More Rosebud - Lord Ivar Mountbatten

0:00It's Tuesday, the best day of the week, because it's more rosebud. oh wait a minute perhaps the best day of the week is friday because that's rosebud tuesday more rosebud friday rosebud tuesday friday now i can't decide which is the best day of the week maybe they're all good yes you can actually listen to rosebud any day you like there's a whole back catalogue of episodes so whenever you want rosebud 24 7 we are here with the interesting memories of remarkable people. Please stick with us, spread the word. We love having you here. Welcome to more Rosebud. Welcome to Rosebud. Welcome to the, oh, the whole rollicking, riotous Rosebud world.

0:45Enjoy. And now, cue the music.

1:07Welcome to another episode of More Rosebud. Harriet Jane, my friend and producer, is here. Harriet, have you ever thought of writing a book? When I was a child, yes, that's what I wanted to do, be a writer. What kind of book were you going to write? Oh, I was probably something... I started a book. It was called The Secret Diary of Alice. I can't remember what her name was. It was a sort of diary of an Edwardian lady sort of thing. Do you know a book called The Young Visitors by Daisy Ashford? Yes, I do. It's charming, isn't it? And amusing. Brilliant. And she wrote that as a child. I think she genuinely did.

1:46Yeah, she did. Yeah. So, and I know when you were the producer of the radio program, My Teenage Diary, you helped compile a book of those recollections. recollections. Yeah, that's just putting together people's diary extracts. Well, maybe you'll be publishing your diaries one day. Maybe. Or a novel. When I'm in between editing the rose bulbs. Yes, I'm not going to give you time at the moment. As you know, I have written a lot of books. Yes. I've got a new one coming out quite soon in September, a biography of A.A. Milne, the creator of Winnie the Pooh. Available from all good bookshops. Will be in time.

2:24Let's plug it when it's out there. I suppose you can pre-order now. Pre-order. I hate the word pre-order. Either you're ordering or not, but you can pre-order now. It's called Somewhere, A Boy and a Bear, since you're kind enough to mention it. And I've enjoyed doing it. I've written a number of biographies. I think the first one I wrote was called The Funniest Man on Earth, and it was a biography of someone called Dan Lino. Have you even heard of him? No. He was, perhaps other than the king when he died, the most famous man in Britain. He was a comedian, Dan Lino. He was a tap dancer. He was a comic.

3:01He was a singer. He had a kind of genius. And the Drury Lane pantomimes of Victorian age, he was the great star. So I wrote a biography of him. I wrote a biography of sorts of Harry Houdini. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah. I could saw you in half. I know it's done. I wrote a biography of the actor, Sir John Gielgud. And this brings us to our guest today. I wrote a biography some years ago of the late Duke of Edinburgh. Yeah. Prince Philip. It wasn't easy. First time I got round to it, he asked me to do a short biography of him because I knew him because I'd been the chairman of one of his favourite charities.

3:39But he was a stickler for accuracy. And have I mentioned this, how he corrected the proofs? Yes. Yeah. I mean, it was a nightmare getting it right for Prince Philip. Anyway, the book appeared and I then did a later version of it at the time that he died. It was kind of Philip, the final portrait. And I was very thrilled to get letters from a number of people who had known the late Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip well, including someone who'd known them who's at their wedding and who'd known them all her life. anyway she was gracious enough to say actually you're the first person I think who has caught the relationship between Prince Philip and the Queen right you've got them yeah and so I was thrilled earlier this year to get a an email from our guest today I'd never been in touch with him okay but he found maybe via you via the website he found how to get hold of me and he sent me an email saying, I and my husband have just finished reading your biography of my cousin, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

4:53I thought, who's this from? And indeed was from our guest, who's called Ivor Mountbatten, and born on the 9th of March, 1963. Ivor Mountbatten is the son of David Milford Haven, who was Prince Philip's best man. So he would have been there at that wedding too, back in 1947. And Ivor's grandfather's sister was Prince Philip's mother. And his grandfather's brother was Lord Mountbatten of Burma. So he's a Mountbatten of the Mountbatten's. You've heard of the Mountbatten's. You know about the Mountbatten family. And so I was thrilled that he He wrote appreciatively about the book and was interested.

5:39He said, I learned things from it. And you got the great man right. Because I also wrote about other members of his family. And I mentioned him in it. And the way that the Duke of Edinburgh had accepted Ivor. And why had he accepted Ivor? Because Ivor Mountbatten is the first member of, I suppose you'd call it, the extended royal family to come out as gay. And he came out when he married James Coyle. his partner in 2016. Prior to that, he'd been married to Penny Thompson. I think they have three children. So I thought, well, I know now he's written to me. He must have an interesting story to tell.

6:21And I think we'll find he has a very interesting story to tell. When I got back to him, I didn't then know that he'd become internationally famous. Yes. Because you discovered this. He was on the US edition of... The Traitors. Which is a huge show, isn't it? Yeah, of course. I mean, I love the UK one. I'm going to watch the American one with him in it. We mustn't give a spoiler, I don't think. No. Well, I think it is out there. But anyway, let's watch it and see how he does. Let's watch it and see. But the point is, he does very well. Because he's very, very charming, isn't he? He is. He is very charming.

6:55And he's kindly come to my home in southwest London. We're here to record a conversation with Ivor Mountbatten. So this is a little bit different. Cue the music. Cue that music.

7:20Ivor, before we begin, two things. One, what is your name? And when there's a title or a handle attached to it, what do we call you?

7:34middle names are Alexander Michael Mountbatten, and I was born the second son of a Marquess, and therefore the younger children of Marquesses and Dukes have the courtesy title of Lord or Lady, Christian name, and then the family last name, which in my case is Mountbatten. So you are Lord Ivor Mountbatten? Correct. And if I was meeting you formally, would I call you Lord Ivor? That is correct, yes. Fine. To call you Lord Mountbatten would be incorrect. Would be incorrect because it would assume that I was a peer in my own right, which I am not. I have a courtesy title for my lifetime and that is it.

8:14It doesn't get passed on to my children. Now, for people who don't understand the pecking order of the rich aristocracy, it begins with royal dukes, then you get dukes, then you get a marquis, then you come down to... Viscounts? No, an earl. Earl, yes, correct. Earl before the viscount. and then we come down to the mere barons we don't need to bother with in this correct and then i think there's a baronet so i've got the name right you are lord iva but i'm because i know you i'm going to call you iva please do absolutely iva r i-v-a-r which is a norwegian name apparently and in norway it's pronounced iva and the reason i was called iva is because my mother's first cousin was a chap called Ivor Bryce.

