Conjure in your mind the magic of a traditional Christmas: a vast tree lit by flickering candles in the hallway of a Scottish baronial mansion, a carpet of snow turning the moors glistening white, skiing on the mountains, skating on frozen ponds and a huge turkey borne by servants on a vast silver platter for lunch.
Then think about a wildly unconventional Christmas; one on a tiny Caribbean island with white sandy beaches lapped by turquoise seas, Santa Claus arriving by boat and rock royalty — Mick Jagger and David Bowie — joining in a carol service, singing lustily alongside the locals, in a tiny bamboo church.
It all sounds fantastical — too improbable to be real — doesn’t it? But my memories of Christmases past, which stretch back to my girlhood more than eight decades ago, have oscillated wildly between these two extremes.
Very fancy dress: Lady Glenconner (above centre) at her 60th birthday party on Mustique with Roddy Llewelyn (left), Lord Linley and (right) Princess Margaret
I was raised at Holkham, my father’s ancestral home in Norfolk, and after I married Colin Tennant, the third Baron Glenconner in 1956, our first Christmases were spent at either my girlhood home or Colin’s Scottish castle, Glen.
But Colin was theatrical, extravagant and a maverick. In 1958 he bought Mustique in the Grenadines for £45,000, and proceeded to turn a primitive island without running water or electricity — and frazzled to a crisp by the unforgiving Caribbean sun — into an exclusive bolthole for royalty and rock stars.
And of course we, too, built a home there, so our family Christmases were then spent either in the Scottish borders, at Norfolk or on our unspoilt little island paradise.
But my memories stretch back much further. Imprinted in my mind are the marvellous Christmas parties I used to go to as a small child with my sister Carey at Buckingham Palace.
My father, the 5th Earl of Leicester, was equerry to King George VI and when he was crowned in 1937 Carey and I were invited to join Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, as well as the children of high-ranking Palace staff, for a glorious Christmas tea.
Carey and I always wore frilly dresses, white socks and silver shoes, which were much coveted by the young Princess Margaret. I recall a photo taken at Holkham in which Princess Margaret, then about four, was gazing at my feet.
Years later I asked why she was doing that and she admitted it was because she longed for a pair of silver shoes like mine rather than her sensible brown ones.
Strict protocols were observed at the Palace at tea-time. We children sat round a large table, our places marked with our names.
Behind us stood our nannies, capable women smartly turned out in navy blue skirts, crisp white blouses and navy hats. The nannies covered our knees with linen napkins and we wore embroidered bibs to spare our dresses.
I still recall the sandwiches; bite-sized morsels filled with cucumber, egg or ham, which we had to eat before we were given a scone with jam and cream and finally a tiny iced fairy cake.
Lady Anne Glenconner with husband Colin Tennant (above centre) and Blanca Jagger on the island in 1976
After tea came entertainment: a magic show or Punch and Judy, the nannies surveying us from little gold chairs, while George V’s widow Queen Mary sat on a sofa.
At the end of the party, the children would be invited to take a present each from a big table —behind which stood Queen Mary, who made me feel quite nervous — near the Christmas tree.
Tall and imposing, she was a rather imperious and forbidding figure to children.
Princess Margaret never warmed to her because every time she saw her, Queen Mary would say: ‘I can see you haven’t grown.’
Princess Margaret minded frightfully about being small all her life.
Queen Mary did teach me a valuable life lesson, however. One year Carey — two years my junior — rushed up to the table laden with gifts and clasped a huge teddy bear, sitting among the presents.
Before I chose mine, Queen Mary leant towards me. ‘Anne,’ she said quietly, ‘quite often rather nice, rather valuable things come in little boxes.’
I froze. I had my eye on a doll but I was far too frightened to choose anything other than a little box. Inside was a beautiful pearl and coral necklace.
