'The Queen told us off for riding tricycles indoors'

One of Princess Margaret's former ladies in waiting recalls being told off by a nine-year-old Queen Elizabeth II for riding a tricycle indoors at her Norfolk stately home.

Lady Glenconner, who has known the Royal Family all her life, said it was a privilege growing up at Holkham Hall, which is her family's ancestral estate.

Now aged 94, she remembers riding tricycles as a young child with the Queen's younger sister, Princess Margaret - and being chided by the future monarch.

"We weren't meant to be there at all, going round and round, and down the steps of the Marble Hall came the Queen... she looked at us and she said 'Margaret, Anne, very very naughty, what are you doing'?" said Lady Glenconner.

"Princess Margaret and I whirled round the hall one more time and we shot off on our tricycles screaming with laughter," she added.

In an interview with the BBC Radio Norfolk's Louise Hulland, she said: "I sometimes look at people going round Holkham and you'd never know the Queen aged nine went down the steps you are walking down.

"There are so many memories wherever I go at Holkham."

The history of Holkham Hall dates back to 1609 when Sir Edward Coke - later Earl of Leicester - purchased Neales Manor in Holkham Parish and founded the Holkham Estate.

Lady Glenconner's father, Major Thomas Coke, the fifth Earl, was equerry to the Queen's father, King George VI. He opened Holkham Hall - which remains the ancestral home of the Earl of Leicester - to visitors for the first time in 1950.

Lady Glenconner said she remembered that during the war "garden boys" would stoke heaters in the estate's growing houses at night to make the exotic fruit ripen quicker.

She said photograph albums had helped keep the memories alive and been "invaluable" to her books.

Her latest memoir, Trunks and Tiaras, transports readers from grand houses and royal tours to hidden corners of the world sharing the people, places and adventures that have shaped her life.

In 1971 she was appointed as a lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret, a role she believed she was trusted with for her discreetness.

On 7 November, she will return to Holkham for a signing of her latest memoir, however, she has continued to frequent the home since growing up.

She recently took her grandson to see an opera performance held at the hall.

She said: "It was very hot and the deer started to come out from under the trees and I just thought it's paradise at the moment. It doesn't happen very often in this life but it was just perfect and I just thought how lucky I am to be brought up at Holkham and it was great.

"I said to my grandson to enjoy and remember this moment because it does not often happen," she said.

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