8:57And as a result, my mother called me Ivor. Now, to modern ears, the Mountbatten name is famous for a variety of reasons. One is because of Earl Mountbatten of Burma, who was your uncle or great uncle? He was my great uncle. Yes, he was my grandfather's younger brother. So your grandfather was the second Marquess of Milford Haven. Correct. Hey, I've got that right. You've done your homework. The second Marcus of Wilford Haven and he was called George. Correct. And he had a brother who was Louis Mountbatten. Correct. And a sister who was Alice Mountbatten who married a Greek prince and was the mother of Prince Philip.

9:40Correct. And he also had another sister called Louise who married King Carl Adolf of Sweden. And all of you are descended from Queen Victoria. Again, correct, yes. So Queen Victoria was my three greats grandmother through her second daughter Alice, who married the Grand Duke of Hesse, and they had a number of children, including Alexandra, who married the Tsar of Russia, Ella, who married Grand Duke Serge of Russia, and a number of others. And Victoria was my great grandmother. I think she was the older sister to Ella and Alexandra. And somewhere along the line, among your forebears, is Pushkin, the Russian poet and short story writer.

10:28Is this possible? Absolutely correct. Where does he come in? So my grandfather George, the second Marquis, married the daughter of Grand Duke Michael of Russia. And his father was Grand Duke Michael as well, but he was called Grand Duke Michael Nikailovich. and Nikailovich meaning the son of Nicholas, Nicholas I of Russia. During the First World War, because of anti-German sentiment, the family name was changed from Battenberg to Mountbatten, and other names were changed, and Milford Haven was introduced as the name for the Marquisite. Is that right? Correct. As a result of anti-German feeling, all the various branches of the royal family had to change their name, and King George asked the Battenbergs, and there were two brothers at that point, Henry, who'd married Queen Victoria's youngest daughter, Beatrice, and his brother Louis had married Queen Victoria's eldest granddaughter, Victoria.

11:29So the two brothers married aunt and niece. And so they both changed their names with the surname Mountbatten, which is a direct translation. civilization my great-grandfather took milford haven because it was a naval port and he had naval connections he was offered a dukedom as various other branches were but i read in his memoir that he didn't want to become a duke because a dukedom generally signified you were the illegitimate son of a monarch which he said i am certainly not and therefore he took the next step down which was a marquis it so your great-grandfather was the first marquis of milford david your grandfather was the second marquis of milvayne correct george yes noted for a number of things any of which you wish to share with us instantly before we move on to you uh well he was a very intelligent chap and charming and uh he died very young he died of cancer in the late 1930s i believe so he was the first non-jewish board a director of marx and spencer and he was a very popular chap i did ask the queen occasionally when i sat next to her and i said what was george this is the late queen late queen lisworth yes and she said he was her favorite uncle and that he was charming and everybody adored george uh and he died when she was 12 and i think for her to say something like that must have meant that he really was well he clearly was delightful because prince philip as you know i wrote the biography of prince philip duke of edinburgh and he people always associated prince philip with lord mountbatten louis mountbatten absolutely saw him as his sort of almost his godfather yeah like a father substitute prince philip slightly resented that because he said actually george was the one who was his guardian but then george died young but he always spoke highly of george your grandfather but i learned somewhere along the line maybe i've imagined this you could put me right that george is the same person who has what is known as the largest private collection of pornography in Europe.

13:36I'd forgotten that. Yes, apparently, yes, he did. And a few people have asked where it was. And I do remember there was a desk in our bedroom where I grew up at a place called Moines Park. And we found the key, I think. And inside there was a box of pornography, which for young boys was frightfully amusing. um but there were just a few bits left so we've established who your great-grandfather is your grandfather your father well i think we we've now got to you so we know the context of your family it's enormously distinguished oh we should say the name mountbatten still resonates because because of prince philip um who was a mountbatten uh he was your uncle prince philip was my first cousin once removed and um he was i mean he was a greek prince and of course the the last name of the greek royal family is something very complicated it's about four names long and i think when he was becoming naturalized in order to marry princess elizabeth he basically took his mother's maiden name rather than his father's name so he married as philip mount badden correct and which delighted I know your...

14:59Uncle Dickie, of course. Uncle Dickie. Dickie Mountbatten, hugely. And he rather expected, because it had been so with Prince Albert, that the royal family would take the name of the father. Yes. So he rather assumed his children would all be called Mountbatten. Mountbatten, correct. But the powers that be felt that wasn't appropriate. Well, I think Uncle Dickie was a sort of character that was a bit of a Marmite character. You either liked him or disliked him. And he rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way. Not that I know that, but I've just heard it on the grapevine. But one of them was, I think, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

15:33And she took a bit of exception to this. And I think Queen Mary. And they sort of called up Winston Churchill, who was another character who wasn't overly enamoured by Uncle Dickie. And I think they all sort of nobbled the Queen and said, no, this couldn't happen. And I think there was a feeling too shortly after the war, they'd gone to such trouble to make the family Windsor during the First World War. Why change it now? Yes. But eventually, Prince Philip prevailed. Well, you probably know better than I do. I assume you chatted to Prince Philip about this, the whole name issue. The whole name issue had been a hot issue for him in the early years of his marriage.

16:11Later on, I think he was calmer about it and he was satisfied because Mountbatten-Windsor was introduced as a family name for certain members of the family. I believe for all the younger children, not in the direct line of succession, took the name Mountbatten-Windsor. Which is how, for example, Prince Harry is Mountbatten-Windsor, Meghan is Mountbatten-Windsor. Yes. Their children will be Mountbatten-Windsors. Absolutely. So the name Mountbatten is resonating. And we have in our presence Lord Ivor Mountbatten of this fascinating family. But now I've got to know you, I find you're a fascinating person, which is why we're here on Rosebud.

16:49and I want to ask you this it's our first question quite simply Ivor what is your very first memory well as you can imagine I've had to give this a little bit of thought but I do have one and that was actually my father pruning the roses and I remember it distinctly because I love the smell of the roses and they were particularly fragrant outside our playroom actually and I picked up a petal that dropped or had come off the prunings and I rolled it up into a ball to smell it and it smelled so wonderful I actually shoved it up my nose and then I was in a real panic because I couldn't get the damn thing out so it's one of the very few memories I have of my father and he died when I was seven.

17:44So I must have been six and a half or seven or something around that age. Where would this have been? And this was at Tindon Manor, which was a house in Great Samford in Essex. My mother grew up in a very large house called Moynes Park. My mother's a little confusing because she was born in Bermuda. And she was born Janet Bryce. and my grandmother didn't want my mother to grow up on the island and to marry a local island boy so she sent him to finishing school in Paris and her brother-in-law a chap called Ivor Bryce took her on and adopted her more or less as his own because he had no children and this gentleman Ivor Bryce is quite well known because he was one of the models for James Bond and Ivor Bryce married a very rich American lady called Jo Hartford and she was the heiress to the A &P fortune and if you remember it's a supermarket exactly the A &P was the second largest private company in America on par with Ford Motor Company and it was equivalent of Tesco here in the UK Anyway, Ivor Bryce married Joe Hartford, but they didn't have any children themselves and effectively adopted my mother.