As a child I don’t think I quite appreciated its worth or beauty, but I kept it to wear when I was older. When my twin daughters Amy and May were old enough, they, too, enjoyed taking turns to wear it to parties, and this Christmas my great-granddaughter Ruby will be wearing it.
So Queen Mary was quite right. It proved far more precious and durable than a doll or teddy bear. Not all the Christmas gifts given by the Royal Family were welcome ones, however.
Early in 1971 Princess Margaret invited me to be one of her Ladies in Waiting — I continued in the role for almost three decades — and every Christmas she held a tea party for us all at the Stone Hall in Kensington Palace where a wonderful tree would be decked out with parcels underneath.
Some of her gifts were thoughtful and generous. However she also recycled her handbags, giving away ones she’d obviously rejected after several uses.
She also liked to buy things that were robustly functional and practical, and I’ll never forget the look on the face of poor Jean Wills, another of her Ladies in Waiting, when Princess Margaret presented her with a loo brush for Christmas, declaring, ‘I notice you didn’t have one of these when I came to stay.’ Jean looked mortified. Of course she had a loo brush. She’d just hidden it — as you would — when Princess Margaret had visited.
Jean didn’t disguise her disappointment. The Princess was surprised she wasn’t more appreciative. ‘But it’s won a design award!’ she said indignantly.
Jean was thoroughly put out, especially when she saw the scarf I’d been given — but many years later we laughed about it.
Of course we loved our traditional family Christmases, alternately at Holkham then Glen.
At Holkham the huge Christmas tree in the long gallery was lit up by real candles. There were morning prayers at the chapel and later we’d walk to the church in the park for a service.
All the tenant farmers on the estate gave a turkey as part of their annual rent. Most were sent to hospitals and old people’s homes, but we kept an enormous one which was cooked in the vast Victorian oven in the kitchens.
We’d have a first course of pate or shrimp cocktail, then one of the gardeners, who played the bagpipes, would pipe the turkey into the dining hall. A vast amount was drunk, then after lunch we’d open our presents.
During the afternoon there was a brisk walk to burn off the lunch time’s excesses and we’d return to find the table set with a cold buffet, because the staff had the afternoon off so they could enjoy their Christmas lunch.
My father also had a pheasant shoot considered one of the best in the country. Invitations were so coveted people fainted with delight at the prospect of going.
Colin Tennant (right) with Mick Jagger (left) at a party
On Christmas Eve, 1960, we were at Holkham for the famous shoot and my father — a stickler for order and protocol — decreed that the guns should be placed, in line with tradition, according to rank. The Duke of Edinburgh happened to be there and he was given the best position, in the middle of the drive.
His equerries were placed beside him, next came other dukes, marquesses, earls and viscounts.
Not having such an elevated title, my husband, alas, came right at the bottom of the heap. ‘You can walk with the beaters, Colin,’ decreed my father. Colin was livid, but, with rare self-control, somehow managed to subdue any visible signs of anger.
My father always thought Colin’s family — whose vast wealth and industrial dynasty was founded on their creation of bleaching powder in 1799 — were ‘tradesmen’ and rather beneath him.
Small wonder really that Colin preferred Mustique Christmases — with their relaxed informality and unconventional charm — to the stuffiness of Holkham.
And what extraordinary fun we had during those carefree festive breaks in the Caribbean.
Our five children jibbed at going to start with. They loved the tobogganing and skiing in the snow at Glen; the tradition, the firelight; the wintry wonder of it all. To them — in the early years, at least — it seemed alien to be eating a very tough, stringy, old local chicken with tinned vegetables while the fairy lights flickered on and off with the ebb and flow of the island’s erratic electricity supply.
Water, to begin with, was hauled from standpipes in a bucket. There were no shops, so I brought plum puddings and sacks of presents from home.
But soon Henry, Charlie, Christopher and the twins warmed to the alternative delights of their island Christmas.
