Floors Royal Upstairs Downstairs


Floors

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'Just what do you have to do when a Queen decides to pop in to see you? Not just any old Queen. Victoria!

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'We're chasing our longest reigning monarch around the country

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'to the magnificent mansions she visited.

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'We'll be delving into her personal diaries to reveal what happened behind closed doors.'

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Today, we've come north of the border

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to the home of the Dukes of Roxburghe at Floors Castle.

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And we're going to be finding out what happened here during three days in 1867.

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'And as someone who has spent a lifetime getting excited by antiques,

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'I'll try a Victorian fishing rod.'

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You wouldn't need to be catching a salmon. You're taking all day to wind that in.

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'I hope Tim gets a bite because as a chef who is passionate about great food,

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'I'll be in the kitchen creating a spectacular Scottish salmon dish, Victorian style.'

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What a treat and how extravagant!

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-'And serving it to my very own catch of the day, Tim.'

-We have to raise a glass to you and your team.

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There's a true sense of sadness about our visit to Floors today

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because out of the many royal trips that we're making,

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this is the first official public visit

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that Victoria made after the death of her beloved husband, Prince Albert.

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And it was a whole six years since the passing of Albert

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and Victoria was still deeply affected by it.

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Albert's death in 1861 came after a long fight against typhoid.

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So after years of self-imposed seclusion and obsessive mourning,

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Victoria's return to official duty north of the border would have been particularly emotional.

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But the show had to go on

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and besides, Victoria had been promising a visit to the Duke and Duchess for some time.

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Well, she may have been without Albert,

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but at least she did have four of her nine children with her

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because travelling with her were Helena and Louise, Beatrice and Leopold.

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And it's wonderful to have a large family to have supported her.

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And also she had ladies-in-waiting and her equerries as well.

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Yeah, they all came up from Windsor on the train

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and they overnighted in Carlisle, just south of the border.

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I'm going downstairs to see how the Duke and Duchess's staff coped with Victoria's visit.

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-Toodle-oo, Rosemary.

-Bye.

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While I head upstairs to investigate how Victoria got on

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on her first visit after the death of her beloved Albert.

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After her overnight stay in Carlisle,

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Victoria arrived by train the next morning in the local town of Kelso

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and for once, the fine Victorian railway system let her down

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as the train rolled in more than an hour and a half late.

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That didn't deter her loyal public.

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After six years out of the spotlight, Victoria was greeted by hordes of loyal subjects,

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as seen in these drawings made for The Illustrated London News, the popular rag of the day.

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For the mournful Victoria, these scenes of loyalty must have been heart-warming.

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But once the Queen finally arrived here at Floors, it would appear that she is really rather impressed.

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She writes, "The park is remarkably fine

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"with the approach under splendid beech, sycamore and oak trees.

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"The house? Very handsome.

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"Built originally by John Vanbrugh in 1718,

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"but much improved by the present Duke."

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He hired Edinburgh architect William Playfair.

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He was determined to create a fairy-tale castle on the banks of the River Tweed.

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He created this grand structure at the front of the house,

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so that carriages could drive up to the front door without getting wet.

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This wonderful porte-cochere or carriage porch was added by Playfair,

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along with all these other, lovely, decorative, little turreted pieces.

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Charming!

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And it was Playfair himself who pronounced that these door handles were worthy of the Vatican.

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Bit over the top!

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Morning.

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Playfair also rebuilt the staff quarters

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which must have gone down pretty well with the royal entourage.

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I'm at the far end of the kitchen wing.

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This is the kitchen courtyard!

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This was the hub of the downstairs domain

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because all the servants, including Victoria's staff,

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would have stayed in many of the rooms dotted around this courtyard.

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Right up to the present day, this still serves as a home for the people who work here

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and the people who still live here - the butler, the chauffeur and the housekeeper. How lucky are they!

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While the staff were finding their rooms, upstairs, Victoria was being greeted in the entrance hall.

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Having been greeted in the porte-cochere,

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the Queen was very quickly ushered into the library

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before being quickly taken to a private breakfast with her children.

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She records, "It was ten past twelve."

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Very precise. Kind of royal brunch time.

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This room quite obviously now is a billiard room.

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But originally, it was designed by Playfair as one of the state bedrooms.

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But it wasn't occupied by Victoria.

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She was allocated a trio of rooms upstairs.

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It was actually her sickly, haemophiliac son Prince Leopold who got this state bedroom.

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The most appropriate picture in this room, I guess, has to be this one

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of the 6th Duchess.