19:12This is an extraordinary heritage. We have Queen Victoria. We have, I think, a czar. We now have the A &P fortune. The A &P fortune. And we have James Bond. And we have James Bond, absolutely. Well, my gosh. I'm getting back to Ivor. He grew up in this huge Elizabethan mansion called Moines Park, and he became friends with Ian. He met Ian in Cornwall. This is Ian Fleming. Yes, and they were lifelong friends. Anyway, Ivor was the one that basically had his martinis shaken, not stirred. So he is, as it were, your adopted grandfather. He was my adopted. We called him Uncle Ivor, but effectively he was like a grandfather.

19:54So my mother sort of spent her formative years at Moynes Park and that's where I grew up effectively. But she then married my father, David Milford Haven, and Ivor Bryce gave us a wedding present, Tindon Manor, which was all of four or five miles away from Moynes. And that's where I grew up until the age of seven when my father died. Then my mother didn't want to live there on her own without my father, so she sold that and moved us all back five miles away, back to Moynes Park, age seven. So from the age of seven until I sold Moynes in 1997, that's where I lived. And that was a huge house. It was a huge house.

20:35Before we get to that period, just give me your parents together. Of course, I didn't know my father because he died when I was seven. Well, you do not know him. You say that. What memories do you have of him? This wonderful memory of me putting this rose petal. Is that about it? Rose bud, I should say. There you go. Is that about it? That is literally it. And I think he was a great sailor, of course. He loved sailing at cows. And I remember once he took us and we went out. And of course, my father was a bit haphazard and he got stuck on a sandbank and we were out there for six hours. and my mother was spitting mad because you know i was out there aged whatever it was for hours uh until the tide came back up and the boat floated off again and i do remember being on on that did he die running for a train he did on a platform because he was a stockbroker after the war he was in the navy and then became a stockbroker and he was running uh for the train liverpool street station and he had a massive heart attack and how did you hear the news how was it broken to you again i just remember a lot of wailing uh i think my mother was very upset clearly yes and i believe she heard it on the news uh on six o 'clock news or just before that's i think we as the children because in the nursery the news was on uh um and it's worth reminding people that he would have been famous not only because he was the marcus of milford but also because he was Prince Philip's, the Duke of Edinburgh's friend, and had been his best man.

22:16So he was a public figure because of that. Absolutely. He was all the pictures of the royal wedding. My father was standing the other side of the Queen. And how did your mother cope? Did she ever talk about him or did she talk much about him? She did. And funnily enough, I did find a letter in my grandmother's papers years later from my mother saying that she was getting very irritated by my father and she was thinking that she couldn't cope any longer and she might want to divorce him. And my grandmother wrote back saying that my mother should pull her socks up and not be so stupid. David may have his faults, but he was a very, very kind man and she should thank her lucky stars.

23:01And my grandmother didn't want to hear any more of it. And that was it. So I know there must have been a little bit of a sort of... Bit of tension. A bit of tension. But then my mother was a very, very spoiled woman and never had to do anything in her life. She never had a job. Well, she had this hugely wealthy... Step-grandmother, all sort of... They were effectively her parents. Did she marry again? No, she never did. She had a string of boyfriends. One of them was Sir Charles Claw. she liked to stay where the money was yes exactly didn't he own selfridges at the time he did he owned selfridges he owned mappen and web he owned dulcis and um yes she should get her shoes and her silverware um everything she wanted no she she said when uh whenever she went into selfridges um all the staff would come flying around and she could have had anything she wanted but you know she she really didn't need anything how were you and she together what what did she give you what did you give them it's interesting both my brother and myself have a quite a torturous relationship with her she she didn't I mean she never looked after us we were brought up by nannies and we had this wonderful German nanny who looked after us right from the word go in fact I went on holiday with my nanny because nanny wouldn't refuse my mother to look after us she knew she couldn't she'd be hopeless she would be absolutely hopeless so we didn't really see her very much as youngsters and when I then moved on to Moynes Park age seven after my father died we had enormous staff I mean it really was like living in Downton Abbey and so we had a butler we had two footmen there was like five housemaids there was a cook and we always call the cook Mrs Backler so the cook in in big households was always known as Mrs and she was Mrs Backler and then there was two scullery maids and my mother had a lady's maid as did my grandmother uh my step-grandmother when i say that joe aunt joe and then you know numerous gardeners so it really was like living in downton abbey and what was that like for you as a boy i mean well it was just fabulous oh absolutely i mean i had the most amazing childhood what was your bedroom like it was huge I mean, we're sitting in a room here.

25:26It was probably twice the size of this. Maybe two and a half sizes. And I shared it initially with my brother. He was on one end and then I was at the other. And then after a couple of years, I sort of wanted my own bedroom. And I think George wanted his own bedroom. And my step-grandmother, I say step-grandmother, we called her Aunt Jo. She lived most of the time in America. And she only came over to England for the racing season. because we had a big stud at Moynes. So she would always arrive in time for Royal Ascot. And in the 50s, her income was somewhere along the line. I heard it was something like$50 ,000 or$60 ,000 a day.

26:09Really, a day? A day, yes. I mean, immense. And she held the record on the Queen Mary for the most amount of trunks. And that was 72 all matching Louis Vuitton trunks. because in those days you had to travel with everything and she bought all her own bed linen and you couldn't possibly use somebody else's bed linen even though she owned the house she traveled with her bed linen everything and i always remember we knew when aunt joe was arriving because a pantechnican would arrive from southampton with all this luggage and the whole house would be in upheaval and was she affectionate to you did you feel i got on very well with her actually.

26:53My brother always said I was always sucked up to her.

27:03Tell us, explain about you and your mother. So, yes, my mother never looked after us at all. We were brought up by this wonderful German nanny called Maria, and we were always shipped off here, there and everywhere, which was fine. And I'm not complaining in any way, shape or form. However, what did irritate both George and I was when our children were growing up, we would often say to her, why don't you come down for Christmas? Why don't you come down for the weekend? Her stuck answer was, I can't be bothered. Gosh, I can't be bothered. I know. Not I'm too busy. No, I can't be bothered. And it stemmed from the fact that she had never been able to pack her own suitcase.

27:52so she could never, she might come down for the day, and I lived in Devon, so that was a three-hour drive, and then she'd go back again because she couldn't be bothered to pack a suitcase, or she didn't know how to. Gosh, how extraordinary. What is your best recollection of your best moment with your mother during your childhood? Hmm, crikey.

