Alistair Lexden contributed a few comments to supplement the obituary of the Dowager Lady Farnham, published in The Times on January 4. Lady Farnham served the Queen as lady of the bedchamber for over 30 years. The Times explained the role: “historically it involved preparing clothes, accessories and make-up, though in modern times its holder has largely been friend, companion and confidante to the monarch.”
In his short supplement, published in The Times on January 12, Alistair Lexden wrote: “I often sat beside Diana Farnham during services at the Chapel Royal in St James’s Palace, turning the pages of The Book of Common Prayer for her when her eyesight began to fade. “I really ought not to leave the car so far from the pavement,” she would say during our little Sunday confabulations, “but the police are very understanding.” We conducted a joint campaign to get our favourite young priest to pronounce the syllables of the word adversary correctly, achieving only partial success.
When she asked me how old I was, I docked several years from my true age, as is my custom. She looked at me incredulously. She was not a woman who could be deceived.”