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You see her here pretty well as she would have looked when Victoria came to visit

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because this picture was only completed a few years afterwards.

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As mistress of the house, she would have been responsible for the allocation of bedrooms.

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And whilst Prince Leopold was down here,

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for Victoria, whose heart, even six years after the loss of Albert,

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was aching uncontrollably,

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had this to say from her diary.

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"The children were close at hand,

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"but the feeling of loneliness when I saw no room for my darling

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"and felt I was indeed alone and a widow overcame me very sadly.

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"It was the first time I had gone in this way on a visit

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"and I thought so much of all dearest Albert would have done and said

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"and how he would have wandered about everywhere, admired everything, looked at everything

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"and now...

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"Oh, must it ever be so?"

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Poor woman.

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'This was Victoria's first official visit in six years, so the pressure would have been ramped up a notch

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'for the servants downstairs, especially in the kitchen.

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'Time to see what Victorian delicacy chef and food historian Ivan Day has got up his sleeve

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'for today's royal dinner.'

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This is the River Tweed,

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so really it has to be salmon.

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This is one of the greatest salmon rivers in Britain.

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And I've chosen a recipe which actually appears in two cookery books written by Victoria's chefs.

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And it's called salmon a la Chambord.

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It's a very aristocratic, incredibly ornate dish and it's going to take some preparation.

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'First, we put roughly chopped onions, shallots and carrots

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'into the special poaching pan known as a fish kettle.'

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Why are you putting in the vegetables now?

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They will keep the strainer from sitting on the bottom,

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so the salmon will be totally surrounded by water. It won't burn on the bottom.

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How clever is that! Now you're going to put the salmon in.

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Let's just gently get him over on to the drainer. Look, he fits perfectly.

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I love the way you put a little string to keep the jaw attached, so it doesn't fall off.

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Yes, this is very much a centrepiece dish and he's got to look really good.

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-Put a bit more wine in there, Rosemary. That's fine.

-That's the bit I like.

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Right, let's get this into the salmon kettle.

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Perfect.

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-Rosemary, could you put some salt in while I get the lid ready?

-OK.

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Right, how long?

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I'm going to get that up to a nice simmer and I'll give it 18 to 20 minutes, I think.

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Gosh! Just look at that!

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What a vista!

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I'm on the South Balcony of the castle and in front of me is the River Tweed.

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This balcony was constructed so that it would get most of the sunshine during the day

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and of course, it makes a great platform to be able to see the outline of the Cheviot Hills

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and England beyond.

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This is rather fun, look,

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an engraving from The Illustrated London News,

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showing the evening celebrations for the Queen's visit.

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We've quite obviously got a corner of the castle here

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and down below, the town of Kelso

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with their firework celebration, look.

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There's quite clearly the spire of the church down there.

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What I like are these bonfires, six of them, lit on top of the Cheviot Hills.

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But actually, do the tops of the Cheviot Hills look like that in reality?

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I'm not entirely sure that they do, actually.

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Perhaps it's just a bit of artistic licence, eh?

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Victoria was already very familiar with Scotland by the time she came to Floors in 1867.

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In fact, the trip was made en route to her Highland property Balmoral

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which she had bought 15 years earlier,

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but she still used her visit to explore the local sights.

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And her highlight was a day trip to the home

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of one of her heroes, Walter Scott, in nearby Abbotsford.

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One of his relatives, a Mr Hope Scott, gave her a personal tour

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which she describes in her journal.

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"They showed us his library where we saw his manuscript

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"of Ivanhoe and several others of his novels and poems,

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"then his study in which is a bust in bronze, done from a cast taken after his death.

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"We saw his journal in which Mr Hope Scott asked them to write my name."

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This must have been a great thrill for Victoria because she was a huge fan of Walter Scott.

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Not surprising, given that they both did so much to popularise the Scottish landscape.

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'While the Queen was indulging in a bit of sightseeing,

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'at the castle, the kitchen staff would have been preparing for dinner.

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'Our salmon has been simmered in the kettle for 18 minutes and is now ready to decorate.'

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-I've removed the skin.

-Right.

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What I'm doing now is I'm spreading a mixture of breadcrumbs

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that have been cooked in fish stock.

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-Yes.

-Mixed in with a little bit of pulverised whiting.

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It acts as an adhesive to stick on little strips of sole

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which have little slits cut in them with a sharp knife

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and then these little tiny slithers of truffle are inserted

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and it flavours the sole and makes almost like a zebra pattern all over the salmon.