28:18there was oh there was one holiday when I say it wasn't really a holiday my mother accompanied Charles Claw to Deauville to go to racing and I was hoiked along for some reason I think probably because there was you know I was relatively young and and we went in his private plane which this must have been in the 70s so which was quite extravagant in those days and we stayed in the royal hotel in Deauville and my mother was always going out to dinner and she looked like Sophia Loren I mean she was a beautiful woman and I generally ate in the room and I formed a relationship with the room service chap who was a sort of rather sweet guy and he always brought me my dinner.

29:07Anyway, this one evening, I had spaghetti bolognese. And he brought it to me and he said, oh, this is going to be delicious. You must finish it all. Anyway, I didn't really want to upset him and I couldn't finish it. So I put the remains down the loo. And of course, I was sharing a room with my mother. And my mother came back from dinner, went into the loo. And of course, the loo was blocked so she immediately called sort of service and the gentleman that had given me my oh no my spaghetti because he was quite chuffed when he took my plate away and it was finished and i said how wonderful it was and then about an hour later he turned up with a plunger and plunged the loom.

29:55Retrieved your spaghetti. And all the spaghetti came up, and I was mortified. Oh. But that was always one fun time. I mean, not the day. But that's interesting. The fun time with your mother involves you and the room service guy and spaghetti. Your mother really is... She was just an ancillary part in it. She's a big character in this story. Do you have a particularly painful memory? I mean, is there a time that you and your older brother, George, only 18 months older than you, where you felt particularly hurt or neglected or... No, no, no, we were never hurt or neglected at all. You accepted this as the way of life.

30:29Yeah, it was, we had the most wonderful life. I always say that I've got nothing to complain about. I'm one of those people that just gets on with it and I never complain, principally because I know that I've had the most wonderful childhood life and I still have the most wonderful life and I've got nothing to complain about. So when you meet your mother now, she's still with us, though quite elderly. Is there affection between you? Oh, no. And I say that quite forthrightly. During the pandemic, we brought her down.

31:10She has never broken into a sweat. She always said that, you know, ladies shouldn't sweat. And she's never sort of put herself out ever. and she had a new hip and she doesn't do pain and her hip didn't work principally because she refused to do all the remedial work that you have to do with new hip because it was too painful and of course her hip seized up and then she took to her bed and she'd never got out of it so she's been bedridden for the last, what, since 2018 I think Oh no Yeah, and it's purely, it's laziness and um so that sort of irritated my brother myself so we've ended up having to do everything for her and so during the pandemic we felt we ought to bring her down from london because she had a string of carers and clearly um covid was going to get her uh or so we thought actually she did have COVID and she breathed through COVID.

32:13Not a bit of it. Anyway, so we brought her down and we installed her initially in the morning room at Bridwell in my home. And funnily enough, when we brought her down in an ambulance and James and I and George and everybody, we all sort of brought her furniture in. We tried to make the morning room in Bridwell, which is quite a large room as a sort of a replica of her room in london and she actually accused james of stealing her tv because she said to james this is james my husband um she said james now what's happened with my television and james well what do you mean and he said that's your television she said no it's not it's far too small my television was much bigger and james says yes that's because the room's much bigger and it's much further away but she wasn't having any of it and she said just tell me if you've if you've sold it i won't i won't be cross but um but you clearly there is some residual affection yes obviously in a funny sort of way do you would you still say you love her because she's your mother i've often thought about this and it's sort of this is all quite personal but But I mean, I've thought about it.

33:31You know, when she finally goes, will I be sad? And I suppose, yes, I will be sad. But what sort of irritated me is she would call me all the time when she was at home. Because after the pandemic finished and we needed to move her, we moved her into the lodge with her carer. Because we started doing our weddings again and we needed the morning room. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So we needed the morning room sort of for corporate events. So we moved her into the lodge with her carer. And every two minutes, you know, as a lot of mothers do, she would call me. When are you coming to see me? When are you coming to see me?

34:10And yet when I was younger, I'd say to her, when are you coming to see me? And she would always come back with, I can't be bothered. So I then turned this around and said, you know, Mama, I'm busy. I'm doing this, that and the other. at this moment i'm sorry i can't i can't come down but i turn it around i'm interested you can't bring yourself to say to her i can't be bothered i did say once or twice um just when you know but yeah but she's quite stoical herself you know and she just and she gave you a wonderful childhood even if she wasn't part of it she did through maria the nanny through the nanny the beautiful home and all the things that money can buy absolutely but as i say it wasn't her money it was her stepfather stepfather's or uncle or whatever without her there wouldn't have been the money no and without her you wouldn't be here no very true uh so for that i can't be great i i'm not ungrateful because as i said we had the most perfect childhood and you she chose your schools what school did you go to well after my father died everything was handed over to uncle Dickie so he basically this is Uncle Dickie Mountbatten.

35:23Earl Mountbatten of Burma. Absolutely he was more or less the head of the family so when my grandfather died who was looking after Prince Philip and my father of course Dickie stepped in because Dickie Mountbatten had two daughters so there was Patricia and Pammy so the sons if he ever wanted them was basically his two nephews Philip and and my father and so when my father died my mother sort of basically turned to Dickie and sort of he he was in charge of education so we went to a prep school called Heatherdown both George and myself where Prince Andrew and Prince Edward were also at Heatherdown and I'm not entirely sure how that came about I'm assuming again it was Uncle Dickie that organize this after heatherdown we then all went to gordonston where prince philip was and of course all the cousins went because all the natchables went and india hicks uh so all the mountbatten cousins everybody in in terms of the extended what did you make of a mountbatten dickie mountbatten oh now i was thinking about this the other day he could be quite a scary character and one of my first memories of him was at Classebourne Castle in Ireland where he was ultimately assassinated and we used to go there for holidays in the summer so all the sort of Natchable Mountbatten cousins so the Hickses and Natchables and George and myself used to go to Classebourne every summer and so Uncle Dickie was wonderful in keeping the family together in that sense because it made us very close to our cousins.

37:07The extended family is all there in Ireland for holidays. What was Uncle Dickie like? So my first memory really of him was shouting at me because we went shrimping in Mulligmore Harbour. It was just Uncle Dickie and myself and I think maybe India was there and we all had our shrimping nets and we had a whole bucket full of shrimps which then I proceeded to upend and they all disappeared and I just remember Uncle Dickie screaming at me you stupid boy so I was a bit terrified of him occasionally but actually he was a very soft character and later on when I was older he was always worried about being slouched and so we used to have to stand him up against a wall and push his shoulders back and he had this wonderful trick every time you pushed his shoulders back he would fart oh no yeah but he did that on purpose just for the grandchildren but of course so we have a completely different view of him rather than than than most people how old were you by the time when he was assassinated i was 17 yes so i was in america looking at universities and i remember it very well i was staying with my grandmother or as i called Aunt Jo at Black Hole Hollow Farm, which was very close to Saratoga Racecourse.

