He got stuck in the bath and met the queen. But despite a few wobbles and procedures, the author still can’t believe his age
Windsor. The royal dolls’ house at Windsor Castle is being revamped to include contemporary authors, a selection of whom have submitted miniature versions of their work, with a reception given by Her Majesty the Queen.
The driver’s name was Juliano and it took me some time to realise that the blank square on the back of the seat in front of me in the car, an Audi, was a TV screen. There is some delay outside the Henry VIII gate, where we spot Andrew Wilson waiting on the same errand, also early. I am astonished at the extent of the castle, first visited as a schoolboy in 1951 and again (though I don’t remember this) with Alec Guinness to look at the portrait of Thurlow, whom he was toying with playing in the film of The Madness of George III. At another portal a wheelchair is waiting, which I inhabit for the whole of the visit … comfortable but a mistake. Not pushed by Rupert [Thomas, Bennett’s civil partner] but by a young man whom I don’t see much of as he’s behind me. The entrance to the Waterloo Chamber through a loggia reminiscent of a Cambridge college library (St John’s). It is vast and gleaming, lined with portraits by Sir Thomas Lawrence and a touch vulgar. A few other early arrivals. Everybody pleasant.
