Dame Barbara, also well-known as Princess Diana's step grandmother, had no problem with making fun of herself. She once joked that Diana only ever read Cartland romances - leaving her with an unrealistic view of modern men! With the now-unheard of luxury of dictating her novels, the author produced most of her work at her sumptuous ten-bedroomed mansion in Hertfordshire, once the home of Beatrix Potter.
Scouring the internet for some of Dame Barbara's more famous quotes, I found one that really summed up her attitude to writing romance: If you read newspapers today you will find things that our mothers and grandmothers would have been shocked to read. It's sex, sex, sex...all the time and it's not what we want. I wonder what she'd have made of Fifty Shades of Grey?
The 'new' work, entitled The Pink Collection, comes to us courtesy of the author's son Ian McCorquodale in association with M-I Books. The family even run their own website -www.barbaracartland.com
Meanwhile, I've discovered that my three-year-old granddaughter has learnt how to write her name, with quite a flourish if the photo, above, is anything to go by. Perhaps one day she'll be writing for 'Millie's and Boon?'
