caribbean island of mystique paradise home of Princess Margaret for almost 30 years tonight two of the princess's closest and oldest friends revisit the house for the first time since her death my fault is of all the happy wonderful times I had here with her and I feel she's here with me today yet you'll find no plaque or statue here to honor the islands most famous former resident this is after all a highly discrete exclusive place where billionaires film stars and rock idols can holiday in secluded peace but the locals who call their royal visitor miss princess remember her with great affection like oh sorry nicely it was Colin Tennant Lord Glen Connor who introduced Princess Margaret to mystique more than 40 years ago he was a former boyfriend and confidant anxious to give her a unique wedding gift everybody was giving cocktail shakers her master is cocktails were very popular and I said would you like to have a cocktail shaker or a piece of land on an island I've just bought in the Caribbean and so she naturally had plenty of cocktail shakers and not many islands she Nestle sit opted for the second Lord Glen Connor had bought the island in 1958 for 45,000 pounds the wedding present home lazily sol was built and located with security in mind perched on a remote and inaccessible point on the island I don't keep shoes ever more happy in an act you know I mean when she first arrived there saw the house and started unpacking at the sea here she was absolutely I remember with all the crates and she put on a pair of marigold yellow Mariga of gloves and we all had to help and she put all China in the bath and we had to wash it up and she just loved it I mean at the many many happy hours I've lain here by the pool with her and she just said look and look at my view there's just nothing more beautiful and the only thing that in the world that I earn yes it was the only thing that year the mystique home became a safe haven during the stormiest period of the princesses later life yet it was a life that began in the most blissful privileged and idyllic fashion devoted loving family the flamboyant Margaret was the apple of her father's eye then everything dramatically changed when just six years old our uncle King Edward the eighth abdicated a father the introverted stammering George became king leaving her shy sister Elizabeth destined to be queen margaret was isolated with no real role she even called herself secondhand rose she will be frustrated in romance unable to marry her love Peter Townsend then trapped in a doomed marriage left pursuing a string failed love affairs yet her friends say she never lost sight of her real mission well Vince's father its deepest trait was loyalty I think a mother probably had instilled in her loyalty to the crown it wasn't only her sister who she was of course very close to but it was also an actual question of loyalty to the crown itself but four thousand miles away in London a very different account at Princess Margaret's life has been prepared in a room above a Soho restaurant journalist and royal reporter Noelle awesome has spent over 40 years prying and probing into the troubled life and times of Princess Margaret his collection of letters interviews photographs and tapes document every twist and turn of her incredible life his conclusion she was a woman who always lived life her way she was the perfect internist she lived to enjoy and to enjoy with excess baltham says nothing sums up this heaven ISM better than a glimpse at a typical day in the life of Princess Margaret in the latter years breakfast mom she got up quite late in the morning normally between about 10 and 11 o'clock she would be woken with orange juice and with a tray breakfast were always the same throughout her life she would only eat fruit but if she felt somewhat jaded in the morning her servant who produced the orange juice we begin the nod and and pour a certain amount of vodka into it however as a recovery drink for the princess she really believed in the hair of the dog and it seemed always to work for her she would read the morning newspapers scatter them all over her beds bed and she was smoke in bed she started smoking from the moment she opened her eyes virtually her bath would have been run for her I posed with them we laid out for her and she would dress normally the first of three changes in a day the incessant smoking was just one of the peculiarities of Princess Margaret but her chauffeur for 26 years David Griffin had to get used to she was very demanding that everything was done properly and we followed the lines of protocol we used to drive around in silence most of the time unlike other members of the royal family we didn't go in for idle chitchat and from kensington palace to sandra a journey of two and a half hours there wasn't one word spoken in the whole whole time before lunch the princess would always visit her hairdresser in Knightsbridge the princess used to come here every day of the week and on occasion twice a day she would always have a very stiff gin and tonic before lunch usually about Hoppus 1242 one that would be the first drink of the day but by no means the last he started a hell torrent of alcohol she would have perhaps the gas of wine with lunch perhaps a week whiskey and Marvin water the Royal toast would be given after the first course because Margaret insisted on smoking during most of her meals and of course he obeyed the tradition that you don't smoke before the rotten toast but she made damn sure it happened early in the meal somedays Princess Margaret what we call had her Queen Victoria look on and to be very royal more royal in the queen she wonder where even observance when they were performing their duties her footman could be in the room and to Margaret there was nobody there it wouldn't actually get a good morning you would sort of get a look or a not an out of a ate and he sometimes used to correct me