We’d cut a thorn bush out of the local scrub in place of a grand fir from the Glen estate and decorate it with tinsel and baubles from home. Rather than skiing, they all began to love swimming in the azure waters of Macaroni Bay.
Meanwhile Colin’s West Indian friend Basil — whom he’d discovered in a ditch some years earlier after he’d fallen off his motorbike — acted as Father Christmas. Basil ran Mustique’s first bar — it is still there today, as is Basil — and he was happy to dress up in a red suit and don a huge false beard, to the delight of our children. He’d arrive in a boat (not a sleigh), tethering it at his bar, which stands on stilts in the water.
Colin had a villa built on Mustique for Princess Margaret as a wedding gift when she married Antony Armstrong-Jones and the island soon became a private haven for royalty and rock star glitterati. Mick and Bianca Jagger and David Bowie were among those who enjoyed the seclusion of their luxury island homes.
Mick was often there with us, and he later brought along Jerry Hall, and their three elder children, Elizabeth, James and Georgia.
I remember several Christmases in the 1990s when Mick and David Bowie led the carol singing at the little bamboo church on the island, singing Away In A Manger in harmony with the locals who had absolutely no idea there were two world superstars in their midst.
There was no perturbation or fuss when a steady stream of Royals and celebrities came and went bringing strange new customs, uprooting thorn bushes and festooning them with fairy lights.
I’m sure the islanders’ laid-back hospitality, and its laissez-faire privacy, is what draws Prince William and the Duchess of Cambridge to it. Indeed, they invited Basil to their wedding.
When I look back today at the wonder and madness of Mustique — the extravagant parties, the impromptu concerts by Jagger and Bowie on the little stage at Basil’s bar, the games of charades in which Mick once dressed as a doctor and a queue of eager women volunteered to be his patients — it seems like some dream-like fantasy, which in a sense, I suppose it was.
I am 87 now, and this Christmas will be infinitely calmer and quieter. I will spend it in my modest Norfolk home — my late husband having left most of his estate, on his death in 2010, to a West Indian friend called Kent (but that’s another story).
Quieter Christmas: Anne is looking forward to a pub lunch with her family
My dear friend Barbara Barnes, who was nanny to my three younger children, and went on to be nanny to Princes William and Harry, too, will be with me.
Having published a memoir, Lady In Waiting, this year, I am tired. My three surviving children said: ‘No cooking for you this Christmas, Mum!’ So Christopher and his wife are taking Barbara and me to a nearby pub for lunch. I will have turkey. Barbara has chosen beef.
Afterwards we’ll come home and have a lovely, peaceful time together. We’ll watch the Gavin And Stacey Christmas Special — I love it! — and Strictly Come Dancing.
I’m also looking forward to highlights from Only Fools And Horses and repeats of The Vicar Of Dibley. Do you remember the one when she had six Christmas lunches from different parishioners and then was sick behind a hedge? I laughed so much.
Barbara and I will have a drink, of course. We have something to celebrate because she came to us when Christopher was born, which was 51 years ago. Sometimes I think back to the days when I had staff to do all the cooking and housekeeping for me.
But now, of course, I do everything myself. And there’s much to be said for that, isn’t there?
One can have exactly what one pleases: masses of bread sauce and an extra helping of trifle.
But this year, my marvellous daughter-in-law is arranging our outing to the pub and all I will have to think about is tea.
I’m looking forward, too, to seeing my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, including dear Ruby who will be wearing that cherished pearl and coral necklace — the one Queen Mary was so insistent I chose.
Lady In Waiting: My Extraordinary Life In The Shadow Of The Crown by Anne Glenconner is published by Hodder at £20. To order a copy for £16 (offer valid to 4/1/20; p&p free), visit mailshop.co.uk or call 01603 648155.
Lady Glenconner will be touring the UK in Spring 2020. For details, see fane.co.uk/ladyglenconner
For details of Holkham By Candlelight Tours between Christmas and New Year, visit holkham.co.uk