A brilliant mother despite everything

by INGRID SEWARD, Daily Mail

At one desperate low point in her life, Princess Margaret turned wistfully to her sister, the Queen, and said: 'I may not have achieved very much - but I at least feel my life has not been wasted, because I have produced two happy and well-adjusted children.'

The truth of that statement was borne out by the presence of her son, Viscount Linley, and her daughter, Lady Sarah Chatto, at her bedside when she died.

Her own talents may have been largely unfulfilled, as she was honest enough to recognise. She was flighty and, at times, irresponsible.

Yet the great irony is that she managed to bring up two children who are more settled and secure than the offspring of her altogether more straight-laced sister.

But this certainly was never achieved by their following her example of illconsidered romances and a fondness for parties and late nights. Indeed, these were the pitfalls which Viscount Linley and Lady Sarah have been astute enough to avoid.

And for that, Princess Margaret must take the credit. For it was she who instilled in her children their love of beautiful things and encouraged their interest in art.

Sarah is a painter who has held several exhibitions and her brother David is a world-famous furniture designer whose pieces are collected by the likes of Elton John.

Moreover, it is not for reasons of nepotism that the Queen gives gifts of his work to the heads of state she visits.

Only last week on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs, in a prescient moment, Viscount Linley selected Mozart's Piano Concerto No 24 in C minor to remember his mother by.

He also said that she had inspired his love of art and that she was 'very good at taking me to see just one object, so we would go to the National Gallery to see the Leonardo, or we would go to see the Vermeer - but only that.

'So she would constantly be dragged away by us, saying: "Well, can't we just go and see that?" And she would say: "Well, you can come back again if you want." So one actually became very keen to go back.'

It wasn't all plain sailing for David and Sarah, however. The Princess never bothered to conceal the fact that she found babies and young children irritating.

Once she confided that the responsibilities of motherhood did not appeal to her, and she was never tactile or compassionate towards her children when they were young.

She believed their lives should fit in to hers, not the other way around, and just seven weeks after the birth of her son she was to be found on holiday in Antigua, having left him behind in the care of a nanny.

Such issues led to the first of the rows with her husband: Lord Snowdon wanted to dispense with the traditional royal services of nannies and nurserymaids; Margaret, however, insisted on using them for the simple reason that it was a job she wasn't prepared to do herself.

It was she who employed the redoubtable Nanny Sumner, whose old-fashioned views about bringing up children were in direct conflict to Snowdon's own more modern ideas. But this was a battle that the ever-wilful Margaret was determined to win.

She was much keener on pursuing her own energetic social life than dealing with the mundane day-to-day problems of small children.

It was an attitude that she carried through into her later years. At Sandringham one year, she rounded on the Duke and Duchess of York's daughter Princess Beatrice, who was trying to engage her in childish conversation and said: 'Go away, you silly child, can't you see I am trying to read?'

And before she presented her mother with her first grandchild, Sarah Chatto admits that she felt the need for 'a stiff drink'. Her apprehension was well-founded - Princess Margaret had no interest in holding the baby.

Many daughters would have taken justifiable offence. Sarah didn't. She knew her mother only too well. She had learned to accept her and love her for what she was. And besides, Margaret had more than compensated in many loving ways for her sometimes off-hand behaviour.

As Margaret's children grew older, she began to take pleasure in sharing in their interests. She nurtured their musical tastes, which range from classical works to rock.

With the Queen there was always a clear, unbridgeable division between her public and private lives. With Margaret the distinction was always blurred, so she would take Linley with her on her official visits to factories - something the Queen would never have dreamed of doing with her own children.

But Sarah and David do recall how they spent most of their childhood holidays with the Queen who, while their mother slept in during the mornings, taught them to ride, showed them how to garden and encouraged them to swim in the cold waters of the Scottish lochs.

Children's memories are selective and neither Sarah nor her brother likes to dwell on the unhappiness of their parents' final months together.

Indeed, the break-up of the Snowdons' marriage, far from irreparably damaging the children, brought some much-needed calm to their young lives. They continued to live at Kensington Palace, saw their father as often as they liked and were able to enjoy their parents' company without worrying when the next row was going to erupt.

It helped that Sarah and David got on well with Snowdon's second wife, Lucy Lindsay-Hogg. And they rather liked Margaret's young lover, Roddy Llewellyn. But they had both been given a cruel lesson in how not to conduct a marriage.

It is an example both are determined not to repeat. They have chosen to follow a more settled path - Sarah with theatrical agent Daniel Chatto, Linley with Viscount Petersham's elegant daughter, Serena Stanhope.

Margaret was delighted with both their choices. Her friend and lady-in-waiting, Lady Glenconner, said: 'She was so proud of her children.'

Their upbringing had forced them to develop their independence, however. Unlike their cousins Prince Charles, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew, they have had the emotional confidence to make a go of their marriages.

They have, at the same time, been able to forge their own way in life. Being of royal blood certainly hasn't been a hindrance in their careers. But nor has it been the handicap that so afflicts the Queen's children.

There were disagreements with their mother, of course. Princess Margaret was very upset when Linley sold the house in Mustique she had given him to avoid death duties. Nor was she best pleased when Sarah set up home with Chatto before agreeing to marry him.

But that in no way detracted from the affection they felt for their mother - or she for them.

Indeed, David chose to move back into Kensington Palace with his wife and young son, Charles, in order to be closer to his mother during her final illness. Princess Margaret loved having him there.

And just a couple of days before her death, Princess Margaret's spirits were boosted when she attended the third birthday party of Sarah's second son and had a helium balloon tied to her wheelchair.

It was a scene that was testament to what she saw as her one true success in life - that of being a mother.

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