WELL, who'd have thought it, the dear old queen mum was a bit of a one.

Well, that's if last night's part documentary, part entertainment on Channel Four, The Real Life of the Queen Mother, is to be believed.

I'm not a huge fan of these programmes which blur the edges between fact and fiction and add a little dramatic licence in the process.

But you can't fault last night's effort for entertainment value.

To many people the Queen Mum was forever a grandmother, the senior figure in the royal family whose presence added a certain warmth and dignity to counter balance some of the more wayward exploits of the younger royals.

But, if we can trust what we were shown last night, had the tabloids been around in her younger days she would have forever been on the front pages.

There were some interesting parallels between her and Princess Diana - both were from outside the immediate royal circle and married princes older than themselves.

Where the programme had most fun was speculating that initially the Queen Mum was smitten with the future Edward VIII and that this explained why she never saw eye-to-eye with the formidable Wallace Simpson for whom he abdicated the throne.

Whether it's true or not doesn't really matter as it certainly made for a different - and entertaining hour-long programme.