Lady Anne Glenconner of Houghton speaks of the Queen's love for Sandringham

Lady Anne Glenconner has spoken of just how much her friend the Queen loves West Norfolk.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's flagship news programme, The Today Programme, this morning, Lady Anne, who lives on the nearby Houghton estate, was a maid-of-honour at the Queen's Coronation in 1953, said that Sandringham where her father the King died means so much to the monarch.

Speaking ahead of tomorrow's Accession Day, when she assumed the throne in 1952, she said: "I think it means a lot to her. She is a country woman too, the Queen, I mean, she has her horses up here, she loves taking her dogs for walks, so no doubt she will take her corgis for a walk on the day the King died."

Lady Anne was a close confidante of the Queen's sister Princess Margaret and was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen too.

She recalled being sent a letter by Margaret, the Countess of Snowden, describing the "beautiful Norfolk morning" on which the king had died at Sandringham.

"(It was) a beautiful Norfolk morning, sun coming out and all the geese and the birds flying over, and she said it was a sort of perfect morning that her father would have loved and it was so wonderful that he had died in Norfolk, his beloved Norfolk, on such a beautiful day," Lady Glenconner said.

The Queen is expected to spend Accession Day with her family during an extended break at Wood Farm cottage in Sandringham, and will mark her Platinum Jubilee in private.

Lady Anne, 89, has enjoyed an extraordinary burst of late-life fame after writing her memoirs and then novels, the latest one called A Haunting In Holkham.