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00:04Hello and welcome to the latest episode of a Right World podcast with me, Emily. Today
00:09I'm joined by Jamie Lather-Pinkerton, who has led an extraordinary life. During a 20
00:14year military career, he served with the Irish Guards and was seconded to be the Queen Mother's
00:19Equary. As a former SAS commander, he helped dismantle a Colombian drug cartel and later
00:25served in the Gulf and the Balkans. He then went on to serve as Principal Private Secretary
00:30to Prince William and Prince Harry, and helped Kate to establish her role within the royal
00:34family. He's also godfather to a certain Prince George. Although he rarely speaks publicly about
00:40those years, he's joining us today to reflect on them, as well as to discuss his wonderful
00:45new novel, Beyond the Edge of Light. It's a tale of wartime romance, spying and heartbreaking
00:50choices. Jamie, thank you so much for joining me. I'm thrilled to have you here and congratulations
00:56on the book.
00:57Thank you very much, Emily. It's a great, great pleasure to be here.
01:00Well, we're going to talk to you about the book in just a moment. It's absolutely fascinating
01:06about a young English woman who worked at Bletchley Park during World War II and the German Luftwaffe
01:11pilot whose path collided with hers. And it's a tale of forbidden love, intelligent secrets
01:18and conflicting loyalties. It's absolutely gripping, and I loved it. But I wanted to give our audience
01:24a bit of a flavour of the kind of life experiences that you've drawn on for this. And we're going
01:30to talk about your mother in just a moment, who's a fascinating figure. But I wanted to
01:34ask you about the fact that you've been called a real-life James Bond by one of the newspapers.
01:39How does it feel to suddenly be in the spotlight?
01:42It's quite unusual for me, actually, because my two sort of previous careers really have
01:48been in the British Army, and I was an SAS officer at that time. And then I was the Principal
01:56Private Secretary to William and Harry, which of course, both of those, you're kind of in
02:00the shadows a bit, and that's where you like to be.
02:03Beyond the edge of light, somewhat.
02:04Beyond the edge of light, very good. So actually, this is me really sort of sticking my head
02:08above the parapet and being slightly in the spotlight on it. It's a funny feeling, but
02:13it's rather exciting, actually.
02:15Yeah. So you're having to sort of turn, the tables are turned somewhat for you, because
02:20you've done so much covertly. And this is obviously a theme that runs through the book.
02:26I gather you have quite the recipe for martini. Tell us about that.
02:29Yeah. Well, my martini, my martini tuition came when I was Queen Elizabeth, the Queen
02:36Mothers, a query, a sort of very junior staff officer who's attached to her household for
02:43a couple of years. That happened to me back in the early 1980s, which sort of dates me
02:48horrendously. And I was about 21, 22 years old. I spent two years with her, which was
02:53a very non-military time of my military career, but an absolutely unforgettable one.
02:58And the martinis were the sort of, it was rather like an Edwardian household. So it was martinis
03:04before dinner for everyone, all the guests and things. And the recipe was seven parts
03:09gin to one. I mean, literally wave the vermouth over the top of it. Lots of ice.
03:16Wow.
03:16And the Queen Mother was an incredibly good host, but she was very clever because whenever
03:20I went round with a jug to fill everybody's drink up, she always said, can I just have a
03:25bit of ice, please? So everybody else by dinner was absolutely rolling in the aisles. And she
03:30was, she was just, she was she, you know, she was wonderful.
03:34What was she like as a boss?
03:36She was amazing, really, because she, she and her sort of senior staff who were quite
03:42remarkable as well. I mean, the private secretary was the adjutant of Colditz, you know, and so
03:47they'd all been there and done that sort of, there was no pressure on them because they'd
03:51known it all before. But she was, she was great. And actually she and they would sort
03:56of kind of adopt you because you were pretty young at the time. I was sort of, remember
04:00I was 22 or 23, almost as a sort of surrogate grandson. That sounds very presumptuous, but
04:07you spent three months of the year in Scotland with Her Majesty at Bourke Hall, which is where
04:12the, where the King, one of his favorite places, I think. But she was remarkable. And, you
04:18know, the fact that she had on the 20th century with the, the role she played during the Second
04:25World War, for instance, in, in King George VI obviously was, was amazing, but she was,
04:30she was pretty amazing. I always quote this, but if Adolf Hitler calls her the most dangerous
04:36woman in Europe, that's all you need, isn't it?
