And about time, too. The breed was last fashionable between the wars. There was nothing exceptional about George VI’s preference, when, as Duke of York, he bought a corgi called Dookie in 1933. Dookie was joined by Jane: the union was blessed with a litter, from which Crackers and Carol were kept. Princess Elizabeth was given her first corgi, Susan, as an 18th birthday present. It was towards the end of the Second World War, and Susan must have seemed an emblem of the peaceful domestic world that had been disrupted. In time, Susan became a matriarch, the head of a dynasty of corgis, whose youngest members – Monty, Willow and Holly – are alive to this day.