Royal family

Every threatened species of wildlife can count on the friendship of a member of the British royal family. There are few causes that royals can espouse without risking political controversy, but wildlife conservation is seen as one. This may be why they are ready to speak out for any newt, butterfly, or other creature facing the risk of extinction. Prominent among them is Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, who is an active campaigner for the greatest of them all, the African elephant, and last week made a strong appeal for a total ban by Britain on trade in ivory. As Cites (the 180-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species)

The Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations start this week with the real thing and barely stop until her official birthday in June. What should a grateful nation give Her Majesty? It’s said what she really wants is a thing that has eluded every reigning monarch bar Edward VII: a Derby winner. If the government cannot arrange that, then it can do this. In this midst of this birthday ‘season’, on 18 May, is the state opening of Parliament. I’m told Westminster is considering changes to make the ritual easier for the main player. Politicians could start by excising their jargon from the Queen’s Speech. Last year, people winced at her talk

On 21 April Queen Elizabeth II marks her 90th birthday, the first of our reigning monarchs ever to do so, and it will be a very happy occasion, just as her Diamond Jubilee was in 2012. Five years ago there had been a more sombre milestone for the queen’s eldest son, Charles, Prince of Wales. He passed the mark of 59 years spent as heir to the throne set by his great-great-grandfather, Victoria’s eldest son, the Prince of Wales who became King Edward VII in 1901. The prince will be celebrating his mother’s birthday as enthusiastically as anyone, while oppressed by unmistakable frustration. He’s now 67; the Queen’s mother, the

Roy was a superb mechanic, a methodical master of his trade. For an hour I respectfully watched him work to try and learn something of the mysteries of the internal-combustion engine. I saw instead his oil-blackened fingers pluck away the veil to reveal that there was no mystery, only simplicity. Job done, I invited him up to the house for a meaningful drink. He didn’t need asking twice. Invited to sit, he conscientiously placed yesterday’s Daily Telegraph between his oily backside and the sofa cushions. I made the fire up then went to the kitchen and poured us each a monster pastis with one ice cube and a squirt of

Prince Philip has died at the age of 99. Writing in 2015, Harry Mount reflected on the Duke of Edinburgh’s personable style and sense of public service. I’ve just been on the receiving end of a Prince Philip gaffe, of sorts, and I loved it. It was at a lunch last week at the Cavalry and Guards Club for the Gallipoli Association — the charity that commemorates victims and veterans of that tragic, doomed campaign. For 40 years, the Duke of Edinburgh has been the association’s patron. And so, in Gallipoli’s centenary year, he came to the association’s lunch. Before lunch, he roamed at will around the cavernous drawing room, chatting

As I get older (and my 74th birthday is now close), I get deeper and deeper into nostalgia. I do not fight this, because nostalgia seems to me to be rational as well as agreeable. Things really aren’t what they once were. ‘But people have always said that,’ is often the response. Yes, and for the most part, I maintain, people have always been right. So it is that, whenever I leave my present home in Ireland for a visit to England, what I most enjoy there is seeing the most elderly of my friends. Having been around for so long, they have so much to talk interestingly about. Indeed,

Sir Adrian Cadbury, who has died aged 86, is remembered as the author in 1992 of a first stab at a corporate governance code for public companies — which thereafter were expected to show ‘Cadbuarial correctness’ in the separation of chief executive and chairman and the powers of non-executive directors. Cadbury’s work was taken forward by the 1995 Greenbury report, the 1998 Hampel report, the Higgs review in 2003 and a subsequent drawing-together into a ‘Combined Code’. Finally Vince Cable, as business secretary, left his own mark by setting a target of 25 per cent women on FTSE100 boards by this year. So we now have a fat compendium of

I wrote last week about a swarm of bees that had attached itself to a wall of my house, as if this were a rare and momentous event; but since then there have been three more swarms, and the men in spacesuits have been back again to remove them. Well, they’ve actually removed only two swarms, for I don’t know where the third one ended up. I only know that Stan, my nearest neighbour, knocked on my front door last weekend to report that a swarm in flight had just crossed his house and was making a bee-line (yes) for my garden. But whether they stopped there, and if so

It could have been much worse. Someone had pointed out that among the new baby’s ancestors was Queen Violant of Hungary, which would make a splendid name. If that sounds unlikely for a possible queen of the United Kingdom, the wee princess might have been the victim of a suggested cross-cultural gesture by being given the name Fatima, since the present Queen and her heirs are descended from Mohammed through his daughter. Such descent is not unusual, though in this case there are obscurities in the early generations and in later Spanish genealogical connections. Leaving that aside, the name Fatima is also used by Catholics, who take it from the

The day of my investiture at Buckingham Palace dawned bringing freezing rain and fierce winds, which lashed at the windows as I regarded the outfit I had painstakingly planned — a lightweight, cream wool suit. A little damp didn’t bother me, so I didn’t care if I’d be shivering as Prince Charles pinned the medal on to my cape. No — it was the fate of the hat that worried me most. Designed by milliner Philip Treacy, it was a frothy creation of white grosgrain, chiffon flowers and delicate veiling, and I was concerned about the wind whipping it off. My best friend Judy Bryer said soothingly, ‘Philip has put so much

Having dampened local republican ardour during their recent tour of New Zealand and Australia, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visit thinking-about-breaking-away Scotland next week. They’ll tour Glenturret Distillery near Crieff, Perthshire, next Thursday, to ‘bottle their own Glenturret whisky’, if you please. Sounds like a pro-union royal initiative, but what will First Minister Alex Salmond have to say? He claims he’d like the Queen to continue as Scotland’s head of state, although some of his supporters disagree. When HM said in her letter to the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly last week that she prays everyone ‘will work together for the social good of Scotland’, whatever the outcome of

When visiting Britain and Australia last November, I discovered that the mayor of Toronto, Robert Ford, is now the world’s best-known Canadian. He has acknowledged the occasional use of cocaine and, overall, the response to his foibles has been welcome. The world has been astounded to learn that not all English-speaking Canadians are whey-faced, monosyllabic Americans-on-Prozac. They might also learn that the contiguous metropolitan area of Toronto — now home to about seven million — has a very high standard of living and a low crime rate and is one of the world’s more impressive modern cities. The mayor is an ample and florid man who describes himself as ‘350

Hard on the heels of the 90th birthday of Nicholas Parsons (10 October) comes the 65th birthday of the Prince of Wales (14 November). Neither is due for retirement any day soon. Indeed, I suspect retirement would be the death of the long-serving host of Radio 4’s Just A Minute. The Duchess of Cornwall listens to his programme, I know. Perhaps her husband does too. Either way, Parsons is a perfect role model for Prince Charles. Nicholas is young at heart, unfailingly charming and wholly committed to the strange lot that fate has accorded him. He has been hosting Just A Minute for 46 years and not missed a single recording.