The Serpentine

Low light.

Nothing to do with Ida, just with the things that give me pleasure, which is having breakfast at the Serpentine after a swim.

What did you have? At the Serpentine, right? At

the Serpentine, and the colicci in the cafe there, because I swim at the lake, and we have this cafe there, and it's quite good.

Not the one where it's part of, what was the name of the architect who did it?

Zaha Hadid.

The girls walk along the broad open path that cuts across Hyde Park.

Then they turn up towards the Serpentine.

How do you know your dad was there?

says Poppy.

So I'd take the radio car out and about and say it was whatever the marathon that week.

I'd sort of, you know, they'd cross live to me on the breakfast show and I'd be, hi, Chris, I'm here in Hyde Park with all the runners and we're just going around the Serpentine.

And this didn't, you know, sort of the Keith Chegwin kind of really keen, eager, whipping boy that Tarrant would just make fun of.

And yeah, so that was my time at Capital.

In fact, I'll go for a swim after we finish in studio.

And where do you go? In the Serpentine, the lake in Hyde Park, and it's about 15 degrees there.

So it really gives you that bit of adrenaline that kicks in the day.

How much of it is actually water? Ha, ha, ha, ha.

She died by suicide and just two months later.

Percy's wife, Harriet, age 21 and very pregnant, also died by suicide by drowning in London's Lake Serpentine, which is just, you know, there's all this discourse about, you know, because she's very pregnant, but she and Percy had been separated for two years.

So everyone's like, whose baby was that? Because she wasn't pregnant.

publicly with anybody else so some people say that Percy was still seeing her but there's no evidence of this like historians kind of like battle this out but yeah it's kind of sad because I mean it's very devastating but Percy was really shocked by this but he didn't claim any responsibility of course but then Mary actually felt super guilty when Harriet took her own life because she was like oh my god Is this because I was with Percy? But only a few weeks later, you know, now that Percy is no longer married, on December 30th, Mary and Percy wed.

Then in December, Percy's wife Harriet, just 21 years old and heavily pregnant, suffers the same fate.

She is missing for days before her body is eventually pulled from the Serpentine in London.

Percy tries to come up with some tall story about how she's resorted to prostitution because her family won't support her.

And it's true her family don't support her, but Percy has been going up and down to London a great deal, and she writes a farewell, "It's all your fault" sort of note.

J- just before we move on to talk about other monarchs, I just wanted to link, link in with what I was saying about King George II and Queen Caroline entertaining at Kensington Palace.

Um, the, the Serpentine, the, um, artificial lake in Hyde Park and in Kensington Gardens, that was the brainchild of Queen Caroline.

And in fact, there is a, a, a memorial to Queen Caroline at the eastern end of the Serpentine.

Serpentine.It's a lovely space to, um, enjoy, whether you're going into the, the, the palace itself anyway.

But yeah, it's, um-

Yeah

...

I mean, it's, I suppose this is the water feature that is really one, like, continuous 18th century project, you know? So we have, like, Kensington Gardens, the western stretch, and that's the, the name is The Long Water.

She's got to have feelings come to her upon this horse.

You can't enter into a rider's feelings when you've almost forgotten which side of the horse you get up." I walked with him to the Serpentine.

I had been wondering how it was he had grown stout so suddenly.

He had a bath towel around him underneath his coat.

I know it will," he chattered while unlacing his boots.

"Can't you leave it till the summertime?" I suggested, "and take her to Ostend?" "It wouldn't be unconventional," he growled.

"She wouldn't take an interest in it." "But do they allow ladies to bathe in the Serpentine?" I persisted.

"It won't be the Serpentine," he explained.