Well bully for you,’ I mutter, munching Maltesers in front of Who Do You Think You Are?. I’ve nothing against Andrew Lloyd Webber, of course, but it doesn’t take long to shake a Tudor duchess from his family tree for the BBC, closely followed by a troupe of 18th-century theatricals.
I’ve watched aristocrats appear on Frances de la Tour’s branches and Clare Balding’s harbour an earl or two. Barbara Windsor was a distant descendant of artist John Constable and Judi Dench descended from a famous astronomer. Greedy, I call it, when I’d settle for just one of those colourful kinfolk.
Actually, I
