EA Festival at the Jockey Club Rooms: Robert Hardman
Friday, 17 November 2023
On 17th November, EA Festival will host a lunch-time event at one of East Anglia’s most prestigious and beautiful institutions, The Jockey Club Rooms (“JCR”) in Newmarket.
Considering that Queen Elizabeth was passionate about equestrian pursuits, it is particularly fitting that the JCR will host a lunch time talk with Robert Hardman, Britain’s top royal biographer, on Friday, 17th November. During this lunch time event, Robert will tell us about Queen of Our Times, the international best-selling, authorised biography of Queen Elizabeth II.
The Queen granted Hardman access to unseen family papers and diaries for this biography. Published ahead of her 2022 Platinum Jubilee celebrations and updated with new material following her death, Queen of Our Times is considered to be the definitive book about her life.
To wit, it was selected as a Book of the Year by the Sunday Times and praised for being ‘revelatory’ and ‘brilliant’ by the Spectator and Mail on Sunday. Hardman's new book about King Charles, Charles III: The Inside Story of the New King's Reign, will come out in January, so he will give us a sneak peak into that book and the research that went into it. On top of writing his best-selling books about the royal family, Hardman has been a columnist and royal correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and, since 2001, writes for the Daily Mail.
The one-hour talk will take place at 12 noon, followed by a glass of champagne and a buffet lunch in The Dining Room.
There will be optional free tours of the Jockey Club Rooms' art collection, arguably the world's finest collection of equine art including paintings by Sir Alfred Munnings and George Stubbs, at 11 am and 2:30 pm. An example from the collection, a painting of Queen Elizabeth by Paul Benney, is pictured here. Places for the tour are limited, so tickets for the tour are mandatory.
Tickets inclusive of a glass of champagne plus set lunch (with one glass of wine) are £70 and tickets for the talk alone are £20. The tour of the art collection is open to all ticket holders.