04:38You wouldn't want to have got on the wrong side of her then?
04:40No, um, no, she, she was, she was, she was very gentle and very, very charming and great
04:46fun. I think, I think without question, there was a sort of, you know, a streak of steel there
04:52as well. And one saw it during the war.
04:55And that's, you've mentioned before that she reminds you of one of our modern royals or
04:59one of our modern royals.
05:00Yeah, she does. Yeah. I mean, I, well, I'm, you know, I'm devoted to the, the prince and
05:07princess of Wales. And actually, um, they, she does, the princess reminds me of, um, of
05:15her in many ways. I'm in this understated, but very, very duty driven and actually, you
05:21know, very strong as we've seen what she's had to go through and what was she doing last
05:24weekend? Climbing all the three mountains and yeah, unbelievable.
05:27Incredible. Did she, did she ever call you for some survival tips?
05:32I'd be trudging along in the, in the valleys, I think nowadays.
05:37Um, but the Queen Mother obviously played such a key part in World War II for the British
05:43people. Did you talk to her about those days? Is that, was that part of your inspiration?
05:47Yes, absolutely it was. I mean, she had, um, I mean, you, you, you went, particularly in
05:53Scotland, you spend every sort of waking moment, um, with her and she was, as I say, she
05:59included you in, in everything and sitting next to her and actually her amazing, her
06:05amazing guests. I mean, there were battle of Britain fighter pilots, you know, they
06:08were all in their seventies or eighties, uh, or Frederick Ashton, you know, the great
06:14choreographer. Um, but actually I think because they were her friends, they were all very
06:18young at heart. So although, you know, it sounds like a bit of a, a bit of a challenge
06:23for a 22 year old to spend three months in the area of Scotland with where you're the
06:27youngest by 60 years, actually, because of the way they were, they were just, they were
06:32just alive. You know, they were fantastic.
06:34Tell me what it was like, because you were serving in Germany at the time you got called
06:39up to take on this role. Was it daunting?
06:42Um, well, I mean, it came, it came as a, out of the blue really, because I was, I was
06:47actually,
06:47I think I was sitting in a, in a trench on the North German plain at height of the cold
06:52war. So lots of exercises, staring at the Russians across the, um, across the divide
06:57or the East German army probably. Um, but I got a tap on the shoulder and told to scrub
07:02myself up and get back to London. And then, then lo and behold, I found myself having lunch
07:06with her majesty, which was, which was great. And actually she, that was a classic case in
07:12point. You know, it was just huge fun at lunch. I remember I was terrified beforehand,
07:16but she was really, really kind to me.
07:18Wasn't there some talk of, uh, flicking peas into a chandelier?
07:21Yes, she was, she was a great one for, uh, yeah, I think she said that she had done that
07:27as a little girl, you know, there was a great, I don't know, a chandelier or, or, or something,
07:31a light in, in presumably their nursery where they used to try and flick peas in and being
07:36sort of naughty. And then she, she challenged me to doing that actually with an amazing chandelier.
07:41And did you succeed?
07:43I failed. I failed miserably. My hands were shaking so much, I think. Yeah.
07:48I can imagine. Um, I believe you also sat with the princess of Wales, Diana, as she was
07:54at the time for a couple of lunches during the eighties. What was she like? I'm just mentioning
08:00it because she would have turned 65 this week.
