As patron of the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club, the royal biographer and socialite Lady Colin Campbell, 75, knows a thing or two about dogs with regal connections. But when two of her former spaniels came face to face with Queen Elizabeth, Her Majesty nearly dispatched them, unwittingly, to doggy heaven. Campbell lives in West Sussex with her two dogs and two cats.
I have two Cavalier King Charles spaniels — Mickie, who’s nine, and her daughter Aurora, who’s three. The breed has an interesting history. It’s rumoured that King Charles II loved his spaniels so much that he decreed they should be granted access to every place in the country, including Parliament.
Mickie was my first Cavalier. I chose her because she is larger than most Cavaliers, with a longer snout and higher forehead. Sometimes they have issues with their brains being too large for their skulls, and heart problems. I thought if I had a larger dog they might avoid all these complications, although Mickie, sadly, has just been diagnosed with a heart murmur.
How did you acquire Mickie?
A friend, who had a wonderful Cavalier, advised me to search for a dog on the internet. I tried to buy three or four, not from breeders but from people who had litters to sell on. I tracked down Mickie via a woman in Derbyshire. I travelled up by train and she handed her over at the railway station. Mickie was tiny, so I tucked her into my Lulu Guinness bag. It was love at first sight.
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How did Aurora come along?
I wanted progeny so I appealed for a husband for Mickie on social media. Mickie insisted on giving birth in my bed. I’d put some paper in a dog box on the floor so she could whelp there. But she gave me a stern look as if to say, “You don’t think I’m giving birth there, do you?” and leapt on my bed. Mickie is a very good mother. She was loving and attentive from the word go.
The Lady Colin Campbell YouTube channel has a loyal international following
INSTAGRAM: LADYCOLINCAMPB
Your dogs often appear on your YouTube channel. Do they have loyal fans?
Mickie and Aurora have an international following. Many of my subscribers are animal lovers and send dog collars and treats. Occasionally I get a snide comment saying, “Lose the dogs,” but I ignore those. Members of the Sussex squad [fans of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex] sometimes try to infiltrate.
Your cats, Gorgeous Lord Byron and Augusta, have exotic names. Who inspired them?
Gorgeous Lord Byron, who is one year old and truly gorgeous, is named after the 19th-century poet. He was a great friend of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and his wife Mary, who inherited Castle Goring — now my home in West Sussex. Byron said Castle Goring was the most romantic castle in the land and Mary wrote her most famous novel, Frankenstein, at Byron’s behest.
I named Gorgeous Lord’s Byron’s sister, Augusta, who is also aged one, after the real Lord Byron’s half-sister — with whom he had an affair. And believe me, if my cats hadn’t been neutered and spayed, they would have also had an affair. They are very closely bonded to each other, if not to humans.
“Any woman who gives up a dog for a man is not worth having”
CIARAN MCCRICKARD FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES
Who was your most gifted pet?
My springer spaniel Tum-Tum was a great character. She was very human and bright, and we had many conversations. Also, on two occasions she foiled serious crimes. The first was in 1996 when the police rang to tell me somebody had tried to abduct Dima, one of my two adopted sons, in Battersea Park in southwest London.
Dima had been playing on the swings, and his nanny, who had been chatting with the other local nannies, hadn’t noticed a middle-aged man hanging around. The man was walking off with Dima when Tum-Tum ran after him and bit his heel, forcing him to make his escape.
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What was Tum-Tum’s second heroic escapade?
She foiled a break-in while I was living in Belgravia. The nanny had forgotten to double-lock a door and an intruder broke in. Tum-Tum and her daughter, Popsie Miranda, raised the alarm by standing out on the stoop, barking. A vigilant neighbour went in to investigate and confronted the burglar, who fled.
You don’t have a man in your life. Do pets fill the void?
No, because there is no void. I’ve done the great love. Occasionally a beau will appear and I make it absolutely clear — I don’t have the time. Besides, I was often lonely even when I had a man. I didn’t have one lonely minute when I had Tum-Tum. Whatever that need was, she fulfilled.
King Charles II with his spaniels
ALAMY
Didn’t a boyfriend ask you to get rid of your dogs?
A nice man I once dated, who was great husband material, didn’t like dogs. At the time I had two. When he thought the relationship had reached a sufficient stage of seriousness, he asked me to get rid of them. I said, “Any woman who gives up a dog for a man is not worth having. Surely that sends the message that I will do exactly what suits the person I am trying to impress. We can wrap this up in a two-letter word — No!”
You have been a staunch critic of the Duchess of Sussex. What do you think of her as a pet owner?
I would have grave reservations about giving her any pet. [The duchess rehomed her dog Bogart
with friends when she left Canada to live in London with Prince Harry.] According to the Harvard psychologist Martha Stout, anybody who gives away a pet should be viewed with suspicion because it is one of the surest signs that you are dealing with a true sociopath.
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Have your dogs ever encountered royalty?
Tum-Tum and Popsie Miranda once met Queen Elizabeth II — with almost fatal consequences. When I lived at Lochmore House in Belgravia, the Queen used to visit one of her former ladies-in-waiting there, who had an upstairs flat.
There were inner and outer doors within the central hall and whenever my dogs were around I tried to ensure the outer doors were closed, because they led onto a busy courtyard. Several government ministers lived in neighbouring flats and their cars would tear through the automatic barriers and into the courtyard. On several occasions they practically ran over residents’ dogs.
Lady Colin Campbell at her West Sussex home, Castle Goring
ALAMY
So what happened when the Queen called?
On one occasion I was coming out of my ground-floor flat just as Queen Elizabeth’s host was curtsying goodbye. As I emerged, out shot Tum-Tum and Popsie Miranda, who raced through the open inner doors. The Queen, thinking she was being helpful, jumped forward and opened the outer doors, unaware that she was putting their lives in jeopardy.
I shrieked and fled past her, little thinking I was in serious danger of knocking over the reigning monarch. The Queen realised her mistake immediately, but it was too late. The dogs escaped. When I discovered that all was well, I immediately dropped a curtsy and apologised. The Queen apologised too, and said she had been silly. Later, I discovered what she had thought of my shriek and curtsy. Thankfully, unlike Queen Victoria, she was amused.
You can catch up on Campbell’s royal analysis, and see more of her dogs, on her YouTube channel, Lady Colin Campbell. Castle Goring, near Worthing, is available for weddings, corporate and private functions; castlegoring.com
