Lady Glenconner was born Lady Anne Coke in 1932, the eldest daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester, and grew up in the ancestral estate at Holkham Hall in Norfolk. A Maid of Honour at the Queen’s Coronation, she married Lord Glenconner in 1956. They had five children together, of whom three survive. In 1958 she and her husband began to transform the island of Mustique into a paradise for the rich and famous.

 

They granted a plot of land to Princess Margaret who built her favourite home there. She was appointed Lady in Waiting to Princess Margaret in 1971 and kept this role – accompanying her on many state occasions and foreign tours – until her death in 2002. Lord Glenconner died in 2010, leaving everything in his will to his former employee. Lady Anne’s bestselling memoir Lady in Waiting was published in 2019, and her books have sold over one million copies worldwide. She lives in a farmhouse in Norfolk.