Remember me
The Queen has joined friends and family of Dame Jilly Cooper to attend a memorial service to celebrate her life today. The author, famous for her steamy fiction novels which focused on scandal and adultery in upper class society, died unexpectedly in October, aged 88, after sustaining injuries from a fall.
Her funeral took place last year but a special memorial service is happening on Friday morning at Southwark Cathedral in her honour. Among those arriving before the service were Rivals stars Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, Danny Dyer and Katherine Parkinson.
Camilla was a long-time friend of Dame Jilly, and she arrived wearing a bright blue dress, ahead of the 11am service. She spoke with Dean of Southwark Mark Oakley before entering the Cathedral, and admired a large picture of her friend that was placed outside the entrance.
Dame Jilly's literary agent Felicity Blunt arrived alongside her husband, actor Stanley Tucci.
He 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."
Other guests included former football player Tony Adams, actress Lisa Maxwell and comedian Helen Lederer.
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.
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".
Dame Jilly was friends with the Queen, and they spent time together at Chatsworth last September for the Queen’s Reading Room Festival.
After her agent announced her death, the Queen released a statement to express her "sadness" over her friend's death, praising her for "creating a whole new genre of literature and making it her own". She spoke dearly of her "wonderfully witty and compassionate friend" and sent her and King Charles's "thoughts and sympathies to all her family".
The Queen was a huge fan of her books, and Dame Jilly even based one of her characters on Camilla's ex-husband, Andrew Parker Bowles. He was the inspiration behind lothario Rupert Campbell-Black in her hit novel, Rivals, which has now become a Disney TV series.
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Camilla is understood to have adored the show, which includes steamy scenes, and was sent an advanced preview of the TV adaptation. And in December she visited the set of the show for a behind-the-scenes tour.
Speaking with Dame Jilly's son, Felix Cooper, and daughter Emily Tarrant on set, the Queen expressed her sadness. "She was such a big part of my life for such a long time. We all miss her so much." she said.