‘A story is told that Princess Margaret, having read Richard Holmes’s biography of Coleridge, craved to see Nether Stowey. Accordingly she instructed her pilot on the way back from an official chore to circle several times around the Somerset cottage.’
TOBY BARNARD in the TLS, reviewing The Oxford Guide to Literary Britain and Ireland, third edition
Journalistic
Close friends are expressing ‘deep concern’ that in recent weeks Princess Margaret has become ‘totally besotted’ by an opium-addicted eighteenth-century poet who anxious friends described as a hellraiser.
The Queen is said to be suffering ‘sleepless nights’ over her sister’s infatuation. Shocked onlookers who witnessed her appearance on an official visit said she looked ‘dreadfully haunted’, and that she could be seen ‘performing endless “waving” gestures with her right hand’.
‘This type of compulsive-obsessive behaviour is often a cry for help,’ says a leading psychiatrist.
Fears increased yesterday after the Princess demanded a private plane, funded by the British taxpayer, to fly her high above the poet’s West Country love-nest.
But as the plane arrived at the closely-guarded four-bedroom luxury hideaway, valued at over £1 million, the Princess was seen to be behaving erratically.
She refused to allow the plane to descend, instead peering longingly at the poet’s bedroom window, say distressed onlookers.
Against all advice, the unhappy-in-love Princess then ordered the pilot – a married man – to fly around and around in terrifying circles. This led some traumatised villagers to describe the unexplained expedition as ‘a nailbiting life-and-death journey to hell and back’.
There is no firm evidence that the Princess is addicted to hard drugs, but friends say she has found it hard to overcome rumours that she continues to struggle with cellulite.
‘This was a wholly unsuitable expedition for anyone so close to the throne,’ said one royal expert last night. ‘Princess Margaret’s behaviour continues to offer cause for concern.’
She seems to have it all. Wealth. Fame. Glamour. The most famous sister in the world.
But will she ever find true happiness?
Comic
Stop me if I’ve told you, but there was this Princess, see, and she’d just read this totally mind-boggling book about a poet, right, and so this Princess, she says, ‘You know what I’m going to do, I’m going to get into this plane, and I’m going to say to the pilot, “Take me to the poet’s cottage – and circle around and around until I say ‘Whoah!’”’ And that, my friends, is exactly what she did – only what the poor woman didn’t realise was that the poet was dead and buried! Whoops!
Statistical
Princess Margaret (1930–2002) read Coleridge: Early Visions by Richard Holmes (1989), which was 409 pages long.
She was flying in a Cessna 172P Skyhawk, with a full, two-tube Lycomin O-320-D2J engine. They were cruising at about 201 mph at 3,000 feet.
It was a 73 per cent clear day. She looked down on the village of Nether Stowey (OS grid reference STI94308), with its population of 1,373. This was where the third most prolific Romantic poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lived between 1797 and 1799.
The plane came in to land against a north-westerly wind at 16.36 hours precisely.
Discreet
Someone, who must remain nameless, was visiting the town or village of X in the West Country.* He or she had read somewhere that something had happened at a particular location,* and somehow managed to get another person to convey them by a certain means of transport to a location in some way related to it.* But for God’s sake, this must remain strictly between ourselves.
Alliterative
The poems pondered and the pretty pointless parading partaken, the pert Princess primed the pertinacious pilot to pursue a path promptly to the pothead poet’s pastoral pad to peruse the priceless panorama, perhaps pleading too pooped to pop out and participate in a painstaking potter.
Confrontational
‘So you claim to have heard this story, is that correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘You read it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ha! One moment you claim you heard it, and the next you claim you read it! I put it to you, sir, that you cannot have done both!’
‘But I –’
‘Very well. Let us now turn to the “story” itself. Did you or did you not suggest that it involved the late Princess Margaret, who is, I might add, in no position to defend herself?’
‘Well, I –’
‘And did you, furthermore, claim that a mysterious pilot was in some way involved?’
‘Yes, but I –’
‘Even though you don’t know his name, and you haven’t the foggiest idea what he looked like?’
‘Well, I –’
‘And yet you are seriously asking us to believe that the late Princess Margaret, a devoted mother of two, ordered this unknown pilot to fly over a wholly unremarkable cottage! And all because she had just read a book!’
‘Well, if you put it like that …’
‘Yes, I do indeed put it like that.’
‘Well, I –’
‘No further questions, m’lud!’
Gastronomic
1 Princess Margaret
1 Biography of Coleridge
1 Nether Stowey
1 Pilot
1 Plane
First, pour biography into Princess Margaret.
Mix well.
Place Princess Margaret in the plane with the pilot.
Wait until the mixture has risen.
