EMMA COWING: A precious glimpse into the Queen's happy home

It's a picture that has been burnished into the collective memory. Queen Elizabeth II smiling, a little frail, clutching her late husband’s shepherd’s crook while a roaring fire blazed behind her, just 24 hours before she died.

We all remember the time, and indeed the place: September 8, 2022, at Balmoral Castle – the place where the late Queen felt most at home.

Now, for the very first time, we too can take a peek inside the inner sanctum of that home.

Earlier this week, it was announced that the King would open the doors of Balmoral throughout July and August for guided tours that include some of the Royal Family’s private rooms, including the very room that photograph was taken in.

The small group tour tickets cost £100, or £150 if you fancy afternoon tea thrown in.

It didn’t take long for the naysayers to swing into action. How dare the Royals charge money to let us look inside their houses? Who on earth could possibly be interested?

Well, quite a lot of people, actually. Within hours of the announcement, tickets were sold out.

This is not an anomaly. There is a private guided tour at Windsor, and another available at Buckingham Palace, all for far more than the normal ticket price.

But there’s something special about Balmoral, partly because we have never before been invited quite so far inside the door.

Its very mystique, the knowledge that this is where the Royals are at their most private and where they have, on occasion, let their hair down, gives it an irresistible allure.

For so many years Balmoral was the Queen’s hideaway, where she revelled in being out in the gloaming (she apparently got grumpy if she didn’t have at least one hour of fresh air a day), and pulled on the Marigolds to do the washing up after Prince Philip’s famous barbecues.

David Cameron recalls once pitching in to help only to hear Her Majesty bark: ‘What on earth is the Prime Minister doing?’

‘I’d broken with protocol and rapidly sat back down and did as I was told,’ he revealed.

But I think it also tells us something about the King’s future plans for the home his mother loved. It is no great secret that he and Queen Camilla far prefer the down-at-home atmosphere of their own retreat on the estate, Birkhall – where they have thrown raucous New Year parties, where Charles went down on one knee to propose and to which they retreated when the country went into lockdown.

Balmoral has, since the Queen’s death, been a quieter place, and her indomitable presence hugely missed.

This move, to open up the spaces once so dear to her, suggests that the King’s long-term plan may well be to turn Balmoral into something appropriating a permanent memorial to his mother. It seems a fitting tribute somehow, and one of which I suspect she would have approved.

As for the ticket price? Well, like every other stately home in this country, Balmoral Castle is in constant need of upkeep, something that doesn’t come cheap.

Charging a few extra bob to those who recognise that Balmoral is living history and an insight into our longest-reigning monarch seems a pretty neat solution to me.

Queen Elizabeth II’s reign may be over, but her memory lives on, more so in the corridors and rooms of Balmoral Castle than anywhere else.

That we, too, may now be a part of it, is a touching tribute both to her and the subjects who adored her.

 Dolly’s in tune with the times

There are plenty of critics frothing at the mouth at Beyoncé’s cover of Dolly Parton’s Jolene on her new country album, Cowboy Carter, but I like the fact that Parton herself is not one of them.

Not only does she make a cameo on the record, but Parton was advocating years ago for Beyoncé to cover Jolene.

‘I would just love to hear Jolene done in a big way,’ she said once. ‘Just someone that can take my little songs and make them powerhouses.’

For my money, Jolene was always a powerhouse when Parton sang it. 

But Beyoncé turns it into a 21st century anthem that will entrance a whole new generation of Dolly Parton fans. And doesn’t everybody win that way?

 A small victory then, to learn that Royal Mail will keep delivering first class letters six days a week, rather than slashing its delivery days – although plans to cut second class post to just three days are still in motion.

At the same time, Royal Mail raised both first and second class stamp prices by 10p to £1.35 and 85p, the fourth first class rise in two years. It seems this decision will quite literally come at a price.

 I hate to tell you, but you were warned!

Well, we’re less than a week into the new hate crime legislation and police have been receiving a hate crime report every 90 seconds. In fact, there’s been such a deluge of them that the Scottish Police Federation says control rooms have been swamped. Hardly the best use of police time, I’d say.

Who could have seen this coming?

Certainly not the Scottish Government, who have, as is their wont, run headlong into this OTT legislation without doing their due diligence.

As for the rest of us, well, we hate to say we told you so but...

I’m not surprised that takeaways are replacing pub and restaurant meals after the cultural shift during the pandemic. I love going out for dinner as much as the next person, but these days it’s far from cheap.

Once you add in taxis, inflated wine prices, and – heaven forfend – a dessert, you’re looking at the guts of three figures. No wonder the local Chinese is on speed dial.

 He’s a blooming hero

Wishing all the best to Sir Chris Hoy, who’s coming to the end of 18 gruelling weeks of chemotherapy for cancer.

‘It’s been a long winter but when you see the first few daffodils poking their heads out, and you know that spring is on its way, then morale is getting higher every day,’ he said. Words to live by.

 So have we just given up on potholes?

 It's no surprise to me that Glasgow has been named one of the places with the worst potholes in Scotland.

Great Western Road apparently boasted reports of 1,451 of them last year. 1,451! I’m amazed there’s any road left at all.

And they really are all over the city, so much so that I dread driving anywhere new these days – because at least on my regular routes I know where they are, and can do my best to avoid them. Altogether, there has been a 53 per cent rise in the number of potholes reported to councils in Scotland since 2020, an absolute scandal of the highest order.

They are dangerous on so many fronts – not least for the damage they do to cars, and the erratic way traffic behaves in attempts to dodge them. When will our councils get a grip on the situation?