'I've spent 35 years watching the royals - I tried to make the Queen laugh but got it really wrong' Jennie Bond on icy stares, Charles' karaoke complaint, and the moment Diana made a 'real change'

From joking with the late Queen about a horse who blew raspberries to being told by Diana, Princess of Wales not to wear yellow because it “doesn’t suit her”, Jennie Bond has spent a lifetime in close proximity to the Crown so it's little wonder that the former BBC royal correspondent has an enviable number of stories to tell.

But behind her tales of a career up close and personal with the monarchy - “I remember being laughed at by The King for stumbling around a muddy field in white stilettos. He shouted ‘Wrong shoes, Miss Bond!’” - lies a woman who has watched royal history unfold for the last 35 years from a coveted front row seat.

During an exclusive OK! shoot to celebrate this milestone we caught up with the 73-year-old Queen of royal reporting to reflect on her career and discover why family now comes first.

“I can’t believe that I’ve been doing this gig for 35 years,” laughs Jennie, a vision in hues of blush pink and scarlet red as she poses for the camera in the queenly manner which once famously led her BBC colleagues to describe her as “more royal than the royals”.

“I was a general reporter at BBC television when I was asked to become the Royal Correspondent. It was a job that I really didn’t want. I didn’t know where it was going, I thought it was a bit flimsy, a bit flippant… a bit shallow really. I said I’d do it for one year… and here I am 35 years later still talking about the royals!”

Despite sporting a voluminous “Barbara Cartland-esque” pink dress and glittery stick-on nails you would be wrong to assume this is a woman who didn’t take her job deadly seriously.

Her sharp eye for a story and appealing on-camera manner made her a favourite with the public - even if her approach sometimes led to the occasional royal run-in, most memorably with the late Queen where she quickly became familiar with the monarch’s “icy stare”.

“I always thought how boring it must have been for whichever royal was hosting the media reception… in my case it was usually our late Queen, so I used to try and make her laugh, with varying degrees of failure… I’m quite familiar with that icy stare!

"One time I really did get it wrong was in South Korea when there was the most boring story being told so I decided to tell her about a horse called Jupiter that I knew. I was told to tell her that she would remember Jupiter because he always used to blow raspberries and so I burst into the conversation and said ‘Oh ma’am I just wanted to send you the good wishes of Jupiter… you’ll remember him, ma’am, because he was part of the Household Cavalry and he always used to blow raspberries’,” Jennie laughs as she punctuates her sentence with a loud imitation.

“She stared at me for a minute and then just continued her previous conversation!”

Jennie is exactly as you’d imagine her to be. Ageless and glamour personified, of course, but with a naughty twinkle in her eye as she fizzes with anecdotes, whether about the Royals, her TV exploits or a romantic escapade during her student days with Dame Helen Mirren’s ex-boyfriend. "I think I was a disappointment after her,” she laughs.

But it’s her back catalogue of Royal coverage for which she is best known in a career which saw her cover perhaps the most turbulent period of recent royal history - from marriage breakdowns to infamous interviews and from a devastating fire to deaths that rocked the world.

Surprisingly, covering all of these landmark royal events is not Jennie’s proudest career moment…

“My most rewarding job over these 35 years was in the jungle in I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here. It is a gig I only got because I was known as the Royal Correspondent and I think the producers thought it would be quite funny having the BBC’s former Royal Correspondent eating bugs in the jungle or being buried in a coffin full of rats.

"In fact, I was told that the Queen had expressed quite a lot of interest that I was buried in a coffin full of rats… something which I think she probably wanted to do to me herself! I was told she was ‘most interested’ that this had happened to me so it gave her a giggle… and it gave me a whole new career and a whole new lease of life.”

Before she headed Down Under for the 2004 show, Jennie’s role had already taken her around the world many times over. It was her trip to Angola with Diana in 1997 that she remembers most poignantly.

“It was so important to highlight the issue of landmines in Angola. It was something that the princess cared deeply about. Both she and I pored over the facts before we went and for once, I felt like I was reporting on something really substantive that could begin to bring about change in the suffering of the people of Angola, many of whom had been maimed by landmines. So it was a real privilege to accompany the princess on that tour and to watch her in that iconic shot walking through a landmine field.”

A trip to Fraser Island off the coast of Brisbane with the then-Prince Charles also sticks in her mind for an altogether happier reason.

“When you’re travelling with the royals and when you’re travelling with other reporters there are a lot of laughs along the way. One moment I remember was when we were flown to Fraser Island after a very busy tour of Australia with Prince Charles.

"We all stayed in the same hotel and we journalists all did very loud karaoke in the bar. Charles had said he was going to come down, but he didn’t in the end. I have to confess that we reporters then sat in a hot tub outside under the stars surrounded by wine bottles having a lovely time. The next morning when Charles came down he said ‘Was that you lot making all that bloody awful noise? You kept me awake all night!’”

Born in Hitchin in August 1950 - just four days after Princess Anne - Jennie was educated at St Francis' College in Letchworth, before going on to spend three years at Warwick University and one abroad completing her honours degree in French.

After this, Jennie worked as a journalist on local newspapers and later joined BBC radio in 1977. In 1988 she made it to BBC television news as a general reporter before stepping onto the royal beat in 1989, where she stayed until the summer of 2003.

Now, three and a half decades on, Jennie is still as busy as ever, broadcasting for multiple outlets and writing extensively about the royals, but she tries to find a bit more time to put on her gardening gloves.

A devoted mum to daughter Emma, 34, and doting granny to Beau, four, and Willow, two, Jennie has created an eden in Devon where she lives with husband Jim. Although her grandchildren are still young, they are already accustomed to having a famous gran!

“The kids are very young to understand the work I do, but I think Beau was tickled by seeing me give a short speech to his classmates and the rest of the primary school. I wasn’t sure how to pitch it to such a young audience, but they all listened well, and asked some imaginative questions.

"They wanted to know if I had ever been to the Palace and how you become a Queen, and whether she wears her crown all the time! It was interesting to realise that, for them, Diana, Princess of Wales was – if anything – a distant figure in history. These days I broadcast a lot over Zoom from home. And the grandkids love to try to make mischief by coming in and sitting on my chair just before I go live!

“I love them both to bits and spend as much time as possible with them and my beautiful daughter... who is my best friend (alongside my hubby). We also have a kind and talented TV director son-in-law and I have the added good fortune to have two wonderful stepchildren, who are now very much grown up, and another brilliant son-in-law.

“I have been incredibly lucky to have such a long and full career as well as a very happy family life. I don’t think it has been that easy for any of us. Emma often had to accept that her mum couldn’t be with her and was at work.

"Jim gave up his job to become a househusband and never complained that I was often away and always busy. And the grandkids now understand when we say granny can’t be there because she’s working. As for me… I live with an underlying current of permanent guilt! But these days I try my very best to prioritise family life over work. They deserve it.”