
How queen's sister was horrified by baby gift - 'would not hold it'
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Princess Margaret did not like one particular baby gift given to her daughter Lady Sarah, revealed a royal biographer. Christopher Warwick, author of ‘Princess Margaret - A life of
Contrasts’, recollected a confession once made by the Princess about a peculiar fear. Mr Warwick told Express.co.uk: “She didn’t like dolls. Even as a child you can see she’s looking at
these dolls in a way, and I said ‘why didn’t you like dolls?’ “And she said ‘they remind me of dead babies’. One of her ladies in waiting said to me that sometimes people on an official
engagement or something, will have said ‘there’s a doll for Lady Sarah’. “The lady in waiting said to me, ‘when I saw this coming towards us, I had quickly to take it with words of thanks
because the Princess wouldn’t have wanted to hold it’. “She was as the Queen put it, an enigma. There were lots of sides to her, lots of characteristics. “She was a fascinating personality.”
Princess Margaret scandalised the monarchy in the 50s when she fell in love with a married man, royal aide Group Captain Peter Townsend, who was 16 years older and had two children. By the
time she was in her 50s, Margaret began to suffer frequent health problems. In 1985, she had a section of her lung removed. In 1998, she had a stroke. The following year, she spent several
weeks in the hospital after scalding her feet in a bathing accident that limited her mobility for the rest of her life. Princess Margaret died at the age of 71 on February 9th 2002, just
seven weeks before the death of her mother on March 30th 2002. Margaret was born in Scotland in 1930 - the second daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. She was
forbidden from marrying Captain Townsend because he was a divorcee, something that caused great controversy in the press. After the end of their romance, Princess Margaret and her future
husband, Anthony Armstrong-Jones, were introduced at a dinner party in May 1958. They got married in a lavish wedding at Westminster Abbey in 1960 and were later made Count and Countess of
Snowdon. The royal couple had two children, Viscount David Linley in 1961 and Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones in 1964. Lady Sarah and then Viscount Linley grew up in the nursery of Kensington
Palace Portent 1a, raised by a nanny called Verona Sumner. Lady Sarah, now Lady Sarah Chatto, is a godmother to Prince Harry, Lady Rose Gilman and Lady Louise Windsor.