Queen Elizabeth 11 by Cecil Beaton

Cecil Beaton and the Queen s relationship started in 1942, her first sitting was as a teenage princess. And for the next three decades he recorded the major events in the Royal family s life. Wartime images, formal coronation photographs and charming images of the Queen with her children especially her newborn. Cecil Beaton s personal scrapbooks bring the images to life. I rather liked the notes about the two royal Gloucester Princes who for their Coronation photographs were pulling their mother s train, by the afternoon they must all have been exhausted having been up since 5am getting ready.
It really is worth a visit to the V and A before the exhibition closes on the 22 April 2012.

2012 The Queen s Diamond Jubilee

On The 6th of February 2012, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will have reigned for 60 glorious years. She never celebrates this day, as she quietly remembers her father's death on this day in 1952. But in June the world will come to London to celebrate. Yesterday the palace released detailed information about the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant on Sunday the 3 June. The flotilla of boats will be seven miles long, the most extravagant display on the river since Charles 11 s pageant in 1662. It will take and hour and a half to pass any point and at the centre will be the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, on a Royal Barge of red and gold.

What I had not realised is that not only will it be a splendid sight but will be accompanied by splendid sounds. As the bell tower pases, the chimes of the Royal Jubilee bells will be answered by church bells near the river, and trumpeters will sound a fanfare as the Royal Barge approaches each bridge. As well as waterborne bands and nautical choirs performing everything from military marches to English folk sonfs. Of course Handel's Water Music will be performed to serenade the Royal Barge as was the barge of George I serenaded in 1716.

The £10million to fund the pageant has come from individual donors and commercial sponsors, and no they are not allowed to commercialise the event. So why give so much money for no marketing return. Well I would have said that the nation admires, loves, and respects Queen Elizabeth II and she is worth every penny.

For those of you who wish to join the celebrations More Than Good Manners has created programmes for the Royal Jubilee Weekend, and for Royal Jubilee London and Royal Jubilee Norfolk, these will give you a real taste for English History in the making.

The Lady - A Grand LIfe

I spent a happy day last October showing Nicola Venning, a freelance journalist, some of the most impressive houses in Suffolk , Helmingam Hall and Sommerleyton Hall. Her article appeared in The Lady Magazine (13 January 2012 edition) under the title "My Devlish Day As An Aristocrat".

http://www.lady.co.uk/my_devilish_day_aristocrat

The families who live in these wonderful houses, also work very hard to keep doing so. We found Lady Tollemache of Helmingham Hall, on her small digger, digging out a new garden for this coming season, a downwards sprial in a snail shape. What I love about women like her is that they work very hard, and will get their hands dirty, and yet with a bit of "lick and polish" look stunning at the wedding of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales.

At Sommerleyton Hall, Hugh and Lara Crossley have only been at the helm for a few years, yet have already poured work and love into their new home, and what is so wonderful is that More Than Good Manners can arrange for you to meet these lovely people, who really do "ouse charm from every pore", and experience a stay, a "taste of a Grand life " in one of their ancestral and stately homes.

Althorp

I was very privileged today to have a private viewing of Althorp.

The staff had started decorating the house for Christmas with an enormous tree in the hall, the house was warm and very cosy, you felt you could have snuggled up in a chair in front of a fire and read a book. Yet the art, the books the paintings were to die for, I felt so clever that I could name the Reynolds and Gainsboroughs, but what of the many other paintings, each jostling for your attention on every wall. I wished we were in an Harry Potter book and the people in the paintings could have moved and talked to me. At the top of the stairs was a charming portrait of the Princess of Wales, and the odd photograph of her on side tables holding Prince William as a baby. Yet the house is very grand, the state bedrooms are opulent, and have been graced by the presence of many monarchs in the 500 years history of the family and house from William of Orange to George V, and of course their own Royal Princess.

More Than Good Manners looks forward to hosting many guests' stays at Althorp, everything was perfect, run by an amazing team of devoted staff, who feel very much part of the Althorp family.

Never Ever

There are certain things that you should do in life, and certain things you should never do. One of the things you should never do is to eat and drink whilst walking down the street. It just looks awful, Nancy Mitford would say non-U, and my grandmother would have a fit. It seems to be socially acceptable today, but it is not. Even if you think you are starving, don't do it.

Deportment

A definition of Deportment is " a manner of personal conduct, behaviour, the art of moving gracefully"
I was very fortunate to receive my degree from the Chancellor of Durham University, Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias., " prima ballerina assoluta". She sat with a straight back on the edge of her chair, her head high, and then floated to her feet, moving forward to present each of us with our scroll and to shake our hands. She was poised, elegant and graceful. This can be learnt. I will quote from "The Elegant Lady";
"The right posture is a delicate balance of a straight back which is properly aligned with the head, with your chin neither too low nor too high. Your feet are somewhat apart, your stomach held in, shoulders back and down, arms to the side. This posture is formed by training, exercise and maintained by habit"

How can you learn poise? By taking good old fashioned deportment lessons( contact veronica@morethangoodmanners.com for more information) , pilates classes, ballet and ballroom dancing lessons. Your muscles need to be retrained, it will feel an effort to begin with to hold your shoulders back and your head up, but it will become easier. It is fascinating that your posture is also a reflection of your state of mind, if you are suffering from stress you will tend to hunch your shoulders, yet if we arrange ourselves physically in a positive manner as above then this will improve your mental attitude.

Not only is deportment an attitude of physical poise but also mental poise, a balance of self confidence, positive attitude, well dressed appearance, graceful movements and of course good manners.

As an aside I have taken up ballet again, after a 30 year gap, after my lesson I just glow with happiness, and I think how lucky I was to shake the hand of Dame Margot Fonteyn de Arias.

Past Pleasures

I had a very enjoyable lunch with Mark Wallis at the British Museum last week. His company brings history to life, it is the oldest professional costumed live interpretation company in the UK. Which means that not only do the "interpreters" wear historically accurate costumes but they also know everything that this historical character would have known. So for example Henry V111, would know all the names of his wives, his foreign policy, whose head he had cut off that week, his knowledge as a renaissance man, and even would know how to walk, talk and dance as a Royal Tudor King. So as an historian I find it fascinating, and rather like the name that the past is a pleasure.