Do Let’s Have Another Drink: The Singular Wit and Double Measures of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Paperback – 19 October 2022

This is a biography of the Queen Mother with all of the dull bits stripped out.

When told that Lady Mountbatten used to be being buried at sea, the Queen Mother replied cheerfully. ‘Dear old Edwina, she all the time did like to make a splash!’
Throughout her lifetime, the Queen Mother used to be as famous for her clever quips, pointed observations and dry-as-a-Martini delivery style as she used to be for being a member of the Royal Circle of relatives. She used to be also famed for her fondness for ‘drinky-poos’ – on a regular basis a gin and Dubonnet or three. Now, Do Let’s Have Another Drink recounts 101 biographical vignettes – one for each and every year of her long, remarkable life, including her coming-of-age Throughout World War I, the abdication of her brother-in-law, the truth about her tragic nieces and her relationship with her two daughters over half a century of widowhood.

The book is a skimming-stone biography – the story of a life without the boring bits – and a shuttle guide to a world that no longer exists. Stepping into the Queen Mother’s rarefied universe is a little like falling through the having a look glass. The book rightly celebrates her sense of humour but also explores her enmities and feuds, including the truth about her behaviour towards Wallis Simpson, Nerissa Bowes-Lyon and Diana, Princess of Wales.

For fans of The Crown and featuring new revelations, never before published, and colourful anecdotes about the woman the high society photographer Cecil Beaton once described as ‘a marshmallow made on a welding machine’, Do Let’s Have Another Drink is a delightful celebration of some of the consistently popular members of the Royal Circle of relatives.