with my English I'd say scones and she'd say scone in the early evening David Griffin will be back on duty at Kensington Palace for an often exhausting and relentless round of dinner engagements one summer princess was there every night of the week for a period of seven weeks it just went on and on and on and we just couldn't keep up with her in the end she would then go back to her home after theater or dinner and perhaps sit drinking listening to records or sitting at the piano until about 2:00 in the morning her intake for most of her life was at least a bottle and mainly whiskey this was a terribly insecure woman who felt worthless we felt desperate to be admired and did not feel admired clinical psychologist Oliver James who's analyzed Princess Margaret's life believes alcohol and tobacco were effectively drugs of Solace for a tortured princess who showed all the classical symptoms of a serious personality disorder to a normal shrink Princess Margaret's diagnosis if she came into this room now and sat down and I talked to her a bit would be that she was a narcissistic personality disorder that she had a mimimi I have to be the center of attention personality of a toad of Toad Hall think Paulie AIDS think practically any TV presenter you can think of somebody who's got to be the center of attention who tend to be willful incredibly erratic in their moods and often extremely difficult to be close to and the roots of this condition Oliver James traces it back to deep inferiority instilled from childhood Princess Margaret always referred to herself as second hand rose her name being of course Margaret wears and she always felt that she was the second hand second-best person there was Elizabeth after the abdication of her uncle destined to become Queen one day and herself though the air in despair she always referred to it she felt very inferior to everyone deep down but she compensated for that by saying well actually I may feel inferior but I am the princess and you jolly well better refer to me as your Royal Highness Princess Margaret was very royal people I think sometimes forget that I mean she was the daughter of the King Emperor she'd been brought up with the Queen they were the only men in the war and I just asked the war I mean she was very royal and very grand and people often complain about her being grand I always expected her to be ground I didn't expect to be anything else you know coming up how the grand princess turned mystique into a private playground and did the young Princess Margaret have a lesbian affair [Music] the arrival of Princess Margaret or mystique would always be a major event [Music] her appearance would transform this normally sleepy tranquil island it'll huge stage set a beautiful location for outrageous and lavish parties Margaret got up to all kinds of shenanigans on the stake because anything went there and whatever happened didn't happen as far as London society was concerned the man in charge of royal entertainment was Princess Margaret's lifelong friend and owner of mystique Colin tenant Lord Glen : now back on macaroni Beach this Beach recalls all the parties we had here if we were never less than a dozen sometimes 20 or more people for lunch here I would always packet out you know a lot of people and they often that would turn into a party there were incidents with people running around naked Margot photograph quite a few of them and was calling Tennant and Roddy Llewellyn does Lord young Connor recall those pictures someone happy to recall those shameless shenanigans his former model and socialite the Honorable Victoria Hodge I was privileged enough and fortunate enough to be at some of the best parties in mystique with Princess Margaret she was a very sexy sensual woman she and flirtatious and if if the order of the night was a costume party she would she would wear the best costume Princess Margaret wanted to be one of us because of who she is she could get away with with anything really and did the man who still owns and runs basil spar in mystique surely knows the truth about those Rattus royal parties the truth she was longing to have fun she was longing to be part of the party those parties they want just room a big party and of course Colleen went overboard sometimes with a dress code of some of the you know some of the local guys we had like people from Trinidad limbo dancers came up and I went to Macaroni we had water a part of her we call it naked dance special dance and so for like that macaroni lady limbo dance very colorful was a great party any private parties that she wanted naked limbo dances romancing somebody she was in love with walking into the sunset with somebody she fancied she could have in mystique if there was somebody she saw at a party who she liked or fancied I think the first person they had to go through was her private detective the next person would be an interview with her lady-in-waiting and then mam would step in and if you were in the way you got out of the way she liked the gentleman very much I mean if she saw somebody she say Oh an who's that and I'd like to meet him and I again they asked who he was and bring him up yes she did she got like what like a lot of ladies do I think she had an eye for the gentleman she was a terrible flirt she was an unbelievable flirt anybody that I brought her party she accepted I think she felt entirely safe in my hands I always went as near to too far as which was that but never over the edge but an encounter with Kray twins gangster and film star John Wyndham lover of Victoria Hodge did by all accounts go well over the edge Margaret watched with laughter as Johnny binden balanced several glasses beer glasses on his erect penis and thought that was a great party act they all came back and everybody was giggling the lady-in-waiting said she'd seem bigger and Princess Margaret's eyes were watering and she was licking her lips and John and