08:02Yeah. I'm not, I didn't, I didn't know the princess of Wales. Um, but I, I did sit next
08:07to her. Um, in the old days, the, the, the Royal yacht used to do a tour of the Western
08:13Isles and everybody used to pile off at the castle of May and, and have lunch and go for
08:18a walk on the beach and things. And both times, actually, I found myself sitting next to the
08:23princess. I was lucky enough to sit next to the princess. And it was, oh, she was huge
08:27fun. I mean, I only met her those, those two times, but we had a real gas and that's not
08:32to say I wouldn't have done with these lovely, as I say, these lovely sort of 80 year old
08:37friends of Queen Mother's. I did, but she was, she was great.
08:40Now, our audience probably knows you best from the time that you spent with the princes
08:44and later the Duchess of Cambridge. We talked about how important it was for you that you
08:49got that period right for them. Why was that?
08:54Well, I mean, I think you can only do this sort of thing. Um, if you, you can't put yourself
09:00in their shoes, but you've got to slightly see, see the thing from their point of view. And,
09:06um, you know, William in particular has a sort of life track planned out for him. And so to my
09:14mind, that time I was with them, which was sort of 10 years in their, in their, um, twenties was,
09:20was the time to get it right. And I've, I always say this, but my, my father, who was Anglo
09:25-Irishman
09:26used to say, you know, so here you can say, we've known the days we've known the days.
09:31I think that's really important because it was great to be able to look back on your twenties
09:35or your thirties and think, well, you know, I kind of, I've kind of done it. Um, and therefore
09:41I'm building my experiences going forward on that.
09:44And you retired from the post around 2013, didn't you? You stayed on, but you still had
09:50some involvement, haven't you, uh, with them? Yeah. I mean, I, I, I stopped being the, the,
09:56um, the full time permanent principal private secretary as I was by then, because there was
10:02a private secretary for, uh, um, the Duchess of Cambridge as she was then and the Duke of
10:08Cambridge as he was then. Um, but I, I sort of lurked about into like a sort of bad smell
10:13in the background for about a year, just, just to sort of, you know, if it was anything
10:17I could, rather than letting them have to go through the same hoops, you know, if there
10:21was any, any help I could give them, then I did, but they were brilliant. I'm two brilliant
10:25private secretaries working really well. So, um, and then I, I stayed with the Royal Foundation.
10:31I was a trustee of the Royal Foundation. I stayed actually, I stayed on until about 2019,
10:35I think, um, doing that. Um, and, and yeah, so I, I sort of haven't totally gone away.
10:41Yeah. Well, there were some lovely photographs of you with the Princess of Wales up in Suffolk.
10:46Uh, was that last year? Yeah. Um, what was that like seeing her again?
10:51Well, it was great. These amazing silk mills in, in, um, Sudbury, which have been there
10:56for 350 years and they're one of the little treasures of England and actually, um, just
11:02beautiful stuff produced there. And, and seeing, seeing the princess there was an added bonus.
11:07Um, and they were completely bowled over with it, but it was lovely to see
11:11her actually. Yeah. Now I want to ask you a bit about the book because given your incredible
11:18life experience, my first thought was Jamie's written a book. It must be a memoir. Um, is
11:23that something for down the line? I don't think so. I think it would be, um, I mean, a betrayal
11:30of trust is, is slightly, um, melodramatic, but it would be very difficult to write a memoir,
11:35which was in any way interesting because there are, there are, you'll understand there are,
11:41there are a lot of things, both with my military career and with my time with the princes, which
11:46would be, it would be wrong to, to, to write all that down. I think, um, uh, or certainly
11:51in, in, in, in the public forum. Yeah. So I'm there, the memoir will not, you can come back
11:57and have a go at me. We'll work on you. We'll work on you, Jamie. It's, um, it's, it's actually,
12:02it's not going to happen to be honest. No. It'd be the wrong thing to do. But in the meantime,
12:07you have produced this wonderful novel, Beyond the Edge of Light. It tells a story of a young
12:12English woman called Missy, um, and Conrad, a German aristocrat. They meet just before the
12:17outbreak of war. Um, and when war starts, they go their separate ways and their worlds, they
