Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1990, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is a pillar of the British establishment.

Educated at Eton and Sandhurst, he became at the age of 36,

private secretary to the young Princess Elizabeth. He was to serve her for nearly 30 years, only retiring when as Queen Elizabeth II she celebrated

her silver Jubilee.

Discrete but influential, he helped guide the sovereign and to that extent the nation through some of the most important moments of her life.

After leaving the Royal House hold, he passed easily into employment in another very privileged world.

For the past 12 years, he's been provost of Eton. He is Lord

Chartress of Amesfield. A lifetime of service Lord Chartres in and to some of our

great institutions. Do you think you were always cut out for such work?

No, I don't really think I was. I mean I was absolutely flabbergasted when I was asked to be private secretary to Princess Elizabeth,

but not nearly as flabbergasted as I was when I was asked for a province of Eaton.

But do you enjoy ceremony and tradition? Yes I do enjoy

ceremony and I've come to enjoy it more and more as I've done it and I think I'm

quite suited to that sort of life.

Do you think though you were cut out for it

from your early life, from your upbringing?

Well, I was in a way.

I mean, I came from families that lived in great houses.

So none of it was unfamiliar.

I mean the furniture polish at Buckingham Palace

...