A WOMAN FOR ALL SEASONS
Sarah Bradford on how the Queen Mother brought the monarchy closer to the people
OLD age, the last enemy she fought so indomitably, has finally overcome Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Her passing, like the death of the much younger Queen Victoria just over a century ago, will be seen as the end of an era. Born on 4 August 1900 while Victoria was still alive, Queen Elizabeth's life had become inextricably involved with the 20th-century history of our country. She grew up during the golden Edwardian summer preceding the first world war, then shared the bereavement of so many other families in that most terrible of wars, losing one brother at the battle of Loos, while another, Michael, was wounded and captured. At a service at the outset of the second world war she felt tears coming to her eyes; feeling the sixyear-old Princess Margaret's hand in hers, and seeing her daughter's anxious look, she recalled the same experience with her own mother in 1914. Even during the Blitz she never dressed down, stepping delicately through the ruins left by the Palace bomb in her trademark high heels, pale crepe dress, coat and matching hat.
Courage, unflappability, and an instinct for public relations verging on genius were among her supreme qualities. 'Nothing fazes her,' a member of her entourage told me just after she had entered hospital for the blood transfusion which enabled her to enjoy the public celebrations of her 101st birthday. Taking part in shooting practice in the garden of Buckingham Palace in May 1940, she had declared, flourishing a pistol, 'I shall not go down like the others' (a somewhat unkind reference to the refugee royalty already installed at the Palace). When it was put to her that she might follow the example of many upper-class families at the time and take refuge with the princesses in Canada, she replied, 'The children won't go without me. I won't leave without the King. And the King will never leave.'
Indeed it is doubtful whether George VI could have come through the ordeal of the abdication, his own coronation and wartime reign without her support. As the second son who had not been expected to succeed, he was generally regarded as unsuited to the top job. Shy, afflicted with a severe stammer and suffering from claustrophobia and a dislike of crowds, he was hardly the ideal candidate for kingship. In the run-up to his 1937 coronation, bets were laid in the City that the ceremony would not take place. From the earliest years of their marriage in 1923, he relied totally upon her: on public occasions she would whisper firmly in his ear, 'Wave, Bertie, waver She sat in on his speech-therapy sessions and, when he had to deliver an address, placed herself, smiling and confident, in the front row, willing him on. Once reluctantly installed in Buckingham Palace after the abdication of his brother in 1936, he counted on her to oil the social wheels. 'How she is enjoying being Queen,' Wallis Simpson wrote crossly to the Duke of Windsor from the sidelines, and indeed. as Queen Consort, Queen Elizabeth had entered on a role for which she was ideally suited.
Queen Elizabeth, like that other aristocrat who married into the royal family, Lady Diana Spencer, had the common touch and the ability to change the stuffy image of the monarchy and bring it closer to the people. She was a genuine crowdpleaser, with the all-important ability to make each person she met feel that they were the only person in the world who interested her. Her real enjoyment of and capacity to communicate with her loyal public were memorably demonstrated at the celebrations outside Clarence House on 4 August 2001, as they had been during the eccentric parade in honour of her centenary when she insisted on standing for an hour in 90 heat. She never admitted to illness, either in herself or in other people, wearing Out those of her courtiers with less stamina than herself. Even in her 101st year she crammed the days before her birthday with race meetings, lunch parties, trips to the ballet, absolutely refusing to alter one jot of her annual routine: to Walmer Castle as Warden of the Cinque Ports in June, to Sandringham, Balmoral, and the Castle of Mey, her remote and favourite refuge since the death of her husband in 1952.
In private as in public she was the life and soul of the party, liking nothing better than to stay up late for a sing-song round the piano played by her old friend, Alfred Shaughnessy, of Upstairs, Downstairs fame. At Clarence House luncheon parties even in her later years she enjoyed two stiff gin-andtonics beforehand and a glass or two of champagne with her food. Alcohol did not affect her, a legacy of her Scottish heritage. One courtier once told me, only half-jokingly, that 'she could drink any man under the table'. The company at her various houses was always sparkling: she liked writers and intelligent men — Osbert Sitwell, Duff Cooper, Kenneth Clark, Roy Strong, Kenneth Rose, Lord Carrington, and racing types like Dick Francis, and her much-loved private secretary, Sir Martin Gilliat. As one of her godchildren once said, she was the only genuinely witty member of the royal family. Her wit could be sharp: as in a throwaway comment on the burial at sea of Edwina Mountbatten, of whose champagne socialism and unconventional life she had deeply disapproved: 'Poor dear Edwina, she always did like to make a splash.'
Carpeted at the time of her engagement by her future mother-in-law, Queen Mary, for an injudicious press interview, Queen Elizabeth quickly learned to conceal her wit and personality behind the royal curtain. From then on she rarely gave interviews except in the most innocuous of circumstances. Royal biographers who gained access found an impenetrable facade of charm; stretching credibility, she would deny ever having disliked the Duchess of Windsor. Taboo subjects such as the marriage of her adored grandson, the Prince of Wales, were never discussed even in her most intimate circles. Her views were true-blue Tory. Loyalty and patriotism were her political yardsticks: she approved of politicians like Ernest Bevin and Margaret Thatcher.
As the grand-daughter of a clergyman, she saw the world in black and white. She inspired affection, admiration, respect, even a tinge of fear in her immediate circle of family and friends, where her influence has been immeasurable, particularly on the Prince of Wales. She was unquestionably the matriarch and probably the most widely loved member of the royal family, to which she added a much-needed popular touch. She was a lifeenhancer with a unique ability to communicate pleasure and enjoyment, and to combine it with a sense of dignity and tradition. It is hard to imagine anyone taking her place.
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