12:24cross paths again, don't they? I want you to tell us about the inspiration behind Missy,
12:30because she's an absolutely fascinating character. Well, Missy, um, Missy is based certainly on,
12:37in terms of backstory on, on my mother, um, Sue, who, uh, had a remarkable life. The first half
12:44of her life, second half of her life, she was this wonderful mother to me and my sister and a
12:48whole lot
12:48of other people in East Suffolk. But actually in her young life, she had a, she had an extraordinary
12:53upbringing on the Northwest frontier of India, where her family had been for generations,
12:58actually. And like a lot of people in those days, you know, she was sent back to school at 12
13:03or
13:03something and never really, never hardly ever saw my grandfather again, sadly, who was a general in
13:08the Indian army. And, um, and my grandmother used to come back. I think they were able to come back
13:13once
13:13every couple of years. So she really didn't, she sort of stayed with friends and things and
13:17join the holidays. Um, and she got kicked out of every school. She went to like Missy, um,
13:23completely sort of wild and free on the Northwest frontier. And then suddenly found herself, you
13:28know, on hockey pitches and blasting gales on the, on the bluffs of the South coast, you know,
13:34Bletbeck's Hill on sea. So it's, that's a direct sort of lift from my mother's life. And actually somebody
13:39very, very wise said to me, who knows about writing is, you know, write about what you know about,
13:44particularly first time out. So, and I was a bit nervous of writing. I mean, it's, it's in the third
13:50person, but, and there's Conrad as well, but, but Missy kind of to me, but perhaps because it was
13:56my mother became, became the key character. And I was a little bit nervous, you know, writing through
14:01the eyes of a woman, even, even in the third person. But I suppose my justification for that
14:07is that, is that my sister, Sarah and I knew her better than anybody on earth. So I, I wrote
14:13about
14:13her as a person rather than sort of as a gender. And we did talk about absolutely everything.
14:19And she was very, very wise woman. She's just like Missy. Well, she sounds like a formidable woman
14:24and an incredible woman. Um, tell us a bit about her wartime. Yes. I mean, she, she, um,
14:29she got kicked out of her last school when she was about 15 and went back to Suffolk and she's
14:35about
14:35four years younger than Missy, three or four years younger than Missy. So she couldn't, she,
14:40she worked in naffy wagons, handing out corned beef sandwiches and tea to troops on ranges and
14:46that sort of thing until she was 18 and, and painting the white lines on roads, actually.
14:52Well, she took over the jobs, which a lot of the men would have done. And she then joined the
14:57ATS,
14:57which was the same regiment which the Queen did and which was sort of, um, the women's army basically.
15:04And she wrote, she wrote motorbikes, um, as a motorbike or most motorcycle dispatch rider.
15:10And they were huge. They were great. So heavy, heavy things. And she could deliver the message.
15:16Then she couldn't get it back up on the stand. So she'd lay it on its side. And once she
15:20delivered
15:20the message, she had to wait for a passing paratrooper to pick it up for her and then shoot her
15:24off into
15:25the distance. So I'm not quite sure how effective she would have been in a tight spot trying to get
15:29away. But, and then she drove, um, heavy artillery limbers on the ranges in, in, um, in Lark Hill.
15:37And then after the war, she went into military intelligence, um, in the far East. And then,
15:44and then she moved from there when she came back to England into MI5, where she served as an
15:49intelligence officer during the Cold War in the fifties. Wow. And then she got married to my father and,
15:54um, they all moved to Suffolk and, you know, I, I'm not making any comment on it, but it was,
16:00I mean, she was an amazing woman, but she sort of turned her talents in, in that direction.
16:05And it was just, we had the happiest childhood. I mean, you know, I'm so, so lucky that we had
16:09that,
16:10that childhood there. Um, tell us a bit about her relationship with your father,
16:14because it sounds like it was a fun, you know, very, very good sort of, I mean, he's, he,
16:20he was a fantastic chap. He died many years ago. I mean, died 30, she was a widow for 35
16:25years,
16:25but he died in his early, early sixties, but he was, he was a sort of classic Anglo-Irishman. So
16:30he was sort of six foot four in his stocking feet. And he was, all my friends used to come
16:34and stay at home.
