The Abdul Diaries

Karim was recruited to wait tables during Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee in 1887, and in a year began instructing her in Urdu and Indian affairs.

According to Shrabani Basu, author of Victoria and Abdul: “In letters to him over the years between his arrival in the UK and her death in 1901, the queen signed letters to him as ‘your loving mother’ and ‘your closest friend’ …. On some occasions, she even signed off her letters with a flurry of kisses — a highly unusual thing to do at that time.”

Basu, who doubts that the two were lovers, nonetheless said: “It was unquestionably a passionate relationship — a relationship which I think operated on many different layers in addition to the mother-and-son ties between a young Indian man and a woman who at the time was over 60 years old.”