Ready For Absolutely Nothing: ‘If you like Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner, you’ll like this’ The Times

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During the 1980s, Susannah regularly found herself in the gossip columns due to her eight-year relationship with Princess Margaret’s son David, Viscount Linley. When asked if she believes she would have been able to handle the pressure of marrying the Queen’s nephew, Susannah’s of two minds. Belvoir feels like home and I go and stay with the family several times a year. I’m very close to Emma [Manners, the current Duchess of Rutland] and her family as our kids have grown up together. There is a lot we can't mention on this show - you have to buy the book to find out what we mean' STEVE WRIGHT, BBC RADIO 2 Hilarious and honest. A book for anyone who's after laughter, tears and one hell of a rollercoaster ride' GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, 'BOOKS OF THE YEAR'

As well as writing two novels, Susannah went on to appear on popular TV programmes, such as I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! and Strictly Come Dancing. I didn’t have any opinions of my own at the time. I was literally not a fully formed person in any shape or form. The only way I could become a fully formed person, as I understood it then, was if I had a husband!” Following the death of both of Susannah’s parents, the Constantine family moved out of The Priory after 40 years, but she still makes frequent journeys north to stay with her friends at Belvoir Castle, finding it the ideal writing bolthole. The second half of the book I found less absorbing, mainly because the timeline was chopped up so much, and interspersed with anecdotes that whilst funny or salacious didn’t really add to the picture of the woman for me. Whilst honest about her problems with alcohol they aren’t put in context. It was more a series of recollections.

I’m an open book, I’ve never been indiscreet about anyone else, but I’m very happy to be indiscreet about myself!”

Just nine months later, Susannah delivered the book on time and complete with a collection of photos which reflect a life lived to the full. It is a really entertaining read, but this was a book of two halves for me. The first half was a brilliant, brutally honest and fast paced read, covering her childhood through to her relationship with David Armstrong-Jones. I was totally fascinated by her world and what is was like to grow up in upper class Britain in the 60s/70s, being educated to be a society wife. I felt totally transported. I grew up in the 1960s and ’70s when the only expectation my parents had for me was to get married and that was it. Education wasn’t important, my father said you’re better off learning how to make a decent Beef Wellington than you are to go to university! Susannah Constantine is feeling nostalgic. Sitting in the peace of her Sussex country house, surrounded by 120 acres of fields and ancient woodland, she reflects on treasured memories of a Lincolnshire childhood growing up with her aristocratic neighbours on the Belvoir Castle estate.Wonderfully written, very funny, but more than anything completely genuine Lady Anne Glenconner, author of Lady in Waiting

But appearances are deceptive and beneath it all, life had a dark side particularly her mother's mental illness and, her father's struggles with alcoholism. Somehow she had to forge her own life, away from the expectations of others. It’s amazing to think she built a whole career around advising women how they might look more stylish ( What Not to Wear began on the BBC in 2001). In her royal days, after all, she sported a look that was “somewhere between Victoria Wood and Fergie” (polka dots, plentiful ruching). But I don’t know, for all that it must have been lucrative, that it made her happy, even if it was only after it ended that her boozing began in earnest (she once appeared drunk on QVC). Somehow, though, she got through this bad patch. A turn as Anton Du Beke’s worst ever partner on Strictly Come Dancingwould, indeed, one day be hers (in 2018), and it surely says something about her charmed life that, in the small hours, it’s Ann Widdecombe of whom she thinks enviously, the former politician having somehow made it to week 10 of that redoubtable, long-running talent show. Susannah is very blunt and had some really out there stories to tell that might make one cringe. I won't spill the beans here, but they involve gastrointestinal functions, a public bathroom, and in one case- Princess Margaret. This was a fun, casual, easy read. Susannah Constantine has dealt with a number of demons in her life and makes no attempt to hide her shortcomings here. She was in her late 20s before she discovered the world of work and found that she had more than a modicum of intelligence and capability. Until then, her father and his accounts with Harrod's etc. provided her with all the income she needed and a 6-year relationship with Princess Margaret's son, Viscount Linley, took her into the hedonistic spheres of the leading aristocracy. This darkly funny, confessional memoir from the star of What Not to Wear tells all: from her posh upbringing and the dishy details of her career in fashion to her journey as a recovering alcoholic.In 2020, Susannah went public about her battle with alcoholism and revealed that she had given up drinking in 2013. Today she still regularly attends AA meetings. PDF / EPUB File Name: Ready_for_Absolutely_Nothing_A_Memoir_-_Susannah_Constantine.pdf, Ready_for_Absolutely_Nothing_A_Memoir_-_Susannah_Constantine.epub However, I’m not someone who can just sit on my laurels and think I’ve had a wonderful life, which is true. I’m always looking ahead, forever curious and asking myself, what’s next? When I first started writing, I was easily distracted and the house was never cleaner but my husband gave me some good advice and told me to look at it as a nine-to-five job and that’s exactly what I did!” I have so much respect for Emma and her family, who have such a sense of responsibility and are doing an incredible job as custodians.”