Ingrid Seward – Favourite Things

Ingrid Seward is a Royal biographer and commentator. She has been Editor of Majesty magazine for over 30 years and has written more than a dozen books on the Royal family, the first being about Diana, Princess of Wales in 1987. She is acknowledged globally as an expert on the royal family and regularly appears on radio and television to share her insights into the Monarchy. Her latest book, Prince Philip Revealed: A man of his century, is out now.

These are a few of Ingrid Seward’s favourite things… 

Horses

As it is Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee, I thought I would concentrate on the favourite things that we might have in common to celebrate this historic occasion. Horses are top of my list and always have been since I was a child. Ditto Princess Elizabeth, who had her own pony from the time she could walk. She went on to own racehorses, carriage horses, fell ponies, highland ponies and many rare breeds. She has been presented with many different horses over her long reign, most recently a rare Karabakh steed presented to her at Windsor Castle by the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev.

I have not been quite as lucky, but I have two retired polo ponies, Bossaroga and Granada (both from Brazil) which were given to me in happy retirement. They are both pets and sometimes wander around the garden eating the flowers. They are a delight to ride especially where I live in the country as there is some spectacular countryside.

Countryside

The Queen has always said if her life had been different, she would have lived in the country. She loved walking, until recently when she started having mobility problems. She has always moved very quickly with a purposeful stride as perfected by Oscar-winning actor, Helen Mirren in the film The Queen. She knows everything about the countryside and farming and has two private estates, Balmoral and Sandringham, the latter of which makes a profit from selling everything including its own apple juice. Both of them are open to the public at certain times of the year, as is the Crown-owned estate of Windsor, which includes Home Farm.

I too love the countryside, especially in the spring and summer and am lucky enough to have a house in Oxfordshire with extensive views over the Chilterns. I know very little about gardening but I know what I like and I hate things to be too ornate. Highgrove is beautiful some of it formal but some wild — a great mixture — but it takes dozens of people to keep it that way and everything is organic. I would love to have something like that on a much smaller scale but you have to know what you are doing and I do not.

Dogs

The Queen has probably been presented with many dogs but prefers her own home bred corgis and dorgis. The dorgi is a cross between a dachshund and a corgi and originally resulted from a cross between Princess Margaret’s dachshund Pipkin and the Queen Mother’s corgi. A couple of years ago the Queen said she didn’t want any more puppies for fear of tripping over them, but along came the pandemic and then the death of Prince Philip. She was delighted when the Duke of York and Princess Eugenie presented her with two pups — corgi Muick and dachshund-corgi cross Fergus.

I bought a Westie puppy called Puff after the death of my husband so I understand. Puff came with me everywhere and if I was recording a TV interview she would sit quietly under the chair. She also loved it when I went riding and would follow behind the horses until she became too old and stiff. I now have a dapple dachshund called Ivy.

Friends

Friends take time and that is one thing the Queen didn’t have when she ascended the throne 70 years ago. By dint of this, her friends had to be drawn from members of her household, close relations and people she came into contact in her daily life. She is one of the few survivors and most of her friends have gone to “greener pastures” as she is fond of saying. Ladies-in-Waiting are usually friends or if not, soon become so. Life without friends to share it with would be very empty, but since lockdown, I have found it harder to keep up. We all used to meet at the same places and if you were busy, it didn’t take much organising. There is no substitute for friendship and no substitute for friends. I hate losing them.  

Birds

I understand Her Majesty’s love of birds stemmed from when she was a child at Royal Lodge and kept budgies with her sister Margaret, which she still does. She also has swans and racing pigeons. The Queen is a true pigeon fancier and has maintained a large flock of over 200 at Sandringham. I too had a budgie and as I thought they were pretty dull birds I decided to teach it to talk. Noddy became the toast of the town and had quite an extensive vocabulary. I took him to work at my top floor Park Lane office and he used to fly around the room chatting, walking over the desk and tearing up paper, occasionally landing on unsuspecting people’s heads. He also had a gossip column in the magazine Ritz called Nimble Noddy.

Enjoyed Ingrid Seward’s favourites? Explore last week’s Favourite Things here.