The Royal Connection to Ska

It's a revelation that is unlikely to increase ska's cool quotient: the Queen Mum liked Jamaican ska and apparently had several LPs in her collection.

An article in today's Daily Mail (UK) notes that contents of the Queen Mother's personal record collection were made public for the first time. Not surprisingly, she came into contact with the music via a fairly highbrow connection (what, you think she went to dance to a sound system at a street party?!):

"...the Queen Mother, who died aged 101 in 2002, picked up an appreciation for West Indian music during visits to Jamaica.

‘During one of her trips to the Caribbean in the Sixties she was introduced to ska music, which she became very fond of.

‘Noel Coward, who was a personal friend, had a house called Firefly in Jamaica and she greatly enjoyed her visits there.'"

Sadly, the piece does not mention the titles of these ska albums...that bit of info would be fascinating.