Rummaging around in her family tree, the Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson discovered a great-great-aunt who shares her name, red hair and connections to the royal family - Lady Margaret Montagu Douglas Scott.
Lady Margaret's parents were friends of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert but her story had been lost to time.
The Duchess took inspiration from her story for her first novel Her Heart for a Compass.
She speaks to Jesse Mulligan about being a new grandmother, romance and the inspiration for her first novel, Her Heart for a Compass.
Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson. Photo: Getty Images via AFP / Cooper Neill
Ferguson draws on her own life to create the book's main character, Lady Margaret, who wrestles with stifling aristocracy, patriarchal society, and outside forces trying to control her.
Co-written with veteran Mills &Boon writer Marguerite Kaye, the book has been 15 years in the making.
Ferguson says the pandemic gave her the time to "really throw myself into an escapism route from the extraordinary worries that come about from the uncertainty of the pandemic and lockdown".
She describes the 500-plus page novel - which she wrote by hand initially - as "24 meets Pride and Prejudice".
"I really wanted Lady Margaret to throw herself into giving back to charity and to really understand how other people lived so that she’d get her heart focused and strong on what she really wanted out of life."
The book is set in Victorian times, and Ferguson says she’s always had a profound interest in history, even studying the paintings hanging in the corridors of Buckingham Palace during her marriage to Prince Andrew.
"To delve into history, it opens up your eyes to exactly what people went through. I was putting myself in the shoes of a woman around about in the 1860s, that if she didn’t toe the line and do as she was told, she was suppressed and told she’d have to go to a mental institute.
"It’s very similar to modern life. I think people need to voice their own opinions and really fight for our own words."
Ferguson saw parallels between Lady Margaret’s life and the life fictionalised in Her Heart for a Compass.
"I really could feel what she felt when she arrived in New York, she came off the ship and didn’t know where to go or what to do. It’s that feeling to be supported by people who accept you as yourself."
As per the title, Ferguson truly believes one's own heart is the best compass, but says it took her 61 years to put aside other people’s judgments.
"People say ‘don’t wear your heart on your sleeve’, and you’re too emotional or you’re too this or that, but I’ve now learnt to embrace all those good things.
"It’s been an enormous journey for me.
"For my girls, I always talk to them openly about dealing with those seeds of doubt that hit everybody.
"I feel strongly that my girls are very strong ambassadors for being authentic at very early ages, because I chose to do the work mentally and physically in order to heal."
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York (left) and her daughter Princess Beatrice of York wave off Princess Eugenie from St George's Chapel in Windsor, on 12 October, 2018 after their wedding ceremony. Photo: AFP / Pool / Victoria Jones
Speaking of her daughters, Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, Ferguson says her five-month-old grandson August (Eugenie's son) is teaching her a great deal.
“Beatrice will be due in September. I’m very lucky, I’ve got two very good sons-in-law… who adore my daughters and then I’ve got August, who is just a delight, and he giggles away, very like my daughter actually and of course wonderfully stubborn just like my daughter.”
Reminiscing over her late best friend Princess Diana, Ferguson says she too would have been an extremely proud grandmother.
"She’s just an exceptional person, we all miss her very much. I think she would’ve been so very proud of her sons and their wives and the grandchildren.
"I know that if she was here now, we really would be having endless parties for our grandchildren like we did for our own children."
Ferguson has even read her grandson the iconic Kiwi children’s book Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy.
"I’m obsessed with Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy, I read it all the time!"
Asked how she hopes her future grandchildren will remember her, she says: "I hope they will take the spirit of my sense of joy and humour and say ‘if only we’d met her’, I would love that.
"I hope they learn that you’ve got to be the last gladiator in the ring, or arena, and you dust yourselves off and you carry on."
Ferguson says she is determined to come and explore New Zealand once the pandemic is over.
"I need to come to New Zealand, I’m desperate because I’ve never been to New Zealand!
"I just want to come and uncover so much of the magic of New Zealand."
*WORD Christchurch is offering an opportunity for readers to connect with the Duchess of York over a cup of tea on 28 August. She’ll be answering questions about the book from her home in Windsor with an audience at the Christchurch Town Hall.
