Would You Like to Live in a Palace?

     People think that a royal palace is the last word in up-to-date luxury, replete with everything the heart can desire, and that people who live there do so in absolute comfort. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Life in a palace rather resembles camping in a museum. These historic places are so old, so tied up with tradition, that they are dropping to bits, all the equipment there decades behind the times.

    That was the summation made by Marion Crawford ("Crawfie") of her experience of moving into Buckingham Palace when her employer, the Duke of York had unexpectedly and unwillingly become King George VI.