16:36Um, even if I wasn't there because he was great fun, but like a lot of people like that,
16:41he could plumb the debts and then come back up and be happy again. And what's quite a lot of
16:46black
16:47dog as Churchill would have called it. Um, and my mother was just, you know, absolutely solid as
16:53a rock. And she used to sort of get him out of the, get him out of his moods and
16:57doing the most
16:57outrageous things. And she sort of threw roast potatoes at him during lunch and things to sort
17:02of try and make him laugh and things. Did it work? Yeah, it did. Yeah. Always, always, always,
17:07always worked actually. Um, so he was, he was lovely, but he was a pretty difficult character,
17:12pretty tough, tough guy, actually. I mean, I don't mean in any sinister sense, but he was,
17:16and she just knew how to unlock him. So she was very skilled with people.
17:21Yeah, she was. Yeah. How much did she ever tell you about the life she'd lived before
17:26leaving to Suffolk? Um, we only discovered that she had been an intelligence officer. My sister and I,
17:32when we were in our, I was in my mid twenties. Uh, so she didn't breathe a word about it
17:36actually.
17:36Um, and when we discovered, I sort of asked if I could tape her just for Sarah and I,
17:41very sort of difficult for her actually. And she sort of said, darling, I'd love to,
17:46can I just sleep on it? And we just knew the next morning she was going to say,
17:49no, sorry, no way. And she never, she never did never breathe a word about any of that.
17:53She told us about the second world war and riding the motorbikes and all the funny stories,
17:58but the bit after the war, she didn't talk about it. Was she aware that you were writing a character
18:04based on her? Yes, she was. Cause she died a couple of years ago at just shy of a hundred.
18:11So,
18:11um, but with all her, all her marbles, if I can put it like that. And, uh, so the prologue
18:17of the book
18:17is based, which is in the modern day and looks back at, there's a sort of lead into going back
18:24into the pre-war period, uh, is set in, in her flat in, in the, um, arms houses where we,
18:31where she lived. And, uh, I read that prologue to her and she sort of chortled away and I don't
18:36think she would have minded. I didn't actually ever ask her if I could base my, my character on her,
18:43but she, I think she'd have been okay about it. Well, it paints an absolutely compelling picture.
18:49Um, did you also draw on the conversations you've had with the Queen Mother when you were looking back
18:55to that wartime period? Yes, I did. I mean, I, the Queen Mother was a brilliant, um, sort of observer
19:04of, of, of things, events and humankind as well. And actually we did have some amazing conversations
19:11about the Blitz and, and, you know, how they felt at their duty and going to the East End and
19:17this sort
19:17of thing. Um, and pre-war stuff, which was just heaven, you know, hearing about her state visit
19:24to Belgrade as the Duchess of York in 1924, just after they got married, I think. And she had every,
19:30because I just, I went to lunch with them. I told her I'd just been, I, I was, I was
19:34on a tour of duty
19:36in the Balkans with the regiment at that stage. And I came back and she said, why didn't you come
19:41and have lunch on you if you're in London? So I, but very sweetly, so I went and had lunch
19:45with her
19:45and she, we were talking about the Balkans and she just, you know, recounted this. I think she
19:52did a train journey in the emperor of Austria's state train, which obviously there wasn't an emperor
19:56of Austria anymore. Um, from, um, yeah, sort of down and down across the Balkans into Belgrade.
20:05And she remembers peeling the silk, um, wallpaper in the carriage off because it was all hanging in
20:13tatters. And then when they got to Belgrade, they were put up in some immense palace in Belgrade and
20:18they turned the taps on to have a bath and cockroaches came streaming. So all those sort of amazing things,
20:24which I'm, I'm not giving away any secrets there, I hope, but, but, um, they were just fascinating.