38:35And funnily enough, just as a side, Ian Fleming always used to go up and stay up there. And of course Diamonds Are Forever is based actually up in Saratoga. And the front cover of Diamonds Are Forever, the original front cover, is a woman's neck with a huge diamond. And that was called Afghanistan. And it was Aunt Jo's diamond. and this was a 72 or 74 carat diamond it was enormous and she used to wear it on her ring and in those days it was very chic and she wore it on a scarf around her waist so she would the scarf would be a belt and she would have this huge ring in a clasp hanging from this scarf it's a rather wonderful story of her going out one evening in new york with my uncle and a few other friends and i think they sort of went to mortimer's or something because she had a lovely townhouse on 74th street anyway she got back home later that evening went to take off um her her scarf with the diamond on it and learned behold the diamond had come out of the clasp just the clasp was was there so um she immediately dispatched her her maid round to the restaurant to see if they could find the diamond of course the restaurant had closed so the maid was dispatched first thing in the morning to find the diamond and the mode goes into the the restaurant and lo and behold there is a diamond sitting in the mint jar by the till and of course nobody in their right mind could have thought it was a diamond they thought it was a piece of the chandelier of course and had just fallen off so the cleaners had picked up the stand and put it on the front desk in the mint jar brilliant isn't it wonderful and this is a literally a priceless 72 carat diamond a named diamond wonderful yeah anyway so um i was staying with aunt joe at black hole hollow farm and this was August 27th 1979 of course and I had gone to a Doobie Brothers concert the night before anyway the next morning my aunt's lady's maid came knocking on my bedroom door and said Monsieur Ivor, Monsieur Ivor, Mrs Bryce wants to see you straight away so I thought oh god what have I done I came in very late maybe she's going to tell me off for that and so I went into her bedroom and she said Ivor I've got some terrible news you better sit down So I thought, oh God, immediately thinking that it was either my mother or her husband, Uncle Ivor, who lived in England, or my brother or something like that.

41:15And so she told me then again about the bomb. And in some respects, I was slightly relieved that it wasn't an immediate member of my family. But then, of course, I realized that my brother George was there. And I would have been there myself, but for the fact that I wanted to find universities in the States. and of course I immediately said but George is there because at this point they said Earl Mountbatten had been killed and a number and three or four other members of his family and there was no more information apart from that so we immediately tried to put a call into the UK and of course in those days you couldn't direct dial so you had to go through the operator so it took half an hour to schedule a call and then eventually I called home and my brother answered the telephone and both of us immediately burst into tears because i realized he was still there i didn't understand why he had answered the telephone and apparently it's because my brother had failed his maths o level again and my mother was furious and said you better get and this was on the saturday you better get yourself back home because you're not going to have fun you've got to go retake your exams so he left the day before and as a result um he is still with us what sort of boy were you at gordonston what were your interests what were you doing as a teenager um well interestingly just this last weekend i was at a wedding with my oldest friend who was at gordonston with me and it was his son getting married and another friend of ours was at Gordonston and he said I have this memory you were the one of the first people I ever met and we were in the French lab and he said I always remember thinking that you were the one of the most confident people I'd ever met and I said you thought I was confident he said yes it struck me it's always stayed with me as you've been confident which is really interesting because I never thought of myself as being confident but clearly you know I must have been and And it's interesting where this confidence comes from.

43:22And I often think about it. I think it is being born into the aristocracy, because a lot of the aristocracy have this inbuilt confidence that just perpetrates through, you know, and you probably, you know, recognize it in you having chatted to so many titled people that, you know, maybe they... And a lot of people perceive it perhaps as arrogance. but I think it is just confidence and I think it probably stems from the fact that you know you can lose everything you can lose all your money you can lose sort of you know you can be on the street but what you can't lose is the title so you will always have that title and so as a result it gives you that inbuilt confidence.

44:10Did people at school treat you differently because you were a Mountbatten? No, I don't think so. No, at school. No, maybe. It was just a boys' school in those days. They have girls. No, actually we had just turned co-ed. Was it at Gordinson you had your first crush? Oh yes, I think so, but crikey. Or maybe at prep school. Oh, prep school. I certainly had mine first at prep school, I'm sure. Yeah, well, that would have been boys then. Well, everything's possible. Um, yeah. First crush. I suppose it probably would have been a master at school or something like that. A master at school? Yes. I mean, again, you know, we're sort of getting onto the subject of my sexuality in many respects, I suppose.

45:02We are. Where does that begin? Where does an awareness of your sexuality begin? Oh, I knew really from a very young age. What age is a very young age? Crikey, I was seven or eight. Seven, eight? Yeah. I think so. And what did you know? That I remember having a crush actually on my tutor originally. One of my... We all had summer tutors. And I think I had a crush on him initially. And then... And did it puzzle you or disturb you? No. Did it? I don't think so. I mean... Maybe it did. But I just, as I say, just got on with it. It wasn't something that you talked about. I mean, interestingly, I read a book called The Velvet Rage, and it was given to me actually by a gay friend of my daughter's.

45:56And he gave it to Ella, and he said, maybe you should give this to your father. and it was a very fascinating book and it's all about why a lot of gay men have a lot of relationships and can't seem to have stable relationships and it all comes down I think from the fact that a lot of gay men are looking for validation because they didn't get it from their fathers and as a result if you've got two gay men that are both looking for validation from each other. It often doesn't work. So it seems that a lot of gay men have a lot of relationships because they're always looking for validation. They're not getting it from their partners.

46:37And you didn't get it from your father because you didn't have a father. I didn't have a father, you see. So the first chapter of this book was the little boy with a big secret. And of course that resonates with everybody because, you know, from a young age you have this secret that perhaps you prefer men, but of course you'd never talk about it. So you're keeping this in your head. Who is the person you first, the human being you first say to, I think maybe I'm gay? Or was that a word people used? And yes, it was by the... I don't think I ever mentioned it. Oh. No, not until... But who was the first boy you wanted to hold hands with or kissed or had a relationship with?

47:18Oh, it wasn't until much, much later on. Oh, so at school there were no... Oh, no. No. So Gordinson was as outward-bound as we were told, as Prince Philip said. Oh, absolutely. There was none of that. Healthy mind, healthy body. Yeah, yeah. Oh, very good. Well done. I didn't do any of that. I had girlfriends at that point. But was that confusing to you to have girlfriends? No, you just got on with it. That's what a chap did. A chap had girlfriends. But this secret person in his head... Yes. ...had these... Yes, desires for boys. Absolutely. but again you know that was you know we're born of that era when what homosexuality wasn't legalized until what in 67 68 or something like that so and and even then if it was legalized it was certainly wasn't the norm um not like today i mean it's unbelievable the difference between now and then um and were you at that stage conscious of being part of the extended royal family Oh, very much so.

