The Girl With The Widow's Peak

Born in November 1916 to the Marquess of Granby, Lady Ursula d'Abo is a sprightly and still charming lady whose memoirs of her uniquely glamorous life make riveting reading. She records life at Belvoir Castle, as maintained on a feudal scale until September 1939. We hear of her coming-out Ball and her role in the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937. Dressed by Norman Hartnell, she was one of the Six Maids of Honour. By contrast, her war work was to include being in charge of hundreds of women at a munitions factory in Grantham. Lady Ursula recalls her close friendships with men as varied as Rex Whistler, the Maharajah of Jaipur, Paul Getty, and Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen. The story told is unforgettable, and though it has touches of Brideshead and Downton Abbey, it is utterly novel for, unlike them, it is actually real.