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It's a technique that had a name called "contised".

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-Rosemary, would you like to have a go at "contising" a sole fillet?

-You know me, don't you? I would.

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Let's turn it round. I have to work from this end.

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The technique is to just cut a very thin slither like that and curl it up.

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-Right, OK.

-Then you can pop in a little bit of truffle and push it down.

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'The lengths Victorian cooks went to are amazing. It's far more intricate than anything you'd see today.'

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Pop one in.

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There.

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-While you're doing that, I'm going to start to put some more forcemeat at this end.

-Yes.

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And we'll get the whole thing finished.

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Now, once we've got it adorned with the fillets of sole,

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we're going to put it very briefly into a hot oven.

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You only need minutes to cook the sole. It's as thin as anything.

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It's very intricate work, isn't it? Can I put it on?

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That's it. Make it touch the bottom of the... I've got it at that side. That's great.

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Just tap it down, so it sticks down perfectly.

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Let's get it on the right way round.

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We've lost a bit, but I can easily pop that in.

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Now, Rosemary, could you open the door for me, please?

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There we go.

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'The dish goes into the oven for precisely seven minutes on a moderate heat,

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'just enough time to cook the thin strips of sole.'

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The kitchen would never have had a short supply of salmon.

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During Victoria's visit, the River Tweed would be brimming with them.

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And one chap would certainly have been swimming in this river when Victoria was here.

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How about this for a bit of local produce?

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The Tweed's record-breaking salmon.

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Caught in 1886

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when it weighed in at 56 and a half pounds.

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I don't know about you, but I prefer mine with chips.

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'We know Victoria loved to soak up the views across the River Tweed, but it was tinged with sadness.

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'For she would also know that as a keen fisherman,

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'her dear departed Albert would have been in his element here.' There's my man!

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'I meet fishing expert Ian Gordon.'

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They used to say that in Victoria's time, the salmon was so plentiful

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that the locals would feed off it several times a week. They were fed up eating salmon!

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-Is that true?

-It's strange. It's like a farm servant at that time.

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It's like a contract of work. They were told they weren't to be fed salmon more than two times a week.

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Can you imagine that? Imagine!

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-"I'm not eating salmon. Enough!"

-"I want beef!"

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"Give me a bit of pig!"

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Is it just the aristocrats oinking out these fish with flies and rods and stuff?

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That really is the common perception.

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In Victoria's time, all the fishing that was done on this river

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was done by invitation of people like the Sixth Duke of Roxburghe, as Queen Victoria did.

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We're going to ignore that modern rod. I want to see you have a go with this greenheart fellow.

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-With this I can out-fish you, yeah?

-Tim, there's no chance of that.

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-I'll take that one.

-No, you've got the greenheart.

-Stop it! Stop it! Get off!

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'Prince Albert isn't the only Royal who had a passion for fly fishing.

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'Apparently, Prince Charles also likes a cast or two.

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'If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. Bring it on!'

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Wow! Yes!

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Look at the whip on that!

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I'll leave you to wind that in. Think you'll manage that?

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My God! Honestly, you're taking all day to wind that in.

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I'm being very, very gentle with this antique piece of equipment.

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-There's no need to be TOO gentle with it.

-Well...

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'This rod might have been all the fashion in Victoria's time, but it's brought me no luck today.

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'Just as well Rosemary didn't rely on me catching a salmon for tea.'

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After lunch on her first day at Floors, Victoria took a stroll

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and admired the beautiful walled kitchen garden.

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The walls create a micro-climate a good deal warmer than outside.

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The estate gardeners grew everything from cut flowers to Brussels sprouts.

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They not only looked great, but more importantly fed the staff and guests, including Victoria.

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'The man who looks after these gardens today is Andrew Simmons.'

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-What was the brief of a walled garden?

-To get as much as you could for the table.

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And once the table was supplied, it was the staff.

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In Victorian times, there would have been such an entourage of staff following on.

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You could possibly have up to 100 staff to feed as well, living in.

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This is why there was such great produce being grown.

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'The Victorians took gardening to a whole new level with the introduction of greenhouses

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'to grow more exotic fruits.

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'Some of these standing here today date from Victoria's visit. They even had central heating.

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'To make sure the Queen's greens were up to scratch, they had to fight off numerous pests

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'with some quite shocking methods.'

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What pesticides did they use? They used all sorts of things.

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They used pesticides, but the head gardener was under pressure

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to produce this perfect fruit and vegetables.