48:18And that was, I think, the reason why I sort of, perhaps what you've called paved yourself, didn't want to go there. Because in those days, everything George and I did, it was always in the newspaper somewhere along the line. And was this other boys at school telling the stories, or just how did you get into the newspapers? Oh, I don't know. I mean, I think the Daily Mail. They just loved a title, the Daily Mail. Yeah, but the Daily Mail actually had a lot of informers in those days, didn't they? Yeah. And they paid... And they expressed too, actually, in those days. Yeah, they paid 50 quid or 20 quid or whatever it was for a little bit of tittle-tattle.

48:56And, of course, people like Lord Mountbatten and the Duke of Edinburgh were tough men. They were macho types, weren't they? Absolutely. They were real men in the old-school way, as was James Bond. Yes. Clearly, through being a Mountbatten, you spent time with the late Queen and Prince Philip. and were they friendly towards you? Oh, very, very friendly. Did they regard you as part of the family? When Prince Philip died, I did a piece for The Telegraph, I think, and actually he always took a great interest in George and myself. Again, I think this may be harked back from the fact that my grandfather took a great interest in him.

49:33And actually, I think my mother said, she has Alzheimer's now, so I can't sort of verify the story. But I was born in the Lindo Wing in Paddington. And Prince Philip happened to be doing an event there. Actually, I think he was in the hospital. And he heard my mother had just given birth. So he came bounding upstairs and he came flying into the room. And my mother was furious because she clearly wasn't looking her best. and for this adonis to come flying into the room and she was literally looking pretty awful but what could she say and so i think he was one of the first people to see me and actually he did ask us on various holidays and i think you know from a young age we went on britannia because in the summer they used to go on that tour around scotland didn't they yes Which I think the Queen, late Queen, looked forward to hugely.

50:32She did. And Penny and I also, we were very lucky, Prince Edward and... This is Penny, your wife? Yes. He and Sophie asked us to go on the Western Lounge cruise, it was. And it was the penultimate year before Britannia was going to be decommissioned. So it was 95. It was literally just a small party, so it was the Queen. The Duke of Edinburgh arrived a few days later. so there was Edward, Sophie, Penny, myself, Alistair Bruce and Mary Montague, Lord Montague of Bewley's daughter and that was it and we embarked in Portsmouth. We were told to be there at about four o 'clock and I completely misjudged the time for Moynes which was on the Essex-Suffolk border to get down to Portsmouth and we were told to be there at four.

51:25The Queen was going to arrive with Prince Edward at 4.30. As soon as she got on board, weighed anchor and off we went. And we arrived at 4.30. And of course, it closed off all the roads. So we had to run. And just as we got there, we could see Sophie and the rest of the party standing on the back of Britannia. and they were all tapping their watches, pointing at us, laughing. Just sort of tapping their watches and saying, you naughty boys. Anyway, so we had to stand there and wait and the Queen in the Rolls Royce rocks up and they get out and there's all the yachtsmen's families, the Commodores there and they whistle at Her Majesty on board.

52:14And at this point, Penny is spitting mad because, I mean, clearly, you know, this is her big chance to go on holiday with the Queen. And she can't believe that I've mucked up so badly. Anyway, so we see our chance and all the officers had sort of shuffled out of position. We run up the gangplank and of course they all start shuffling back into position and they salute as we come in. And anyway, the first lieutenant then takes us back and Her Majesty's there with Edward and Sophie and the rest of the party. And, of course, I say hello and profusely apologise. And she smiles, looks over her glasses, and she said, don't worry, she said, I'm quite used to it.

52:59The Mountbatons have always arrived after me. Which was always a bit of a dig, which was actually quite amusing. What was it like going on holiday with Elizabeth II? Well, it was wonderful. I mean... because they're usually most people acknowledge there was a kind of invisible moat around the queen because you're always conscious oh you are even though she was always natural and normal herself nobody was ever quite normal with her is that true that's absolutely very true i mean you always remember that she is the queen and no matter what you know you're always on your best behavior and every member of the family always bows first thing in the morning and then last thing at night otherwise you don't bow you know because otherwise you'd be bowing non-stop but it was first thing in the morning and last thing at night and technically you can't leave the room until she leaves the room and it is always quite formal but formal in a relaxed way she was fun wasn't oh she was great fun and she had a great sense of humor and there was one story which i think i've told you before we were going up to for a shooting weekend at Balmoral and Penny and I we lived in we were living in Devon at the time and so we were flying from Bristol airport and we turned up at Bristol airport and I had my guns in tow and we go and check in and the sweet check-in lady sort of says oh you're going to Aberdeen I said yes I've got some guns and she sort of looks and says oh dear I'm totally sorry you won't be able to take the guns on this flight so I said well why is that and she said well unfortunately the hold is accessible from the cabin and therefore they won't be secure so i thought oh dear this is a bit of a bore and i said well actually hopefully that won't be a problem can i speak to the pilot because it's clearly the pilot's discretion what we can do is we can break the guns so the barrels can go in the hold and the stock can go in the cockpit which is lockable of course so and she said oh I'm not sure about that but let me get my manager so the manager comes out and she was wasn't having any of this and she was being a bit pick-headed and she said no you can't do that she said um you'll have to leave them in the car and I said I can't leave firearms in the car that's highly illegal so she said well didn't you make a reservation for your guns and I said no I've never made reservations for my guns I've always just turned up it's never been a problem she said well not from bristol you haven't maybe from heathrow you'll just have to fly from heathrow so i thought this is she you know was being a bit of a bore so i said no i sort of decided i was going to pull rank at this point i said well i'm terribly sorry i'm going to balmol for the weekend i can't fly from heathrow the queen's sending me a car and she's expecting me for tea over to you anyways that sort of um focused her mind a bit and but she still wasn't letting me speak to the to the pilot so she came up with a solution that we would leave them with the police in the police armory at Bristol airport so it's fine so we go on the flight and we turn up at Balmoral ushered into the drawing room and immediately go into tea I'm sitting on the right hand side of the queen and I'm kind of irritated by this story so I repeat it to her majesty and I could see that she was getting rather irritated as well so she turns to her query i think it was simon at the time and she said simon i'd like lord ivor's guns to be up here tomorrow morning please see to it whereupon she turns back to me and she looks at me over her glasses with a glint in her eye and she says they want me to open their new terminal she says i don't think i will now and was the terminal ever opened the new terminal no and so uh every time i go back to bristol airport now it was opened by the princess royal and i have a quiet laugh to myself but anyway you know that was sort of rather funny it's rather yeah well be able to sort of say i don't think i'm going to open the terminal now just was wonderful small talk with the queen yeah

57:17you mentioned penny a few times what i want to know is because you also mentioned when you were a late teenager going out with girls having girlfriends as people as chaps do but at the same time in your head you knew that what you wanted what you fancied what you desired sexually at least were boys yes so how come you married penny how old were you i was let me see we got married in 94 so i was 31 because i was born in 63 1963 i lived in venezuela for a while that explains everything yeah well i'm a geologist by profession um and i used to come back very regularly and i'm i had a very good her brother was a very good friend of mine penny's brother penny's brother and he had this wonderful sister penny she was one of those people that really focuses on you.