mam struck up a very cordial relationship I think she was impressed I think she thought it would be a healthy sexual conquest for her and if I had to bow out I would bow out what could you do this is longer the one for March is very sensitive looking for small but very very sensitive Princess Margaret blossomed as a beauty very early in her life she was only about 13 or 14 when she started to develop physically and mentally to become the the the fascinating seductive creature she eventually became at the age of 19 in those days she was probably the most beautiful woman in the world she knew her sexuality and she deliberately set out to ensnare men from that age she liked playing the game it was only when she became involved with men in the Margaret set and and went to weekend parties from the age of about 17 but they started away about whether she would get entangled with a man sexually from whether there could be a disastrous pregnancy Charmian Douglas the daughter of the American ambassador a jet-setting party girl became a close friend of the princess I did meet with shaman Douglas and we discussed this period in her life of Margaret's life and she confirmed that they had enjoyed a sexual relationship for about two years the aides around the royal family believed that it was safer for Princess Margaret to indulge in a relationship with another woman than to be with a man on one level this seemed astonishing and very racy even by today's standards but it has been suggested that this was in fact a tried and tested way of talk to almost not quite exhausting a lipid in this princess but putting it into her safe channel somewhere where you weren't going to get pregnant it wasn't going to get out it wasn't gonna be embarrassing that you were consulting with Playboy's it would be very underground I'm not saying and no evidence that it came to light the Princess Margaret became a lesbian far from it from the age of 14 she'd been infatuated by a man who arrived at Buckingham Palace to work for her father in her life of course step Peter Townsend a very good-looking hero the first man to shoot down an enemy playing of a British soil dashing knew a curry to a father the king and she adored Townsend from the beginning and this awoke him her a lot of her latent sexuality because she's had someone to focus on he was very dashing and of course he was as a war hero and I have two good-looking and everybody is in love with him Princess Margaret was no exception by the age of 19 her crush with this man who was married with two children have become a serious and increasingly talked about a love affair [Music] On February 6 1952 Princess Margaret's beloved father the King died and later that year her sister Elizabeth became queen I always remember very sad-looking was Princess Margaret on her own I think of that moment perhaps she realized that life was gonna be very very different for her and what road did she have good romance fill the void the affair were grouped Captain Peter Townsend flourish despite substantial hurdles the fact that he was married her children didn't matter damned apprentice Margot Peter Townsend had two sons Giles and Hugo until now they've remained silent about the upheaval in their young lives I have found it very difficult Anne I've never spoken about it before the first time I heard about any connection of my father with Princess Margaret was when I was at prep school I remember extremely well and it was the end of a beautiful summer's day and we were walking across the playing fields and a boy who'd been out for the day with his parents came rushing up to the small group of boys and the master and said words to the effect Peter Townsend is going to marry Princess Margaret distressing news for any child to overhear then his parents divorced with his mother taking the blame for her affair with another man when he went to court for a divorce it was Townsend who was given custody of the two boys not mrs. Townsend somebody had to take the blame and he clearly wasn't going to be my father the courts wanted to kiss the backsides of the royal family by awarding custody to Townsend they made mrs. town's ed the villainess and the guilty party so that Townsend would look eligible for princess mother they shot he dies by mind fifty years ago and and just you know I was able to do that and I've done it ever since rarely just shut the thing away from my mind with the divorce complete the country pondered whether Princess Margaret would put love before duty and choose her war hero in a dramatic statement she renounced marriage I think Princess Margaret felt throughout her life that it was her duty to give her best and her loyalty to her sister because she was the monarch it's amazing how many people still believe the Peter Townsend was a great love for Princess Margaret's life and that is nonsense she was told by the cream if you want to marry Peter Townsend you can but you must give up your title you must give up the six thousand pounds a year civil this payment equivalent to a portable million a year now and you must give up your right to live in India and in a palace I'm not giving those up now if this woman was truly in love with Peter Townsend she would have given everything to live with the management she wasn't prepared to do it she was a very insecure woman who could not possibly live without being a princess and of course if she'd married turns and that would have been the end of her of her occupying this superior position whenever MOG was in trouble in later life and had committed some awful gap then up would come but of course you can forgive her because look how she was forced to give up the gray cloud Peter talented and within three months of renouncing Peter Townsend she was unofficially engaged to a playboy called Billy Wallace how soon to get over such a broken heart this young woman approached the sixties and just went off like a rocket I