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And if he didn't, his job could be on the line,

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so he did use an awful lot of chemicals. Lead, arsenic,

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I think there is still a recipe for making your own liquid nicotine.

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That would have been a favourite. Certainly smoking with nicotine.

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They'd make the concoction with liquid nicotine and soak rags and then light it

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and smoke the greenhouses.

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'The Victorian kitchen garden made an impact on the Queen.

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'She had one built at Balmoral and her children had their own vegetable patches at Osborne House,

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'the family's home on the Isle of Wight.'

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There's an immense sadness that hangs over this visit.

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Despite Victoria's obvious love of Scotland, she cannot escape the constant feeling of loneliness.

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But luckily she had the perfect hosts.

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She wrote, "Nobody could be kinder or more discreet or anxious that I should be undisturbed

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"when at home than the Duke or Duchess."

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In years to come, Victoria enjoyed a close friendship with the Duchess.

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They often wrote to each other and some of these letters are still on show at the castle today,

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but their relationship was cemented 14 years after this visit, in 1881,

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when she, the Duchess, was awarded the Order of Victoria and Albert.

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And two years later she received the ultimate honour

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when appointed Mistress of the Robes to Queen Victoria, senior lady in the Royal household.

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-'Talking of senior ladies...

-Careful, Tim!

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'Downstairs, our salmon a la Chambord is nearing completion.

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'The strips of sole have cooked perfectly and our dressed salmon is ready for the final assembly job.'

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I've constructed a little cushion of cold rice

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and covered it with a thin film of a herb butter.

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'To make this, we've taken soft butter and added green herbs -

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'parsley, chervil, tarragon and burnet, a lovely old-fashioned herb.

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'Then we've added chopped gherkins, capers and garlic. Once it's spread over the rice, it forms a bed

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'for the salmon to sit on.'

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The most difficult thing is to get the fish off here and on to there.

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We have to do this together. If you get that in front of you.

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This is a little bit shorter than the salmon,

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so before you start taking it off, I have to get it in the right place.

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Gently start to move it across. Is it coming? That's it. Perfect.

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-So what's next?

-We need to embellish it with the garnish.

-Right.

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-It's very complicated.

-OK.

-We start off with some quenelles.

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'Quenelles are small, fried patties made from forcemeat - ground meat or fish. We're using whiting.'

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-Amazing!

-When you get a Victorian dish like this...

-Yes.

-..you get the main dish

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-and always you get a garnish.

-Right.

-This usually is in two forms.

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-One surrounds the dish.

-Mm-hm.

-The other is stuck in the top.

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-In order to get this started, we need those truffles. These are whole truffles.

-Oooh.

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What a treat! How extravagant!

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If you could just push them in so they actually stand there.

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-Like that.

-How many do you want?

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I think five. If you put a third one there...

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-Now push it so it is actually sticking into it.

-Into the butter, into the rice.

-And one more.

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-So there's our fifth one.

-Push it in hard.

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-The next thing is crayfish.

-Oh, wow.

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-We put one between...

-I'll bring them here.

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You can sit them like that with their claws. Put another one there.

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You're lining the crayfish up with our contised fillets.

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These are also quenelles, with a little strip of contised sole fillet down the middle.

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And these have been cooked.

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We put them in between the crayfish.

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Oh, amazing. 'Any one of these garnishes could be the centre of a dish on their own.

0:22:530:22:59

-'And there's more!'

-We're going to decorate it with these beautiful silver hatelet skewers.

0:22:590:23:06

We've got a crayfish, a mushroom and this quenelle, which is our whiting forcemeat again,

0:23:060:23:12

this time decorated with this little pattern made in truffles.

0:23:120:23:16

And what we do with those is we put them right in the middle of the salmon

0:23:160:23:21

and then it should sit beautifully like that.

0:23:210:23:26

So if you could do one at the other end.

0:23:260:23:30

-It's the bone.

-I've got it.

0:23:340:23:37

I'll put another one in there.

0:23:370:23:40

-You'll feel the bone, but...

-You can work around the outside.

0:23:400:23:45

Come in like that.

0:23:450:23:47

-And we'll do another one here.

-Get your guy in there.

0:23:470:23:51

-That's perfect.

-It's so ornate!

0:23:510:23:55

This would be one dish of many.

0:23:550:23:57

Unbelievable.

0:23:570:23:59

It's almost immoral.

0:23:590:24:02

-Do you know what I mean?

-Well, it's a dish fit for Queen Victoria, I hope.

