The story of Queen Elizabeth II, who famously said ‘if I wore beige, no one would know who I was’, told through her clothes and jewellery. The Queen’s Wardrobe is a gorgeous gift to treasure, celebrating a long life devoted to service. This book tells the story of a young princess who grew into one of the world's best-loved and longest-serving royals, touching on wartime truck-fixing, ration-book wedding dress making, splendid gowns, the Crown Jewels, and her trusty wellies. Includes a foreword by Michele Clapton, costume designer for series one of Netflix's The Crown, giving a peek behind the scenes at the recreation of some of the Queen's most famous outfits. Written by the Waterstones Children's Book Prize-winning Julia Golding, The Queen's Wardrobe is full of fascinating stories from the long life of our record-breaking Queen. The detailed and colourful artwork from bestselling Kate Hindley shows what it's really like to grow up as a princess.
Author
My journey to becoming an author has been a roundabout one, taking in many other careers. I grew up on the edge of Epping Forest and was that dreamy kind of child who was always writing stories. After reading English at Cambridge, I decided to find out as much as I could about the wider world so joined the Foreign Office and served in Poland. My work as a diplomat took me from the high point of town twinning in the Tatra Mountains to the low of inspecting the bottom of a Silesian coal mine. On leaving Poland, I exchanged diplomacy for academia and took a doctorate in the literature of the English Romantic Period at Oxford. I then joined Oxfam as a lobbyist on conflict issues, campaigning at the UN and with governments to lessen the impact of conflict on civilians living in war zones - a cause about which I still feel very passionate. Married with three children, I now live in Oxford between two rivers, surrounded by gargoyles, beautiful sandstone buildings and ancient trees. My first novel, 'The Diamond of Drury Lane', won the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize 2006 and the Nestle Children's Book Prize 2006 (formerly known as the Smarties Prize). I was also chosen by Waterstone's in 2007 as one of their 'Twenty-five authors for the future'. In the US, 'Secret of the Sirens' won the honor book medal of the Green Earth Book Award. My latest series, which starts with Mel Foster and the Demon Butler, about an intrepid Victorian orphan who lives in a household of monsters, won Bronze in the Primary Teacher awards in 2015. The next part, Mel Foster and the Time Machine, has set the time-dial to arrive in 2016.
