The silk gown made for her wedding to Eddy had been embroidered with mayflowers. The wasp-waisted, off-the-shoulder, cloth-of-silver wedding gown now being made for her was lavishly embroidered with roses and shamrocks. With it she would wear a wreath of orange blossom intertwined with myrtle and her mother’s wedding veil, secured with a Rose of York diamond diadem, a present to her from the Queen.

All through the latter part of June and the beginning of July, London had sweltered in a heatwave, and May’s wedding morning dawned bright and clear, with the same promise of heat in the air.

At eleven-thirty Georgie’s mother and all the royal wedding guests left for St James’s Palace and the Chapel Royal in open landaus, through streets crammed with cheering, flag-waving crowds. Fifteen minutes later, Georgie left the palace accompanied by his father, Next, in the state Glass Coach and to thunderous ovations, came the Queen accompanied by Princess Mary Adelaide. The Queen, dressed in black silk, wore the Riband of the Garter across her ample chest, and the diamond coronet she had worn at her own wedding was perched on top of her wispy, snow-white hair.

With rising tension, May watched every departure from a window of Buckingham Palace and then, accompanied by her father and Dolly, hurried downstairs to where her own carriage was waiting.

The route to the Chapel Royal took them up Constitution Hill, through Piccadilly and along St James’s Street, and on every inch of the way she was greeted with the same kind of thunderous ovation that the Queen had met with.

At the Chapel Royal her bridesmaids were waiting for her. As they fell in behind her, the organist began to play the ‘Wedding March’, and as she walked down the aisle on her father’s arm – hardly able to believe how her life was about to change – Georgie, handsome in naval uniform, looked towards her and made her a courtly bow.

Her mother cried when, four hours later and after the wedding breakfast, it was time for May and Georgie to leave for Liverpool Street station, where the train to Sandringham, at which they were to spend their honeymoon, was waiting for them.

‘Life is going to be so quiet at White Lodge without you, May.’ The words came from the bottom of Princess Mary Adelaide’s heart. ‘What on earth am I going to find to chat about, with only your papa for company?’

It was a question that, with the best will in the world, May had no answer for.

Liverpool Street station was thronged with relatives wanting to wave them on their way, and it was only when the train at last steamed out of the station that May was able to take off her hat trimmed with ostrich plumes and white rosebuds and collapse into one of the royal carriage’s deeply comfortable armchairs.