Queen arrives for memorial service celebrating Dame Jilly Cooper’s life
The author was known for her steamy novels which focused on scandal and adultery in upper class society.
The Queen has joined stars of hit TV show Rivals at a memorial service to celebrate the life of Dame Jilly Cooper in central London.
Dame Jilly died unexpectedly in October, aged 88, after sustaining injuries from a fall.
The successful author’s fictional seducer and showjumper Rupert Campbell-Black, who appears in The Rutshire Chronicles, is said to be partly based on the Queen’s ex-husband Andrew Parker Bowles.
Camilla previously described Dame Jilly as a “wonderfully witty and compassionate friend” and a writing “legend”.
Among those also at the Southwark Cathedral service are Rivals stars David Tennant, Victoria Smurfit, Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson.
Others in attendance are Dame Jilly’s literary agent Felicity Blunt and her husband, actor Stanley Tucci.
Camilla, who was welcomed at the cathedral by the Very Rev Dr Mark Oakley, Dean of Southwark, viewed a picture of Dame Jilly which was on display outside.
The Queen was wearing a blue silk dress, with a blue cashmere top stitch coat by Anna Valentine, and she was holding a Dior handbag.
Irish actress Smurfit said: “We’ve lost a ray of sunshine. We really have.”
Speaking outside ahead of the memorial service, she said: “I feel extremely grateful and unbelievably lucky that a woman who’s been in my life for nearly 40 years as a name, as an author, her voice has been in my world for 40 years, that I got to live in her presence and be part of her world.
“It’s going to be terribly sad today and surreal and oddly making it real that she is gone.
“We will keep her memory and stories alive for as long as we can.”
When he arrived, Tucci paid tribute to the late author and told media: “She lived an incredible life.
“She also changed the lives of so many people for the better with her books, my wife being one of them.
“She was an extraordinary person, a brilliant writer, nice person and naughty.”
Blunt wore a tote bag that said “I love Jilly Cooper” on it.
Actor Sir Derek Jacobi said Dame Jilly was a “glorious lady” and he “loved her very much and miss her very much”.
He added: “It means a great deal to be here, just to say a final ‘hello’.
“We loved her dearly.”
Arriving for the service, Alan Titchmarsh said he was friends with Dame Jilly for 40 years and described her as “hugely genuine”.
He joked: “Her only failing was her appalling hand drawing.”
Asked what it meant to be there at the service, Titchmarsh said: “It’s a way of saying thank you really. Such a loss of a great friend.”
Broadcaster Gyles Brandreth paid tribute to the “fabulous” and “amazing” Dame Jilly.
He said: “Whenever I think of Jilly Cooper, I think of one word, a three-letter word: fun, fun, fun, fun.
“That sums her up.
“This is, of course, terribly sad, but also it’s a celebration of an amazing life, an amazing writer, an amazing human being.
“Champagne is being popped in heaven today and I’m honoured and delighted to be here amongst so many celebrating an amazing writer.”
He continued: “I first met her nearly 60 years ago. We were both young authors. We sat at the back of a bus. I held her hand, and she decided to talk to me about sex.
“I saw her a few weeks before she died. We sat in the back of the bus, we held hands, we talked about sex. She was fabulous.”
Other guests included Dame Joanna Lumley, actor Rupert Everett, former football player Tony Adams, actress Lisa Maxwell and comedian Helen Lederer.
The author was known for her steamy fiction novels which focused on scandal and adultery in upper class society, with titles including Riders, Rivals and Polo, part of The Rutshire Chronicles.
Rivals, set in the 1980s against the backdrop of the Cotswolds countryside, was recently adapted into the award-winning eponymous Disney+ TV series starring a host of famous actors including Tennant and Dyer.
A number of Dame Jilly’s novels were adapted for TV, including an ITV series of The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous with Coronation Street star Stephen Billington and Downton Abbey actor Hugh Bonneville, and a Riders series starring Marcus Gilbert during the 1990s.
She was also behind the 1970s sitcom It’s Awfully Bad For Your Eyes, which starred Dame Joanna Lumley.
Dame Jilly wrote the hit novel Mount! and published her most recent work Tackle! in 2023, which she wrote on her trusty manual typewriter named Monica.
The author was made a CBE for services to literature and charity during the 2018 New Year Honours, and in 2024 was made a dame, later describing receiving the honour from the King as “orgasmic”.
She is survived by her two children, Felix and Emily.
