Vita Sackville-West met her life-long companion Violet (Keppel) Trefusis, the daughter of Alice Keppel, Edward VII's mistress, in 1904.  They were children.  As teenagers, Violet would give Vita a ring as token of her affection.  Violet's mother Alice was still mistress to the King at the time and would remain so until his death in 1910. 

Violet and Vita's relationship would continue after their respective marriages, and they would even elope in 1921, although Violet would return to her husband Denys Trefusis, but that's another story.

Now, I need to warn you that this gets complicated, so stay with me. 

Dear J., who is currently languishing in the countryside (a specific countryside I might add that has given this nation not only Bill Clinton but both Mr. and Mrs. Huckabee, along with our beloved J. himself) was the first to notify me of the passing of Pat Kirkwood [see The Telegraph obituary], a singing star of the 40s and 50s, muse to Noel Coward and Cole Porter, and reputedly the mistress of Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh.
 
Miss Kirkwood met Prince Phillip in 1948 in her dressing room after a show, introduced by her then boyfriend, and the three of them enjoyed a dinner together.  The Prince, who was soon to be a father for the first time (with the birth of his son, Prince Charles), was later seen dancing and breakfasting with the actress.  "He was so full of life and energy," Pat Kirkwood was to say later.  "I suspect he felt trapped and rarely got a chance to be himself.  I think I got off on the right foot because I made him laugh," she recalled. 



Christmas 1954.  Pat Kirkwood has her own one-hour series on British TV, the Pat Kirkwood Show, and 1954 is the same year that she breaks box office records with a sell-out cabaret show at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas.  Meanwhile Prince Charles, heir to the throne and born in 1948 when his father was seen out on the town dancing with Miss Kirkwood, is now six years old.  Whether any of this comes up in conversation for Aunt Ruth (in rose, smoking), or my mother (listening with a tentative and possibly questioning air) is not recorded.

I know when Prince Charles was born because his birthday is a couple days after my brother's.  And I know this because my mother used to say she was home from the hospital with my brother and washing diapers and doing some ironing while she listened to the radio, and the news from London was that Princess Elizabeth who had given birth at the same time had that day been allowed to go to the window and wave to the adoring crowd gathered outside the Palace.  As my mother observed, "Wave?  I'm back in the fields, in a manner of speaking, and all she can manage is a wave?  I'm thinking, what's she going to do if she ever gets to be Queen?"

Of course it is highly unlikely my mother was aware of the business with the young chanteuse Pat Kirkwood, or she might have been a little more sympathetic.  The Princess clearly had more on her plate at the time -- husband galivanting around town with some hot tomato, as they used to say in those days -- than any of us could have imagined.  Whether even Helen Mirren, in her nuanced performance of the Queen, drew on this extra complexity in the royal relationship, is also open to speculation.

And finally, just to keep it all in the family, in a manner of speaking, let us recall that the great-granddaughter of Alice Keppel, Edward VII's mistress, would be Camilla Parker Bowles, the Duchess of Cornwall, formerly mistress to Prince Charles.  Now his wife.

There.  I told you it was complicated. 

As Justin says, it never pays to skip the Telegraph obits, but I was in Texas.  Thanks to S. I was also alerted to the very sad passing of Hugh Massingberd on this Christmas Day, Obituary Editor for the Daily Telegraph, who will be missed as well, if in a different way from Miss Kirkwood.