mean she wasn't one of the archetype of handbag carrying fifties ladies that that the court then consisted of here was a woman who you know drank a bottle of whiskey in a day quite happily smoked 60 cigarettes there hung out with pop stars she's a rock chick and it's extraordinary that the royal family that time should have produced her [Music] coming up our Margaret the rock chick princess embraced the swinging sixties a doomed marriage are many affairs and the spy time bomb that still threatens the royal family today [Music] perhaps the most amazing story to emerge from Nobles investigation into the life of Princess Margaret is that a Russian spy targeted her in the 1960s brinson Bhagat had mercy every night of her life people endured party people to have fun they were people from show business they were odd people she picked up in clubs they were strange friends from the London social set they all had one thing in common they loved to party to the early hours and no party or premiere was complete without Princess Margaret and her new husband the photographer and future Lord Snowdon being in attendance but these were treacherous times the period of the early 60s was at the height of the Cold War London was very much a spy capital of the world mi5 and mi6 the Americans the Russians the French the Germans all trolled the same murky world in London they were all after the same sort of information the Snowden's found themselves very much the fish trapped in the middle of this net the net was cast by a Russian called Ivanov the spire at the heart of the Profumo and Christine Keeler scandal that rocked the Tory government in the early 60s one of the amazing things about Kensington Palace he said it almost borders on the grounds to the Russian embassy and he's from there in the Russian embassy that captain you Benny Ivanov a naval attache but also a giu spy for Russia would spy on the royal family he didn't have far to look in Margaret's case his room it would certainly have been to establish a biographical leverage which was a euphemism for blackmail it was Stephen Ward society osteopath from some time pimp who introduced Ivanoff into the Royal circle Ward became famous for his wild weekend orgies which involved many celebrities and members of the royal family he supplied many young girls who he chose to call topsies and anything went at these parties any form of sexual deviancy was accepted Ward collected photographs of these parties but mysteriously died of a barbiturate overdose only hours after he'd threatened to publish the pornographic pictures and name names even off was able to acquire one of the three volumes of lurid pornographic photographs that Ward had collected over the years it has been rumored that even off copied some of those photographs and return those to Soviet military headquarters in Moscow Ivanov told me in Moscow some years later that they had material which was devastating for the royal family none of that information has yet been revealed yet it's there in those files the real dynamite he's still sitting in Moscow while spies were busy watching the snow moves British media in the 1960s gave the fashionable couple nothing but admiration and deference there would have been a certain respect for the monarchy there and even if people in the know newspaper editors felt that she was overstepping the mark perhaps a little bit too much of a Playgirl it wouldn't have been as widely reported as now it would be almost impossible her Princess Margaret mean living now for her not to be a center spread of hello absolutely every week and the main fodder really for the Sun and the mirror [Music] but in those days the public was presented with the image of the perfect couple within the perfect marriage what is absolutely certain is they were physically very well suited apart from being about the same height both remarkably small people they're also very very animalistic if you like in in in there in them sexual means highly charged couldn't keep their hands off on them and they hit it off right from work though because she was compassionately interested in him whether they were ever truly in love I didn't know Tony Snowden was the father of her children and her husband for a while but never her mad wild love that she wanted and deserved I think that presumably it was a dominant figure but she happened to be drawn to in those cases well in Lord Snowden's case to a dominant male I think that was probably the trouble there's was a marriage in crisis almost from the time they returned from the honeymoon Tony would like to have friends in for drinks we'd like to go to bed reason the early Margaret wanted to stand from 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and of course being the princess nobody was allowed to go to bed nobody's allowed to leave until she decided to go to bed and this grated on Terry he knows certain things about a small mannerisms became very important he disliked the way she constantly screamed where my effing thanks Terry would leave her wicked little notes like 20 reasons why I hate you and he described her to keep at the table like a little fat manicurist I have a lot of thoughts about their marriage I mean I was there a lot when they were together and I mean I know I've actually always taken pretty smart good side because she's a wonderful friend to me and I loved her but Tony rarely I think at moments was very unkind to her and he just had very vocal patience with her it was the time I have seen him be extremely unkind narcissists are just living in their own little world people like Margaret and you know that they have as their dictum I am perfect and then for a few people they'll say you are perfect too but you are part of me they do fall in love narcissus they really do have kind of plunging falling in love behavior but at the same time of course they have terrible terrible disappointment because they've idealized