What's it like to live in a royal palace?

Did Lucy Worsley have the best job in history? As she writes in her latest book, Lucy's time as chief curator at historic royal palaces was an incredibly varied one. Speaking to Charlotte Vosper for this episode of the History Extra podcast, Lucy reflects on her career so far and reveals how it has changed her perspective on some of your favorite monarchs from the past. Hi, Lucy, thanks so much for coming onto the podcast. It's lovely to have you here. It's totally my pleasure. Thank you for having me. You're very welcome. Now, today we're going to be talking about your remarkably varied career, your experience working in royal palaces, and your role in changing the way that we think about monarchs in the past. But before we dive into all of that. I'd like to start by asking.

What was your first major role in the public history and heritage sector? I was a tour guide. Wow, okay. And actually there's such a parallel with what I do today, which is talking to people about History And like any tour guide, I had to get quite good at seeing if people were looking bored, whether they were looking interested. And I definitely didn't step onto the stage as a fully fledged historian.

By any means. And I do think that my background really helps me as a curator. Because a lot of people who have traditionally been curators are are really expert in the history side of things. But I was out there. I was dealing with customers. I was providing opportunities for people to learn, I suppose. And that's something I've always really enjoyed doing. So you're working on the front line, basically. Yes, yes. I finished my history degree. And I wrote to all the historic houses that were in the area. And one of them said, Yeah, come along and so I just got stuck in and I ended up doing things like organizing their crazy historical reenactments that they had. Oh brilliant. And involvement in reenactment. That is fun. It was. So from there, being a tour guide How did you progress then to being

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