Now, fly the plane over the village.
Add spice.
Serve with garnish, sauce, flavouring.
Chinese Whispers
‘Princess Margaret flew in a plane over Coleridge’s cottage.’
‘Princes more regretfully play over coal ridge’s cold itch.’
‘Print cess replay overcoat rich cod id.’
‘Priceless repair coat Trish curd.’
‘Prepare catty skirt.’
Argumentative
I don’t know who told this story and frankly I don’t fucking care. Do you have an issue with that? Well, do you?
Just let me finish, for once. Whatever nutter told this load of bullshit said that Princess Margaret – God, I mean, who really gives a fuck about Princess Margaret, for Chrissake? – that Princess so-called Margaret once read Richard Holmes’s unbelievably tedious biography of Coleridge, who honestly must be the most overrated so-called poet who ever lived. As the sister of the most boring and overpaid woman in the world, she then thought it perfectly reasonable to order her pig-ignorant pilot to destroy the ozone layer just that little bit more by circling around and around Nether Stowey, which, let’s face it, is the single most boring place in the world, and if you don’t agree with that then you’re even more of a moron than you look. Do you have an issue with that? Well – do you? Typical!
Blurb
For the very first time, the extraordinary death-defying tale of Princess Margaret’s secret flight to Nether Stowey can now be told.
The crazed poet who could never say no.
The pilot chasing his dreams.
The rebel Princess who had loved and lost.
And the legendary biographer who prompted her insatiable craving for the adventure of a lifetime.
Follow the tragic Princess on her amazing quest, and you will never be the same again. This landmark story of tragedy and triumph will change your life.
Forever.
Footnote
* Princess Margaret, HRH the (1930–2002). Sister of HM Queen Elizabeth II.
† Coleridge: Early Visions by Richard Holmes (Hodder & Stoughton, 1989).
‡ Nether Stowey, pop. 1,373.
§ The name of the pilot is unknown.
¥ Private information.
Haiku
Princess Margaret
Having read Coleridge flew
Over his cottage.
Oleaginous
This is one of the most marvellously touching of the many delightful stories that are told about that most beautiful of all Royal Princesses. Her Royal Highness was, of course, an inveterate book-lover, in fact one of the best-read women I have ever had the privilege of knowing, and she had simply adored lovely Dickie Holmes’s quite wonderful life of Coleridge, as had we all. So lively was her curiosity, so quick her intelligence, that the divine Margaret managed to persuade her pilot (who, incidentally simply adored her) to fly his brilliantly nippy little plane over the delightful village of Nether Stowey. And thus, with characteristic wit, style and elegance did our most gracious of Princesses pay handsome tribute to the very greatest of poets.
Hypochondriacal
Her back hurt dreadfully and her ankles swelled to bursting as the frail plane spluttered and choked its exhausted way through the bruised skies.
Straining her neck to peer out of the window through her ill-fitting contact lenses, the Princess – who as a young girl had suffered not only mumps and chickenpox, but also German measles – would have known that if the elderly plane were to crash-land, her chances of survival would be minimal.
Hundreds of yards below, the inhabitants of Nether Stowey – a village stricken by a deadly plague three centuries before – coughed and sneezed, placed their heads in their hands, sighed, and prepared themselves for the end.
Non-sequitur
In order to finish an official function, Princess Margaret went round and round in circles. She flew over a cottage in Somerset because she had read a book. And that’s why Richard Holmes wrote a biography of Coleridge.
Index
Coleridge, S.T. (see Nether Stowey)
Holmes, Richard (biographer; see Coleridge, S.T.)
Margaret, HRH Princess (see Holmes, Richard)
Nether Stowey (see Somerset)
Somerset (see Margaret, HRH Princess)
Optimistic
Margaret’s heart soared as she stepped into the aeroplane. Her dream had finally come true: at last, she was to set eyes upon her beloved poet’s cherished village from the air.
Her devoted pilot delighted in doing exactly what she wanted. Even the little birds bowed their heads as she swept by, chirruping their pretty songs in her honour. It was the smoothest flight imaginable, and she gasped with delight as the magical scene generously unfurled itself beneath her.
So this was where Samuel Taylor Coleridge had lived, so very long ago! How happy she was to see it! Oh, yes! she thought: life has nothing to show more fair!
Phonetic
Eh jest abite menaged to streggle through dyeeeah Richard’s dreadfully lawng book on that tiresome little payit. After enduring a ghastly événement nearby, one prevailed upon one’s pailot to flay one to the beck of beeyawned. Tairble waste of tame! Eh mean, realleh!
