He smiles at her as she reaches his side and her heart swells with a strange mixture of joy and relief, as if coming into safe harbour at last.

He is there.

THE END

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Acknowledgements

It’s always a pleasure to get to the end of the book and to thank all those without whom I would still be staring at a blank screen. First and foremost, my thanks to Charlotte Ledger, who was thinking about this book before I was. I am so grateful to her for the idea and the opportunity to write it, and to Bethan Morgan and the rest of the team at One More Chapter for their unfailing enthusiasm and support. Many thanks, too, and as always, to my tirelessly supportive agent, Caroline Sheldon.

Before the Crown is my imagining of how this most famous of relationships may have developed. It is, obviously, a work of fiction but it is based on fact, and I have drawn on a number of published biographies and accounts of the events that led to this most iconic of royal weddings.

I found the following books particularly useful: Philip Eade, Young Prince Philip; Anne Edwards, Royal Sisters; Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret; Queen Alexandra of Yugoslavia, Prince Philip: A Family Portrait; Charles Higham and Roy Moseley, Elizabeth and Philip: The Untold Story; Robert Lacey, Royal: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; Marion Crawford, The Little Princesses by their governess; John Dean, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh: A Portrait by his Valet.

I also read Sally Bedell Smith, Elizabeth the Queen: The real story behind The Crown; Sarah Bradford, Elizabeth; Tim Heald, The Duke: A Portrait of Prince Philip; Basil Boothroyd, Prince Philip; Gyles Brandreth, Philip and Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage; John Parker, Prince Philip; Eileen Parker, Step Aside for Royalty; Margaret Rhodes, The Final Curtsey.

While I read all these books with interest and took what I wanted from them, it goes without saying that any mistakes are mine alone. I am grateful to the authors above for their research or memories. Sometimes they disagree on the details of exactly what happened and when, and in those cases I have chosen what seems plausible to me and fits with my story. It is impossible in any case to tell ‘the truth’ about what happened in the past, as we all experience it differently. I suspect that even the two people most closely involved in this story might have varying memories of precisely what was said and done more than seventy years ago!

Finally, I’d like to thank two people who have helped more than they know while I’ve been writing Before the Crown: Julia Norman, walking pal, scone queen and skilled listener; and John Harding, for the loan of his name, and much else besides.