20:29Yeah. She sounds again, like an incredible character. Now, did you always know you wanted
20:34to write a love story because you have this incredible military background and that really
20:40permeates a lot of the texts, certainly in the action scenes. Um, was that, was that the way you
20:46wanted to approach this? Yeah, it was. I mean, I, I mean, I, I used lots of, I mean, the
20:52whole thing is
20:53really based on people I've met and places I've been and that sort of thing. Um, and it would have
20:59been easy, not easy, been very difficult and people do a brilliant job of portraying it, but to do a
21:04sort of war, a war story, um, and, and focus on that side of it. I never wanted to, I
21:11always wanted
21:11to write a love story. And that came from the many, many months we spent abroad, so nine months of
21:18every
21:18year, practically when I was in at Hereford and then the SAS and the, and you had to take books
21:24with you. And I wasn't a great reader before that, but on one, one six month deployment,
21:29I think overseas when there's a lot of downtime, you know, it's, um, most of it is sort of getting
21:35ready and, and sort of twiddling your thumbs. And I read Anna Karen in war and peace and spring
21:41torrents in one and three. I mean, if you want a love story, go for any of those three. I
21:47mean,
21:48they may, they make you cry literally. I mean, I mean, I don't mean laughing. I mean, crying,
21:52you know, um, as, as everybody knows. Um, so, so yeah, I mean, they're just the epitome of a,
21:59of a, of a, of a fiction, of a fiction for me. Yeah. So that's why I did it.
22:04Um, I was going to say your book made me cry. I found it incredibly moving in parts.
22:08Um, I used to add that I'm not comparing myself to Tegania or Tolstoy. No, no, no. It's just the,
22:14the, the, the, the sort of shape of it is, um, is what I thought was so brilliant, you know,
22:19actually love in the time of war. Um, you know? Yeah. Well, it's so compelling. The other thing
22:24that I found fascinating was the inspiration you drew from the area where you live, um, in East Anglia
22:29and the Shingle Street rumour, which is something that I hadn't been aware of. Can you just tell our
22:33audience a bit about that? Yeah. I mean, this is, this is a sort of a part of the book.
22:38Um,
22:39and, uh, there's a legend about this little tiny fishing hamlet on the East coast of Suffolk,
22:46um, that something happened there during the war in, in, in 1940 and in the sort of darkest,
22:52the darkest hours, um, as they're referred to now. Um, and the, the, the sort of legends
23:00range from, um, a terrible accident to British troops who were, um, planning to, you know, on an
23:09exercise, um, prior to invasion, that sort of thing, right. The way through to a landing by
23:16Germans to, um, to capture, um, a bit of equipment from Bordsey Manor, which is very,
23:24very close, just down the coast, about two miles down the coast from Shingle Street,
23:27which is where radar was developed. And it was during the second world war, a major radar station.
23:34And it was at a time right in the middle of 1940, where the Luftwaffe were realizing
23:40suddenly that they were losing the battle of Britain and, you know, Spitfire did a great job,
23:45but it was really radar. So, and they didn't know how it worked. So there was a huge incentive,
23:51huge incentive. So I'm not saying that's what happened, but I'm sort of putting
23:55the, the, the exercise that went wrong version. It's quite well documented. And some very eminent
24:01people have looked at that and said, that's got to be it. I'm just putting the other possibility.
24:06And, um, and I'm not saying that that happened. I'm just sort of saying the plausibility that it
24:12could have happened. So that's probably enough. Otherwise I'm going to spoil the book.
24:16Do you think we'll ever find out the truth?
24:18No. And I, I don't, I don't think we should in a way. I mean, I, you know, I think,
24:21um,
24:22it's a long time since that happened and let's face it, everybody loves a legend and you don't
24:27want your legends. You don't, you don't want to find out the Loch Ness monster doesn't exist.