this other person they've invented this fictional other person related to that person who's an aspect of themselves and then find it terribly disappointing and she said do know who you're speaking to and and Snowden said yes I speaking to my wife and Margaret oh no you're not you're speaking to her Royal Highness Princess Margaret sister to the Queen and don't you ever forget it this was the nature of Princess Margaret even to her husband and he couldn't cope they took to sniping of one another across the dinner table in front of guests Patrick mich for a lord Lich frail the Queen's cousin said that it was open warfare between them after this constant battling there was no hope already their six-year marriage that produced two children was all that / photographer Lord Snowdon volunteered for lengthy foreign assignments and they both sought solace in the company of different lovers Princess Margaret had a fling with Tony pann a close friend of her husband then a far more passion of painful affair with Robin Douglas human nephew of Tory Prime Minister Alec Douglas who globin confessed the whole story to no bottom in this private drinking club in Soho [Music] they took up where they left off quite a number of years before and suddenly he was back in favour and a regular guest of Margaret's at her table Douglas Hume performing here was an old flame of the princess room hard drinking womanizing barroom jazz pianist they actually made love for the first time in Kensington Palace but Robin invited her to stay at his home down in Surrey and she went there for the weekend and this produced the first of her very intimate love letters which she wrote him on a heavy paper which had an N and kinsman palace on the top darling Robin and they age started off darling Robin thank you for a perfect weekend because she was thanking him for that first weekend that they spend together in his home which is where they made love properly for the first time thank you for everything nice which everything was with best love but it will be a short-lived affair Princess Margaret had always loved the world of show business and fell under the spell of comic genius Peter Sellers abandoning a distraught Douglas humid his fate he spilled his heart out to me because he was brokenhearted she had dumped him for Peter Sellers she had moved on as Margaret did she moved on baked quickly four men two men a year later while suffering depression Robin Douglas Hume committed suicide and I hope the god damn rope break luckily my father was too for a period of time considered the court jester basically was invited to dinner at Kensington Palace one night by Princess Margaret and there just the two of them and when dinner was finished everything was served they they were sitting around the table and all servants retired the doors were shut and one thing led to another and this was the night they consummated their relationship and he said he remembers thinking my god I'm going to end up in the tower for this he at one point I think to Bryan Forbes spoke about marrying Princess Margaret and one of the things he said was he's got the same size breasts are so villa in which seemed to matter to him right Princess Margaret asked my father to introduce her to Warren Beatty by the time they get to the gates of Kensington Palace Warren's going what are we doing here Pete you know geez what's going on and he said we're having dinner with Princess Margaret so the upshot being that my father left Princess Margaret alone in Kensington Palace with Warren Beatty one of the the most well known is it lothario as I think of the area so I guess they had fun [Music] Princess Margaret was clearly a very ferocious woman she had big appetites you could say orally fixated was the is the whiskey and the booze and there's the sex they will go together and thank you I have one when you can have all three there was also drugs and rock and roll Princess Margaret was a Rolling Stones fan personal friend of Mick Jagger Mick is driven by his libido that's quite obvious Princess Margaret but certainly during the mid sixties is stunningly beautiful woman there were always rumors stories that something went on between them we don't knowing Mick Jagger I think he would have him very pleased have had a rod of notch on his bedpost Princess Margaret attended the Rolling Stones concert of Earls Court and the back stage in their dressing rooms and there were many rumors of what actually was being consumed in those dressing rooms but her reaction was ah okay what an amusing little drug and they brightened up after that and when she disappeared into the loo for the lady who was also present in the dressing room and came out with eyes sparkling a very happy they realize perhaps this wasn't such a shocking thing for this royal guests to experience Mick Jagger also under her one mystique further fueling stories of a bond between the pop star and the princess stories that persist until her death Margaret was always adamant that Mick Jagger should be given a knighthood it was actually one of her deathbed wishes apparently that he received one and of course lo and behold four months after she passes away what do we get Mick Jagger arrives the Nick coming up the affair with toy boy Roddy Llewellyn how Princess Margaret lost two beloved mystique home a failing health and tragic final days Princess Margaret had three principal loves in her life her father herself and Roddy Llewellyn Roddy Llewellyn a landscape gardener was a frequent visitor to the Princess Margaret's home on mystique he was 17 years younger than the princess they met at Lord Glen Connors ancestral home Glen Castle in Scotland we were what's called short of a of a young man at one point and so I rang my arm file at Wyndham and said to achieve know at the last minute of anyone she suggested Roger Llewellyn I mean it was quite clear that he was exactly right you know you you hear