58:11When you chat, she makes you the centre of your world. And I immediately fell in love with her. Had you by then had any actual affairs with men? I had had a few dalliances in Venezuela, but they were dalliances. There were no affairs. But you were sincere. You fell in love with her. Yes, absolutely. She made me fall in love with her. And she was wonderful. And we had a fabulous time. And I loved her to bits. so we got married in 94 and ella was born in 96 alexandra was born in 98 and louise was born in 2002 all good mount baton names or yes well ella was after grand duchess ella who was canonized in the russian church and she's appears in one of the niche you know all of this i do you've done all the research i'm bringing it out yeah i'm bringing it out for you in one of the niches outside westminster abbey wonderful so that's ella um and then alex was named after alexandra the two sisters and then louise was named after queen louise of sweden lovely and the reason we named her after queen louise because actually queen louise didn't have any children herself and when she died she left a lot of money in trust for george and myself so she was responsible really for paying for our school fees and she was a wonderful character and she used to visit London with her sister Alice so the two of them would come down together to make sure that my mother was looking after us suitably and Princess Alice always used to come and have Sunday lunch with us we had a flat in London and our nanny used to cook she used to do this wonderful mashed potato.

59:58Anyway, my mother would say, Aunt Alice, have you had enough to eat? And Aunt Alice would say, oh, I do love the potato. And she said, Lilibet and Philip are going out for dinner. So I don't suppose I will get anything tonight. Which my mother always thought was very amusing. Because at that point, she lived at Buckingham Palace. She died at Buckingham Palace. Yes, she did, didn't she? And so I did mention that to the Queen once. And I said, my mother always said when Aunt Alice came round, she often said that you were going out for dinner and that she wouldn't get anything to eat. You probably, having met the Queen a number of times, probably know how she always looks over her glasses at you.

1:00:42And you never know what she's thinking. And actually the wonderful thing about the Queen is you ask her, I often asked her a lot of questions about the family and history and everything. And quite often when you sat next to her and you asked her something, you'd think that she hadn't heard you. And she'd always take some time to compose a reply. And I think that stems from the fact that she, being a monarch, you were never sure of who was going to repeat anything you said, and you always assumed that it was going to be repeated. So she was always conscious of formulating a proper reply and never saying anything flippant.

1:01:28So I remember sitting next to her a number of times and thinking, has she heard what I said? And no, it's just she was being very cognizant of what she was going to say. She was remarkable. So you have three girls with Penny, and then you realise that it isn't going to work in the long run. Or does she realise how does that happen? I think ultimately, I mean, I'm not telling tales out of school because this is all well documented.

1:01:58Penny had quite a rough childhood. In fact, I don't think she was, you know, she was a love addict. and before I married her I did actually say that I like boys as much as girls. There's a wonderful expression, buy now, gay later. Have you not heard that? That's very good. Buy now, gay later. We don't give our episodes titles but I think we will this time. Buy now, gay later. So I told her I like boys because I didn't really want to live a lie. I really didn't want to live a lie. so you know a lot of girls would run a mile penny didn't and i think it's because she appreciated that i loved her very much and she wanted love and perhaps she didn't get enough love as a child or whatever but that was one of you know anyway i think after a number of years she probably wanted more from me that perhaps i could give so sadly she she was the one that wanted to end the marriage I would have quite happily carried on but interestingly what's what's kind of irritating many respects now a lot of people say oh Ivor it's wonderful to see you so happy and I think about that and I think well gosh I had that miserable before and apparently I was but I didn't appreciate it um but I thought you know I had a wonderful life and and I'd never really thought about it and when did you come out in quotes well after we divorced in 2010 it sort of didn't fail to be noticed in devon that lord ireland mount baton sort of quite a grand chap living a very one of the nicest houses in the county i suppose was single so um you know there was a fair bit of interest from some of the um single ladies oh um and word hadn't got out yeah clearly I mean it wasn't um and I suddenly thought to myself did I really want to go through the whole performance of lying again and not being faithful and at that point I did have a few dalliances locally um and I had one chap uh in particular, a lovely guy called Paul.

1:04:17And anyway, I wasn't ready to introduce him to my children and whatever, and he clearly wanted to move on. If I wasn't going to, you know, be a proper couple, then he had other things to do, which, fair enough. By this time, had you told your daughters? Not yet. Well, funnily enough, Ella, being the oldest, she knew something was going on. So they're very good at listening. They sussed out. Yeah, they sussed things out. And did they broach it with you before you broached with them? No, no. I initially told Ella. She knew there was some big secret, you know. I wasn't sure what it was. Anyway, I then told her.

1:04:59And I think sweetly, she said, oh, pup, that's no big deal. Everybody at school now goes on gay weekends. And then they come back and tell everybody. you know which is i thought god if you if you'd gone on a gay weekend with another mate at school back in the old days you would have been drummed out of school the world would have just never happened i know so she sort of took it really in her stride and said it's no big deal um and then which was lovely from your point of view was lovely from my point of view and then they went on living with penny they lived with penny but at that point they were living in the in the uh in the lodge at the end of the drive um and you know they which was worked because penny lived there and the girls could run backwards and forwards between the house and and the lodge and whatever and then this friend of mine paul that we i'd had a relationship with he said when you find the right person you'll be ready to come out yeah and he wasn't the right person or wasn't the right time is that what and then in the end is that what happened uh it and that exactly and then i met James.

1:06:04And you met James? This was a few years later now. I met James in Verbier. Anyway, I was going to the loo and James was walking out of the loo. And we had a sort of chat. And James is a very engaging chap. I don't think you haven't met him. Not yet. And he's got the gift of the gab. And he's just fabulous. He gave me his telephone number. And he said, you know, I need somebody to ski with if you if you fancy skiing and so any that's that's how much younger than you no he's actually a year older oh well done yeah so it was suitable it was suitable and i never understand why you know a lot of gay men have much younger partners because actually you know you want to grow old together and i always think that you know if you're sort of 17 you've got a 40 year old husband boyfriend whatever they're not going to want to look after you so you thought this is the one yeah quite quickly and he thought this is the one well what happened is we started chatting we sort of got to know each other really on the telephone and he then said oh there's something you should know and i said at the same time well i think there's something you should no and sort of james was thinking oh boy he's married um anyway he said he worked for british airways and i said well and i think he had you know there was this sort of stigma of perhaps being cabin service you know a cabin crew but i you know i said absolutely not what a brilliant job and then i said you were thinking immediately of the flights that you're going to get Yeah, absolutely.

