“... of 1955, one remembered in Scotland for its long procession of warm and cloudless days. We climbed stone stairs and looked into bare stone rooms. It was tremendously dull. Everything of interest lay outside. I was ten and keen on ships, and through dusty windows I could see a much more attractive world, and hear it, too ...”

“... ministers, came and went, and in Sir Kevin’s case the Queen felt she might simply be a stepping-stone to those corporate heights for which he was undoubtedly headed. He was a graduate of the Harvard Business School and one of his publicly stated aims (‘setting out our stall,’ as he put it) was to make the monarchy more accessible. The opening of ...”