Bob Crew is a former International Correspondent for The Times and spent a lifetime in journalism specialising in international and business affairs.

In this extraordinary and delightfully surprising book about the 60-year television history of Queen Elizabeth II, there are stars of television, television satire, entertainment, film, the art world, sport, pop music, politics and television science, including the following, all of whom relate to Bob Crew’s fascinating social and television royal history, in one way or other : Queen Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, Harold Wilson, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Margaret Thatcher, Enoch Powell, Boris Yeltsin, Logie Baird, Michael Faraday, the Beatles, John Lennon, Julian Lennon, Paul McCartney, Heather Mills, Spike Milligan, John Cleese, Peter Cook, The Pythons, Barry Humphries, David Frost, David Beckham, Vinny Jones, Simon Cowell, Cheryl Cole, Ant and Dec, Piers Morgan, David Attenborough, Eamonn Andrews, Barbara Kelly, Shakespeare, Princess Diana, Dodi Fayyad, Prince William and Prince Harry, Prince Charles and Camilla, Princess Anne, Helen Mirren, Jacques Cousteau, Andrew Marr, John Humphrys, John McEnroe, David Dimbleby and Richard Dimbleby to mention but a few.

This is not your usual bog-standard Diamond Jubilee book – duplicating the same old story as all the duplicating others – on the contrary it really is a stand-alone Diamond Jubilee book that is uniquely and refreshingly different, with a broad brush, and something for everybody in its pages. This really is a ‘party at the palace’ book in more ways than one. Bob Crew has assembled a huge and colourful cast of characters with which to tell his story, a goodly number of whom he has known and/or had occasion to work with.

Also included is a wonderful chapter on Queen Elizabeth’s pictures through history on stamps – including many beautiful examples of stamps from around the world.

Britain’s Television Queen is available from all good bookstores including Amazon UK