1:07:45At a special rate. I mean, I know. And then I said, well, have a look at this website. And it was our Bridwell website. And there was a picture of me and it said, Lord Iver Mountbatten. Bridwell Park, home of Lord Iver Mountbatten. Oh, you didn't know at that stage? No, he didn't know. I'd never told him who I was. I just said I was Iver. Ah. And then when you decided to come out, you thought, I've got to do this because it's going to get into the papers anyway. Well, what happened then was he came down and spent a lot of weekends and I introduced him to the girls. And I think it was so sweet.

1:08:18We were walking around the park one day and I said, you know, that's the lodge. That's where the girls are. And apparently he said, mental note, don't go anywhere near the lodge. Anyway, later that evening, I said, come on, let's go and meet the girls. And he said, my God. Anyway, we took them all out. well I think we took the younger ones Alex and Luli out to the pub and at that point Luli was probably only 12 I said this was just a friend James and afterwards she called mum and she said mum mum papa's got a wonderful friend he's perfect for you I know so sweet it is so sweet perfect for you anyway they all adore james and you're now married aren't you we are now married and did the girls attend the wedding they attended the wedding and so did penny well done huh and penny actually the girls all said papa mommy needs to walk you down the aisle oh my and so she did she walked she walked me she walked me down the aisle gave me to james that was an interesting he's all yours so she said He's all yours.

1:09:29Good luck. That is very, very funny. Did you ask her too? Or the girls decided? No, I did. I asked her. Oh, bless her. They came up with the idea. Lovely idea. Yeah, no, it was lovely. And she was very magnanimous. We're almost at the end of our story. I have to ask you, you've now become internationally known because you've taken part in the American series of Traitors. Yes. Which, well, this is a spoiler for people who haven't yet seen it. You do rather well. in fact I'll reveal it you win I do that's fantastic I mean it was a real fluke and I have no idea how that happened but I mean I I think ultimately uh I played a bit of a gray man this was the American celebrity version um and last season John Bercow was the the former speaker of the powers of commons and this uh this last year i was asked um and i thought well why not i hadn't really watched the program but i mean my mother always said one thing she said try everything once so i thought well you know why not it should be you know it'll be fun and i quite like doing things that take you out of your comfort zone so i said yeah and uh it was filmed in Andros Castle in Scotland.

1:10:48So the American celebrity version and the UK version are virtually identical. Except the US version is the compere is Alan Cummings. And yeah, it was a lot of fun. Well, congratulations. Who knows what the future holds? Well, exactly. Before we end, I have to ask you to look back on your life and I'm going to say, I'm going to give a suggestion to you and you're going to give me what first comes into your head. A moment of joy. A moment of joy. There was a swimming gala, and I know I was at Tindon, so it must have been before my father died. We only had to swim a length, so I must have been younger than seven, or was it a width?

1:11:30I think it was probably a width. And my mother was so surprised that I actually finished it, that she got all her friends to sponsor me. And I think I was in the paper for having won or got two or three hundred pounds, which was a lot of money in those days, for the local charity. And as a result, my picture was in the paper, which I remember looking at it and thinking I was rather proud about that fact. Wonderful. And now a moment of sadness. Well, a moment of sadness was clearly when my father died, when I was seven. and that was the first and only real sadness, I think, in my life because, as I say, I've had a really fabulous life and it's continuing to be a fabulous life.

1:12:20Before we go, I must ask you about how coming out was received, how you think your family, your father, would have taken it. I think I know how the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh would have taken it because they were immensely tolerant people and more broad-minded than the public would think them. And knowing Prince Philip, he would have been totally at ease with it. Am I right there, do you think? Well, I think I read your book on Prince Philip in January when I was on holiday in South Africa. And I emailed you to say that I was very surprised that you had mentioned to Prince Philip that I had come out.

1:13:06and he said to you whatever makes him happy which i think is a nice you know that's very tolerant he was very very tolerant um what do you think but then he was a sailor so i think we're making each other laugh oh dear but have you reached i mean did the extended royal family i mean you are a mount baton has there been any reaction no none at all and you wouldn't expect it i wouldn't expect it as you say you know a lot of the royal household are staffed with with gay guys so they're all very tolerant i mean in this day and age it's i've always wondered whether it can be true that story about the late queen elizabeth the queen mother you know this story don't you oh about calling down to one of the uh staff saying can any one of you old queens bring this old queen a gin and tonic um i think it may well be true because she had a great sense of she did have a great sense of humor and it would have been a gin and your bonnie anyway yeah so we've come to the end what have you learned extraordinary life that you have led by virtue of birth and then achievement and then coming out as being gay and having to live some of that in the public gaze uh and now being in a good place with a good relationship with penny your former wife and with your daughters and with a happy marriage and which you're intending to be faithful oh absolutely james james i know we'll be together for the rest of our lives great he is he is just a fabulous guy one of the irritating things is that my nephews and nieces they will say hi uncle i've where's james and and it's not like they wait and say hi uncle iver how are you this up in the other where's james it's hi uncle i've where's james so you've had the validation in the end absolutely well done so what have you learned what has life taught you that you'd share you know i i think um never shy away from anything i mean i think you never know what's around the corner and um that is one of the things i you know i have said that i've had a bit of a tortuous relationship with my mother and it's not tortuous in that sense it's just a bit of sadness maybe that she wasn't the mother that perhaps you most people would have expected um would she have coped with this if she'd understood because she's now not well enough to understand well actually it's quite funny you say that because she has a carer and they have a love-hate relationship and every time um i would you know the carer would every time i was being the newspaper it It was, say, first gay royal and all that malarkey.

1:15:53And the carer would give the newspaper to my mother. And my mother would read it and she'd look up and she'd say, I didn't know Ivor was gay. And this would happen every week. So I now have this sort of, you know, I've got it down perfectly as how to tell my mother that I'm gay. Because I've done it every week for the last year. but no she was very tolerant and actually she said to my brother you know she said exactly the same as prince philip said as long as he's happy that is the main thing well i've been very happy talking to you ever thank you so much for being part of rosebud and giles thank you very much indeed for having me on

1:16:49Thank you.

1:17:21That was more Rosebud with music by Phil Leppard, production by Harriet Jane, and in the chair, me, Giles Brandreth. Thank you for listening.