Bøker av Hugo Vickers

Hugo Vickers has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Royal Family, and has had a fascination with the story of the Duchess of Windsor since he was a young man.

'In 1953, at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Alice was dressed from head to foot in a long gray dress and a gray cloak, and a nun's veil. Amidst all the jewels, and velvet and coronets, and the fine uniforms, she exuded an unworldly simplicity. Seated with the royal family, she was a part of them, yet somehow distanced from them. Inasmuch as she is remembered at all today, it is as this shadowy figure in gray nun's clothes...'Princess Alice, mother of Prince Phillip, was something of a mystery figure even within her own family. She was born deaf, at Windsor Castle, in the presence of her grandmother, Queen Victoria, and brought up in England, Darmstadt, and Malta.In 1903 she married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, and from then on her life was overshadowed by wars, revolutions, and enforced periods of exile. By the time she was thirty-five, virtually every point of stability was overthrown. Though the British royal family remained in the ascendant, her German family ceased to be ruling princes, her two aunts who had married Russian royalty had come to savage ends, and soon afterwards Alice's own husband was nearly executed as a political scapegoat.The middle years of her life, which should have followed a conventional and fulfilling path, did the opposite. She suffered from a serious religious crisis and at the age of forty-five was removed from her family and placed in a sanatorium in Switzerland, where she was pronounced a paranoid schizophrenic. As her stay in the clinic became prolonged, there was a time where it seemed she might never walk free again. How she achieved her recovery is just one of the remarkable aspects of her story.

Elstree School celebrates its 175th anniversary in 2023 and to commemorate the anniversary new book Elstree 175 tells iconic story of the school from 1848 to today, celebrating every aspect of such a famous academic institution.This revised history gives a lively account of the extraordinary Sanderson family who ran it for 100 years, the other teachers who made it special as well as celebrating some of its distinguished old boys and alumni. Elstree School was a feeder for Harrow School, and in its early days, had a strongintellectual background with figures such as Joseph Conrad and John Galsworthy who were frequent visitors to the school.The book explains the ethos of study, Christian faith, high sporting achievement and good manners that have long given the school its special quality, and brings the story right up to the present day.

The witty and perceptive diaries kept by Cecil Beaton's authorised biographer during his many fascinating encounters with extraordinary - often legendary - characters in his search for the real Cecil Beaton.

The definitive biography of Cecil Beaton, the celebrated British photographer and designer who enjoyed immense international fame and lived a glittering life.

The fiercely intelligent beauty who married the 9th Duke of Marlborough and both dazzled and puzzled the glittering social circles of the Belle Epoque in which she moved.

An episode-by-episode analysis of season 3 of The Crown TV series, explaining what really happened and what didn't.

This was partly due to her long life, and the difficulty that always exists when a biography of a living person is attempted, partly because she was a queen - and the real person gets hidden behind the perceived image - and partly because she is hard to pin down.

Greta Garbo's enduring legend derives from her incandescent performances as a woman in love in such classics as Camille, Queen Christina and Grand Hotel.