0:24:020:24:08

I hope it'll be fit enough for Tim!

0:24:080:24:10

'There's one key part of floors we haven't visited yet - a small corner of the gardens

0:24:100:24:16

'where the Roxburghes created something special just for the Queen to enjoy during her stay.

0:24:160:24:22

'A summer house.'

0:24:220:24:25

Victoria mentions that she walked onto the flower garden

0:24:250:24:29

"and took tea in a pretty little room adjoining them, which is entirely tiled."

0:24:290:24:35

This is it. Her pretty little room which Floors Castle still refer to as the Queen's House.

0:24:350:24:43

'How great to be able to show off Rosemary's culinary skills in a place we know Victoria loved.'

0:24:430:24:50

-Ah, Rosemary!

-What a feast for your eyes!

0:24:510:24:55

-Magnificent.

-What have you been up to, girl?

0:24:550:25:00

Well, it's actually some salmon which was put in a fish kettle,

0:25:000:25:04

then we baked it in the oven and we've put this wonderful fish decoration.

0:25:040:25:09

-This is a dish that Queen Victoria would have eaten.

-I'm blown away.

0:25:090:25:13

-So you should be.

-These little crayfish fellows look colourful.

-They are.

0:25:130:25:18

This is a little quenelle. It has mushroom, quenelle, and they're shaped, steamed,

0:25:180:25:24

-and then crayfish.

-This is the moment for a drop of plonk.

0:25:240:25:29

-Special white.

-I'm going to cut up a fillet and just prise it off for you,

0:25:290:25:35

-like that.

-Yes. Now, whoopsie.

0:25:350:25:37

-That's always the dodgy bit.

-Yes.

0:25:370:25:40

-It's falling off the bone.

-It's absolutely sensational.

0:25:400:25:45

Mmm.

0:25:450:25:46

-That's superb, isn't it?

-It just oozes with bouillon.

0:25:470:25:52

-We have to raise a glass to you and your team.

-Absolutely.

0:25:530:25:57

Now this is all very special. I'll do a little show and tell.

0:25:590:26:04

I'd like to present you

0:26:040:26:06

with the basket award.

0:26:060:26:08

This is a little special something.

0:26:090:26:12

It looks like something that came with Little Bo Peep.

0:26:120:26:16

Actually, if I take the cover off,

0:26:160:26:19

I'll show you a little piece of paper inside and it says,

0:26:190:26:24

"Basket given by the Queen to the Duchess of Roxburghe.

0:26:240:26:28

"Straw plaid by Her Majesty."

0:26:280:26:32

So...

0:26:320:26:33

Queen Victoria actually wove this exquisite straw exterior,

0:26:330:26:39

-the construction of the basket.

-She did it herself?

0:26:390:26:43

Yeah. You'd think she'd go out and buy one and maybe make up the silk to go in it,

0:26:430:26:50

but she actually wove the basket herself for her mate, the Duchess of Roxburghe.

0:26:500:26:56

-Inside, we've got a little bracelet.

-Oh, it's adorable.

0:26:560:27:00

It contains a portrait of the Queen.

0:27:000:27:03

And it was again presented to the Duchess of Roxburghe.

0:27:030:27:08

And if I'm very careful and press in these little lugs,

0:27:080:27:11

we can take the actual portrait of Her Majesty out

0:27:110:27:17

and on the back of it, on the gold, it is inscribed,

0:27:170:27:21

"To the Duchess of Roxburghe, from her affectionate and unhappy friend,

0:27:210:27:28

"Victoria".

0:27:280:27:30

Even in a gorgeous gift like this, she has to make reference to her unhappiness

0:27:300:27:37

-at the fact that she's a widow.

-She was still in love with Albert.

0:27:370:27:42

I think that's a lovely gift, but they gave her a lovely time.

0:27:420:27:47

I think we have had a wonderful time here. It has been a brilliant day.

0:27:470:27:52

-What a joy to come here.

-A joy to behold.

-It is.

-Like you.

0:27:520:27:57

'Our next stop on Victoria's tour of Britain takes us to Hughenden Manor in Buckinghamshire,

0:27:590:28:05

'home to the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli.

0:28:050:28:09

'This was not a social call. Britain was on the verge of war.

0:28:110:28:15

'We'll be looking at some fascinating documents that reveal

0:28:150:28:20

'how Victoria was right in the thick of it.'

0:28:200:28:23

Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2011

0:28:340:28:38

Email [email protected]

0:28:390:28:41

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