Suggestive
It’s an open secret that the Princess had just been lapping up a biography of Coleridge, who was widely known to have been addicted to opium, and whose poems swell with sexual references. By the time she had gasped her way through it, she had become so overwhelmed with desire to visit his home that she climbed into her four-seater and commanded her pilot to pull hard on his joystick and dip and dive in smooth, luscious circles around the Somerset cottage that lay nestling in the cleavage of the Quantocks.
Limerick
There was an old Princess called Margaret
Who had downed rather more than a lager; it
Made her yearn to say ‘Coo-ee!’
High above Nether Stoowey,
That contrary old Princess called Margaret.
Psychedelic
She’s flying high, high, high in the sky, looking down, down, down on all those like crazy blades of grass and the red chimneypots open to the heavens like fishes’ mouths when from out of nowhere the cat who once lived there, all those centuries before, appears like beside her in the cabin, telling her all the latest from Xanadu and Porlock and all that shit, and so together they soar into the evening sky on the outspread wings of this like great big bird, this albatross, and they circle around and around and around and she thinks, this is Nether Stowey, this is Stether Nowey, this is Weystone NeverNever Land, together forever, and everything is like far out and totally unreal, like totally unroyal.
Multiple Choice
1) Princess Margaret was in:
a) a plane
b) a car
c) a boat
2) She had just finished:
a) a fun-run
b) an official chore
c) her lunch
3) The book Princess Margaret had just read was:
a) The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
b) The World is Full of Married Men by Jackie Collins
c) Coleridge: Early Visions by Richard Holmes
4) The village over which she flew was:
a) Nether Stowey
b) Preston Candover
c) Bovey Tracey
Answers: 1 a; 2 b; 3 c; 4 a
Psychoanalytic
Because her dominant father had died as she entered into puberty, and her sibling had beaten her to become HMQ of GB, M. fell victim to the overwhelming urge to re-enter the womb that was her small private plane and to stare long and hard at the two sides of a particular village with which she had become obsessed: Nether (anus) and Stowey (vagina).
Nursery Rhyme
Her Royal Highness
Went up in a plane!
Her Royal Highness
Was never seen again!
Where did she come from?
What did she see?
Margaret flew over
The house
And
Never
Came
Back
For
Tea!
Queen’s Speech
At this time of year, few sights evoke feelings of happiness and goodwill more readily than the lovely spire and rooftops of the peaceful West Country village of Nether Stowey.
And so, once more, our thoughts turn to the age-old story of my younger sister, journeying in her modest aeroplane high above a Somerset idyll in order to catch a glimpse of the home of one of that illustrious region’s most distinguished poets, who is sadly no longer with us.
And as we remember this story, we take comfort from this heartwarming tale of valour in the air, and its eternal message of hope for all mankind.
Zippy
She read, ordered, flew, circled, peered, and went home.
Spoonerism
The tory is sold that Mincing Pargaret, Snowess of Countdown, had been laking a took at a tolarly schome about the Morantic poet Camel Sailor Toll Bridge.
Rather than shake in a toe or foot her peat up with a tug of me or bay on the pleach with a sucket of band, she cold the tapped-in cloud and lear on the bay wack from a dormal futy to wry in flings around the pate growit’s Comerset sausage.
Tautological
The tale is told by a story-teller that a high-born Royal Princess read page after page of a non-fiction biography of the versifying poet Coleridge. Coming back on a return journey from an official function, she commandingly instructed the pilot in the cockpit to fly his plane up in the air over and above the rural country village where the bookish man of letters had lived and breathed for a period of time before his tragic death.
Upwardly Inflected
Princess Margaret? read a book about Coleridge? and got the guy who was driving her plane? to fly her over his home village? so she could take a look?
Vague
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that someone like Princess Margaret, or the other one, whatever she’s called, or perhaps it was someone more like Prince, but basically someone incredibly famous, the name escapes me, apparently this man, or woman, had been reading a book about someone, I forget who, but someone pretty well known, and as they were near where he or she either used to live or still lived, and it was definitely somewhere in Britain, or possibly abroad, they asked their chauffeur – or was it their pilot? – yes, it must have been their pilot, because they were either in a plane or a helicopter – to fly over whatever the place was called, and I’m pretty sure that that’s what they did, though I’m not sure I can remember every detail.
Tragic
Thousands of feet up in the air, the Princess had never felt so utterly, utterly alone. Did she consider, however momentarily, the possibility of throwing open the door of the aircraft and hurling herself out? And as she hurtled to her doom, who can say what her thoughts might have been? Would she have reflected on the futility of all human aspiration? Would she have felt that, in death, she would at last be the centre of attention? Or would she have let out one last, piercing yelp, a defiant outburst against the cruel whims of providence?
* Private information.
* Private information.
* Private information.