King Charles’s decision to expand the Christmas guest list at Sandringham has left some disgruntled

By Ephraim Hardcastle for the Daily Mail

22:22 12 Dec 2023, updated 22:29 12 Dec 2023

The King’s decision to expand the guest list for Christmas at Sandringham hasn’t been met with universal festive joy. Making space for Queen Camilla’s children and grandchildren means that some staff are disgruntled. 

They have been told to give up their rooms to accommodate the visitors and rough it in smaller quarters and even share rooms. 

At least Prince Andrew and Fergie won’t temporarily evict anyone. 

They will be billeted at nearby Wood Farm Cottage, driving over for meals and church.

 

Having guest-presented Good Morning Britain, the Duchess of York, appearing again yesterday as well as popping up on Lorraine, risks becoming a fixture at the ITV studio. 

‘I’ll send Sarah round,’ trilled Lorraine to GMB host Dermot O’Leary before telling Fergie: ‘Pop round and then you can read the news later.’

 

John Simpson says he used to beg the BBC to send him to war hotspots for Christmas before his son was born 17 years ago. 

‘I used to try to go to nasty places,’ he recalls. ‘I used to spend a lot of Christmases in bad, nasty, frightening places but I got married again and we had a kid who is now 17.’ 

He adds: ‘Now we eat too much and watch films like Elf.’ A matter of elf and safety, John!

 

Tom Stoppard’s third wife Sabrina Guinness has the measure of the playwright, insisting that he abandon his old-fashioned notions and avoid offending. 

‘I keep being told, “Oh, you can’t say he’s fat”,’ wails Tom, 86. ‘And I’m saying, “But he is fat, and what am I supposed to say instead?”. 

‘Sabrina is more aware of society’s red flags than I am.’

 

Actress Shirley Anne Field, who has died aged 87, sharing a bed with Laurence Olivier in 1960 movie The Entertainer, was asked by Larry who her favourite actress was. 

She replied: ‘I love Vivien Leigh.’ ‘He went into a fury,’ she recalled. ‘He was horrible. I got out of his bed and said ‘I’m not staying here with you’. 

I went and sulked…’ Little did Shirley know that Larry and Mrs Vivien Olivier were about to be divorced.

 

Trouser-splitting aficionado PJ Proby now reveals that it wasn’t his seam-busting antics that led to his sacking during a ’60s rock tour, despite morals campaigner Mary Whitehouse’s protestations. 

‘They threw me off the tour after three shows, and put Tom Jones on in my place,’ Proby tells The Beat magazine. 

‘But see – even if the pants hadn’t split, they were ready to throw me off anyway.’ Surely replacement Tom cleared his throat to observe: ‘It’s Not Unusual PJ!’

 

Among celebs stripping off for charity in ITV show The Real Full Monty: Jingle Balls, actress Sherrie Hewson reveals fellow participant and ex-royal butler Paul Burrell was disturbingly keen to appear nude off-camera. 

‘We kept saying, ‘Put your clothes on, nobody wants to see that, ever’,’ wails Sherrie. ‘But he had a freedom about… dangling.’