She who pays the Piper. . .
From Mr Robert Triggs
Sir: A.N. Wilson's observations ('In her own words', 6 April) that the Queen Mother may not have been as familiar with T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land as she was with the turf prompted another charming recollection.
Some years after the war, the artist John Piper was commissioned to paint a series of pictures of royal castles. At that time he was making a trademark speciality of stormy skyscapes, dominated by scudding wind and lowering thunderclouds.
As the Queen Mother, at a private audience, surveyed the series of doom-laden prospects of Balmoral, Windsor, etc., she turned brightly and sympathetically to the artist and said, 'What a pity, Mr Piper, that you had such awful weather during your work!"Yes, ma'am.' murmured John Piper, gazing sorrowfully at the carpet.
Robert Triggs
London NW3
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