Jilly's last interview

(if I look out of my depth at various points it's because I was)

I was lucky enough to be the last person to interview Dame Jilly Cooper for the Queens Reading Room at Chatsworth last year. In honour of her extraordinary memorial service yesterday they have simultaneously released the footage. It was a slightly chaotic interview (not least because I hadn’t slept a wink the previous night) but I hope you find the interview as silly and funny and interesting as she always was. I hope you enjoy www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7qV...

I was lucky enough to attend the memorial service - it was ridiculously high octane with readings by Joanna Lumley, Sir Derek Jacobi and others and far too many famous attendees to mention here, beyond The Queen and her ex husband Andrew Parker-Bowles, on whom Rupert Campbell Black was allegedly based. If I say I sat beside Clare Balding and Rory Bremner and slightly in front of Richard Madeley you get the picture. But afterwards I ended up in the pub with the cast of Rivals, and as someone who rarely drinks, finally arrived home four hours late and actually sodden with champagne, having laughed, hugged strangers, and heard more salacious gossip than I’m ever likely to remember. Jilly, I feel absolutely sure, would have approved hugely.