The Bayeux Tapestry comes to the British Museum.

 At the British Museum (BM) last night there was a group of the great and the good - including the King and Queen, president Macron and his wife, plus the prime minister Andy Burnham to - look at the extraordinary Bayeux Tapestry. Some 224 feet long, it tells the story of the Norman Conquest in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings. It’s been brought to London - as its home in northern France is being renovated. It will be at the BM until 2027 and was agreed as a possibility by president Macron and Keir Starmer some time last year. I fortunately have seen the tapestry - in situ in Bayeux back in July 1981- on the date of princess Diana marriage to Prince Charles at St Paul’s cathedral - Diana only 20 a virgin, gullible and naive. He was snobbish entitled and aged 32 - brash and was in love with another woman Camilla Parker-Bowles. It was an establishment - stitch up that was disgraceful even in 1981. And we all know how it ended - in a dark tunnel in the early hours of an August night in 1997. The mass hysteria that followed - shook the Royal Family to the core - including the normal stoical Queen Elizabeth. The tapestry was actually made by women in the immediate environment surrounding Canterbury cathedral, in Kent by English embroiders. It is generally believed it was then shipped to France around 1077. So this is the first time since 1077 - that it has returned to the old country of its birth.