‘Orgasmic’ – Dame Jilly enjoys receiving honour
AUTHOR Dame Jilly Cooper has described receiving a royal honour from the King as “orgasmic”.
The 87-year-old also named The Common Years as her favourite piece of work she has written, after being made a dame for her services to literature and charity yesterday.
She is chiefly known for her Rutshire Chronicles, which focus on scandal and adultery in upper-class society and an aristocratic character called Rupert Campbell-Black.
The series has seen a string of bestsellers with titles such as Riders, Rivals, Polo, Mount! and The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous along with her most recent work, 2023’s
Tackle!.
The investiture ceremony at Windsor Castle was the first carried out by Charles since he was diagnosed with cancer.
Asked how it felt to receive the honour, Dame Jilly, who lives in Bibury, Gloucestershire, said: “Orgasmic! Just terribly exciting and nice. I never dreamed in a million years it would happen and it just has, so it’s lovely.”
Dame Jilly said it was “lovely” to see the King again after the pair previously met at His Majesty’s wedding.
Tackle! was nominated in the best fiction category at this year’s British Book Awards in March, almost 50 years since Dame Jilly first began publishing fiction work in 1975.
Dame Jilly joked the secret to her longevity and her success was “luck” and said she always wanted to write “happy books”.
She said: “The only thing I wanted to do in life was to cheer people up and people can get quite depressed, so I do like to tell lots of jokes.”
A Disney+ series based on her 1988 novel Rivals, featuring British actor Alex Hassell as Rupert, is in production.
The eight-part adaptation will also star David Tennant, Aidan Turner, Emily Atack and Danny Dyer, with first-look pictures released last week.
Dame Jilly said the series was “absolutely sensational” and that the cast were “all fantastic”.
The Archbishop of Canterbury also received an honour yesterday.
He described last year’s coronation as “deeply moving” after being honoured by the King.
Justin Welby recalled the experience of anointing Charles at Westminster Abbey as he was made a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) for his role in the event.
The monarch, who was given permission by his doctors to return to public duties last month, greeted 52 recipients one by one at Windsor
Castle yesterday.
Mr Welby said that Charles seemed in “very good spirits indeed” and was “looking very well” as they spoke during the ceremony.
Awards of the Royal Victorian Order are in the King’s gift and are bestowed independently of Downing Street to people who have served the monarch or the royal family in a personal way.
The archbishop conducted the service for the coronation and had the momentous task of anointing and crowning the King and Queen.
Asked about his personal memories of the coronation, Mr Welby said: “I was very keyed up, a lot of adrenaline, but not nervous because we’d rehearsed so much [and] very focused.
“The anointing and the crowning were obviously supreme high points, particularly the anointing – [a] great sense of the presence of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit of God.
“It was a really deeply moving moment.”
The investiture is the latest in a number of public-facing duties the King has undertaken in recent days.
He officially handed over the role of Colonel-in-Chief of the Army Air Corps to the Prince of Wales in a joint engagement on Monday, while he also hosted the first garden party of the year at Buckingham Palace last Wednesday.