Book info

• Title On Duty with the Queen
• Author Dickie Arbiter
• Year 2014
• Genre Memoir

In this wonderful and honest book, former press secretary to the royal family Dickie Arbiter reveals the inner-workings of everyday life inside Buckingham Palace and what it's really like to be On Duty with the Queen. With four decades of experience covering royalty as a journalist and as one of Her Majesty's press secretaries, Dickie Arbiter has had unprecedented access to the inner circle of some of the most intriguing news stories over the years and is the only royal commentator to have witnessed the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and covered her Silver, Golden and Diamond Jubilees. Appointed a press spokesman for Queen Elizabeth II in 1988, Dickie was immediately thrown into the media circus surrounding the world's most famous and divisive family.

Thoughts

At the end of this book, Dickie Arbiter says this was intended to be a professional memoir of a difficult period in the monarchy that he was on hand to witness, but gradually it became something more personal. That shines through during the whole book. It’s about his job in the press room of Buckingham Palace during some very difficult times - the death of Princess Diana in particular.

But then Arbiter links it back to his own life, which reads as a disjointed upbringing that gave him a unique but open take on life and helped him in his job for years to come.

There’s nothing groundbreaking in here, nothing to start rumours or put any existing speculation to rest, but that’s what you’d expect from someone who had been an integral part of The Firm and has an unerring loyalty to what appears to be a close knit team (including the Royals themselves). It’s an interesting book nevertheless, giving an insight into some of the challenges that are faced by those born into their roles.

Rating: 3 / 5