Gyles Brandreth quotes

People find communication in families difficult - games can help with that.

During the summer of 2000, in the run-up to Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother's 100th birthday, I asked the Duke of Edinburgh if he was hoping to reach 100. 'Good God, no,' he spluttered, 'I can't imagine anything worse. What a ghastly idea.'

Was Prince Philip in love when he proposed to Elizabeth? At the time, he was a relatively penniless prince, with a rackety family and no home to call his own.

Prince Philip had formally 'retired' in the summer of 2017, a couple of months after his 96th birthday, because the Queen encouraged him to do so. She wanted to stop him 'pushing himself all the time'. She had become anxious about him.

What happened between the sheets on the night of the royal wedding I cannot tell you. I was not there.

And the purpose of small talk is not to be controversial, clever or even interesting. It's simply to fill the silent void with a small gesture of common humanity. It's a spoken smile, a verbal handshake.

When it comes to personal communication, words are all we've got. It is the simple use of language that makes us human beings.

Was Prince Philip in love when he proposed to Elizabeth? At the time, he was a relatively penniless prince, with a rackety family and no home to call his own.

I don't want to jeopardize my relationship with royalty by saying too much.

Once, during one of the jubilee tours, I was in the car immediately behind theirs and I watched Prince Philip telling the Queen a story. He kept her laughing for 20 minutes.