Time and Chance, Peter Townsend
Time and Chance, Peter Townsend
List: $24.99 | Sale: $17.50
Club: $12.49

Time and Chance
An Autobiography

Author: Peter Townsend

Narrator: John Lee

Unabridged: 10 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 02/14/2023


Synopsis

THE REMARKABLE LIFE OF PETER TOWNSEND, THE MAN CONSIDERED TO BE THE GREAT LOVE OF PRINCESS MARGARET'S LIFE, EQUERRY TO KING GEORGE VI AND HERO OF THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN.

"One afternoon, at Windsor Castle, when everyone had gone to London for some ceremony, we talked, in the red drawing-room, for hours—about ourselves. It was then that we made the mutual discovery of how much we meant to one another. She listened, without uttering a word, as I told her, very quietly, of my feelings. Then she simply said: 'That is exactly how I feel, too.' It was, to us both, an immensely gladdening disclosure, but one which sorely troubled us."

The romance between Princess Margaret and Group Captain Peter Townsend in the 1950s rocked the British Establishment, pulled at the heartstrings of a nation and brought sorrow to two intensely human individuals.

In Time and Chance, Peter Townsend tells his side of the story in intensely personal terms and places the episode within the whole context of his full and varied life, a story which includes great heroism in World War II as well as his part in one of the most publicized love stories of the twentieth century.

About Peter Townsend

Peter Townsend was born in Rangoon, Burma, in 1914. He trained at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell from 1933 to 1935. He served with No 1 and No 43 Squadron and in May 1940 took command of No 85 Squadron leading it into the Battle of Britain with outstanding skill and determination. Townsend enjoyed an equally distinguished peacetime career, serving as Equerry to King George VI, from 1944 until his death in 1952. Following his ill-fated relationship with Princess Margaret, Townsend began a new life in France where he turned to writing and settled happily with his family until 1995 when he died at the age of eighty.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Mary

The greatest love stories usually involve the death of one of the lovers. In this case, which follows in the next generation of the Edward & Mrs. Simpson story, neither lover dies while in the midst of their relationship. And unlike Edward and Mrs. Simpson, Margaret and Peter are not united in marri......more

Absolutely wonderful stuff, loved every minute and what a man, what a life and I wish I’d met him. In the book he meets Jan Smuts and Albert Schweitzer, both well renowned men of their time in their own elements in Africa, and when he meets Smuts he also encounters other Boer War veterans which is e......more

Goodreads review by Dustin

Time and Chance tells the life-story of Group Captain Peter Townsend, contextualized in terms of his ill-fated relationship with Princess Margaret in the early 1950s. Upon first hearing about how their marriage was precluded by “the establishment,” as Townsend called it, I was interested to learn mo......more

Peter Townsend was one of a kind in terms of chivalry, manners and consideration. He underplays his incredible bravery and even more so his resilience during the war years and where death was imminent all the time. So for me who had a father invalided out of the trenches in WW1 and then join the RFC......more