A peek into my Royal Roots

    In case you haven't heard I am royal... obviously since I am Lady Bren.  It isn't as if I woke up one and declared myself royalty... well actually that is what I did but don't tell anyone.  It wasn't until my stroke that I truly embraced my royalty completely.  Notice though I haven't claimed to be a Queen or Grand Duchess just a simple Lady, the wife of a Knight, though to be modern I have decided to keep my own name.

    I am proud to say that I am a second generation American.  My Grandfather (that's what we called him) came over from England around 1910.  He actually snuck in through Canada so I won't find him in any immigration registrar.  The story goes that he wouldn't become an American citizen just in case the two countries ever went to war.  You have to kind of love that tenacity I guess.  My grandfather was a composer and wound up being a Captain in the Salvation Army.  While my childhood memories are very limited I fondly remember Fish and Chips with vinegar,  Real Tea Parties, Beef and Kidney Pies and his bragging on English Strawberries.  Hanging in the basement where I grew up is a framed piece of glass with a quote "The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire".  It is the only thing from my Dad that's still left I hope to someday own. 

     In 1977 my Dad, a Pan Am employee, received 4 First Class tickets and we went to London.  This was back when air travel was still a luxury and you dressed as such.  We had never flown anywhere before and I thought that every time you flew you ate dinner upstairs with roses and chocolates.  For one week we explored castles, museums and the streets of London.  I came home an official anglophile.  Thank heavens we were regulars at the Library so the research department didn't mind getting me all the books I could devour on the subject.

     Queen Elizabeth I is truly my hero.  After her is another great woman, Queen Victoria.  They are two of the people I choose for the 5 people I would invite for dinner.

     My bookshelf is full of books both fiction and non-fiction.  Margaret Howard and Philippa Gregory are among my favorite authors.  So you can imagine my delight when today I received an email from my dear friend Amy Bruno at Passages to the Past that I had won one of her many glorious historical fiction giveaways!!  So I am going to be checking my mailbox with baited breath for my copy of In a Treacherous Court