Ready For Absolutely Nothing: ‘If you like Lady in Waiting by Anne Glenconner, you’ll like this’ The Times

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When I first started writing, I was easily distracted and the house was never cleaner but my husband gave me some good advice and told me to look at it as a nine-to-five job and that’s exactly what I did!” Susannah Constantine is feeling nostalgic. Sitting in the peace of her Sussex country house, surrounded by 120 acres of fields and ancient woodland, she reflects on treasured memories of a Lincolnshire childhood growing up with her aristocratic neighbours on the Belvoir Castle estate. Susannah, who also no longer smokes but admits to having a vape “attached to my mouth 24 hours a day”, describes being an alcoholic as “more than just drinking too much”. Hers is a life filled to the brim with 70s glitz, 80s glamour and above all else an enlightening 50 years of f**k-ups, crisis and chaos.

Susannah, who married Danish businessman Sten Bertelsen in 1995, has three grown-up children, Joe, Esme and CeCe. The children have not yet read their mother’s memoir, although many of Susannah’s connections mentioned in the book have dived in and “loved it”. When I was there as a child, the atmosphere was very much one of a grand stately home where you were seen and not heard, but the private wing is a proper home now. I’m an open book, I’ve never been indiscreet about anyone else, but I’m very happy to be indiscreet about myself!”

Customer reviews

Obviously the Princess of Wales dressed fashionably, she had an amazing figure, and she could have carried anything,” she says. “But I don’t think, God, I wish I’d worn that.”

The title says it all really. Girls in the upper echelons of British society were not particularly well educated since their sole aim in life would be to find a wealthy husband and bow to his every whim while looking stylish and immaculate at all times. We are not talking Victorian times here. This book relates to the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Princess Diana was a prime example of this. An intimate, relatable and funny memoir from Susannah Constantine, our favourite fashion guru and one half of the hugely popular, Trinny and Susannah's What Not to Wear When I set out to write this book, I thought I knew what it would be, but the process of writing it has revealed so much more. I’ve had the freedom to recall anecdotes from my life: some funny, some painful, but all of them show that despite everything, I was brought up to be ready for absolutely nothing!” I have so much respect for Emma and her family, who have such a sense of responsibility and are doing an incredible job as custodians.” After they split, Susannah focused on her fashion career, working for leading designers Giorgio Armani in New York and later John Galliano and Alistair Blair in London.The second half of the book I found less absorbing, mainly because the timeline was chopped up so much, and interspersed with anecdotes that whilst funny or salacious didn’t really add to the picture of the woman for me. Whilst honest about her problems with alcohol they aren’t put in context. It was more a series of recollections. The true me is the person I was when I was a child, someone who likes isolation and solitude and to be in the countryside, and not have to look glamorous every day. That wouldn’t have been afforded.” In 2020, Susannah went public about her battle with alcoholism and revealed that she had given up drinking in 2013. Today she still regularly attends AA meetings.