24:30And in the same way, well, I've blown that one. Um, but, but, you know, I think it's better left
24:38as a, as a, as a, as a, as folklore, frankly. Now you've drawn a lot on your experience of
24:44being
24:44a soldier. Some of it's incredibly sort of gritty, um, but utterly compelling again. I want to bring
24:52us back to more recent times. What was more daunting for you commanding an SAS squadron or overseeing a
24:58royal wedding? That's a really good question. I mean, I, I, I tell you what was common to,
25:05to both is that you could not be surrounded by better, more professional, um, well-motivated,
25:13decent people in both camps. So in the SAS or at the time of the royal wedding, I mean, it
25:19was,
25:19as William said, you know, take the helm of this, you promulgate what, uh, Catherine and I want, but,
25:26but you're, you're the sort of waste of the hourglass, if you like. And very little, I mean,
25:33it was a question of setting the parameters, just passing on the messages because there were so many
25:37utter professionals. I mean, the way the police did that sort of policing of the, of the whole thing,
25:42the Abbey itself, the Lord Chamberlain's office, who are past masters at running cars to time and
25:48organizing, um, guests coming in and that sort of thing. And the media village, you know, put together
25:53by Paddy Harbison and all the, all the team there. So it wasn't, you know, it was more like a
25:58divisional
25:58command. It was the closest I'll ever get to commanding a army division, which is, you know,
26:0320,000 men or whatever it is. It was, it was an extraordinary experience. But as I say, I didn't,
26:07I didn't do a, I didn't do much actually, because they were, everybody was so, so competent in, in,
26:13in both of my previous lives. Yeah.
26:16And I want to ask as well, you're a father of four children, am I right?
26:19That's right, yeah.
26:20Yes. Is it true that they wanted, uh, certain scenes of the book marked out,
26:25so they didn't have to read them?
26:26They did, because, because it's a love story. I mean, you know, I'm afraid to say that, you know,
26:32sex is to love what hand-to-hand combat is to warfare. So you, you can't do one without the
26:40other,
26:41but you shouldn't do either of those, the sort of gory details, um, of really, really gory details,
26:49or, you know, God forbid, gory details of sex either. But you've got to take it to a point where
26:55it's credible. Um, and I think I kept the right side of the line, but my children have all insisted
27:01that I, not all of them actually, but a couple of them have insisted that I inserted a little,
27:05little bookmark, you know, on, on the only two paragraphs, three times in the book,
27:10but so they wouldn't have to go sort of, oh, dad.
27:15Um, I think we also should mention that you are godfather to Prince George. We just had the news
27:20that he's going to start at Eton. You were a student there yourself. Um, have you got any words of
27:26advice?
27:27Um, golly, I think it's probably, I'm not going to dodge this, but it's probably changed a lot since,
27:35since I was there. Actually, it certainly has. And in many ways it's changed for the better.
27:39Actually, I'm not going to get all sort of frosty and Victor Meldro about it. I think,
27:44I think it has changed for the better. My son was there too. So, so I've seen it quite recently,
27:49but, um, I mean, it's actually, it's actually, you know, you're very, very privileged to go there.
27:56And there are all sorts of amazing things you can do. I mean, the drawing schools,
28:00for instance, at Eton are just sensational. That's the art, that's the name of the art department,
28:05as it were, and you can do anything you want. And they have these amazing societies, you know,
28:10debating societies, history of art societies, this sort of thing where, where incredible people come
28:15down. Now that is a real privilege. And so if you, I wouldn't, I'm not saying this to poor old
28:21George being lectured, but I'm saying if anybody goes to that sort of place, then you've got to,
28:26you've got to, you've got to take the opportunity to, to, to live it. And actually, dare I say,
28:33you've got to then realize how lucky you've been and you've got to pay back in some way, you know,
28:39whether it's public service, whether it's the military or whatever, you've got to, uh, you,
28:43you've got to pay back, but it is a great privilege and you don't want to waste it actually.
28:48Um, and who knows, maybe in the years to come, if he reads his Tolstoy,
28:53you could follow in your footsteps. Jamie, thank you so much for coming in.
28:57And we wish you all the best with the book. It's fabulous. I loved it. And I'd like to know
29:03what happens next. Is that something we may find out?
29:05Uh, I don't want to leave Missy in hanging or in any predicament. So I'm certainly the,
29:12certainly there's a thought there. Thank you.
29:15Thank you so much.
29:17That's all from me today. Thanks so much to Jamie for joining us and to you for listening.
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29:32See you next week.
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