in storage tells where they fell in love at first sight well that's what does happen to be more I remember one point rod is saying to me I went for what when he said I think princess mark so beautiful she's got the most lovely eyes I've ever seen and I said what what do you made him tell me tell her and I think he did body was a very very special relationship and a very important relationship to her then I believe that they were very much in love he was wonderful to her I mean he saw cheered her up she absolutely loved him Margaret from what her various suitors of told me was an incredibly demanding of her what he found he just couldn't cope with the princess's demands sexual demands physical demands on him and he suffered almost a collapse and ran away he jumped on the first airplane leaving Britain and ended up in Turkey Princess Margaret believing that this man with whom she had fallen passionately enough had left her for good suffered a nervous collapse herself and took an overdose of pills and tried to commit suicide in the urban hospital while Princess Margaret recovered she insisted on a cooling-off period but soon the couple were back together on mystique then rowdy Llewellyn dropped a bombshell to be told by rowdy halfway through a holiday at her home in mistake that he had found another woman and intended to marry her came was an utter shock to Princess Margaret she had no idea that rowdy had anybody else in his life certainly know the woman in your life and and it stand out I think I think she was one of the saddest people / gregarious overindulgent desperately wanting fun desperately wanting to be in the party but her life was very sad and and over when she was quite young it hurt her considerably and she never really recovered from that for the rest of her life it was it was it was such a stunning blow the holidays and mystique continued for many years by this stage Princess Margaret no longer owned the house she gifted it to her son to avoid death duties her health was failing she suffered a stroke and then badly scalded her feet in the bath while in mystique the family felt it wasn't safe for the frail princess to continue staying in her isolated Caribbean home so La Jolla's Oh was sold she wasn't very happy but I think you know she did miss it she didn't spend her last days there as I think we had all hoped Princess Margaret's home was sold in a sorry state in need of a million pounds refurbishment this is the first time Lord Lady Glen Cana have seen the house since it was redeveloped but I think at first glance no delighted I mean it's gone very much the feel that she had she want you thanks I think she would be really really pleased yeah it all the same yeah now I I mean I just feel CEO yeah yeah Princess Margaret did come back to the island one final holiday for the for stem you know somebody for nearly 30 years and then one day you look at that and she aged a little bit I think that was so anything from the beginning BH is on from 20 years Marga was in steady decline there was never to be another great love in analyzer there were the odd escorts Walker's friends many of them homosexual but she was in steady declines almost as if in dropping her radhiya taken away that major spark in her life he never returned she drank more she smoked more she ignored all the signs ignored all the health warnings didn't seem to care anymore didn't seem to care whether she lived or she died whether she was fit or not where the weight was up or down didn't seem to matter and the whole nation and he was shocked when they saw her at her mother's birthday celebrations looking older than her mother looking senile shaking almost palsy not aware of what was going on around her had to be told what was happening by a footman standing behind the wheelchair it was a shocking picture of this once most beautiful woman when the princess was starting to get ill because she'd had her first stroke when she used to be out in the car sometimes you could see that she dropped off into a rather deep sleep and been a little bit worried we used to just I used to just put the brakes on a little bit firmly now and again just to make sure she was still with us and she'd wake up then Princess Margaret eventually gave up her lifelong habit of smoking but it was all too late she was in terminal decline to the end of her life the one great love that Margaret never forgot the love of a man given totally unselfishly given absolutely to her demanding nothing in return was that of her father in Georgia 6 and Margaret loved him back fiercely in return and she never forgot that love right through to the dying days and her dearest wish was that she should be buried next to their beloved father and was quite shocked to be told there wasn't room for her there's no room for a coffee next to his in Windsor law Chapel and that's what decided Princess Margaret to have herself donated after death because she discovered that there was room next to King George the six burial place for small cask advantages and that's of course where she was eventually buried her Ashley different places next to her father's it was perhaps ironic the Princess Margaret whose birth was greeted with a forty one gun salute pie has all over the country to have to be put in line to go into a public permitorium to return into ashes it was the most common mist ordinary exit for such a very grand princess this was certainly not the ending Princess Margaret rose of England would have chosen to herself but it was the only way she could ensure that she would lie next to her father for eternity [Music]

Channel: VHS Wonderland

Views: 413,916

Rating: 4.6497865 out of 5

Keywords: john lindon gangster, peter sellers, mustique, lord glen connor, royal family, princess margaret documentary, rowan pelling, warren beatty, mick jagger

Id: xcSHoHJdCOo

Length: 48min 59sec (2939 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020