London: When your next-door neighbour is the King, it’s a good idea to keep your head down, hints Roger Young, a Flitcham villager. Otherwise, it might just be a case of off with it.
“You can expect to see me hung,” the 87-year-old says after he agrees, following some hesitation, to stop and talk. “Hung, drawn and quartered,” adds his wife, Patsy, 86.
They are not the first people in this pretty Domesday Book village, which forms part of the monarch’s Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, whom we approached in the hope of a brief chat.
But there is a distinct sense of nervousness. Most decline to speak at all, politely swinging wreathed doors closed, or leaving us standing on doormats that are adorned with pheasant motifs.