Marion Crawford - Later Life

Later Life

Crawford's writing career came to a crashing halt when the column to which her name was attached was exposed as a fraud. It carried details of a Trooping the Colour ceremony and the Ascot races, when in fact they had been cancelled that year because of a strike. As the stories were written in advance, it was too late to stop their publication.

Crawford retired to Aberdeen. Though the Royal Family regularly drove past her front door on their way to nearby Balmoral Castle, they never stopped to see the Queen's former governess. When she died at the age of 78 at Hawkhill House (a nursing home in Aberdeen) in 1988, neither the Queen, the Queen Mother nor Princess Margaret sent a funeral wreath.