That May she made a significant broadcast to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the enrolment of women on active service. In her address, heard throughout much of the world on the British Forces Broadcasting Service, she referred to the ‘pioneers’ of the First World War and told of her own memories of women serving in the Second – ‘of WREN Boat-Crews, who never failed in their task, regardless of the weather; of cheerful girls of the ATS, on bleak Anti-Aircraft Gun sites; of WAAF Radio Operators, who were on watch – night and day – detecting the approach of enemy aircraft’.55
After her spring holiday at Birkhall she left for another tour of Canada, this time of the Maritime Provinces. (Martin Gilliat had at first turned down the invitation but the Governor General and the Prime Minister of Canada had begged the Queen Mother to reconsider.56 She did, and kept to her promise despite her cancer operation.) She flew first to New Brunswick to join Britannia, which was in Canada for the Queen’s visit to Expo 67, the world’s fair at Montreal. Once again, her trip was crowded in every sense. On the first day, at St John, after a mayoral lunch she visited the Veterans Hospital, where she talked to patients lying on their beds in the sunshine and then – although it was not on the programme – agreed to the Mayor’s request to unveil a plaque to open Rockwood Park, where she was ‘like the Pied Piper’ surrounded by thousands of children, according to the lady in waiting’s diary.57 Next day, among other engagements in Fredericton, she was given an official welcome at the Legislative Building and watched a parade of the Canadian Black Watch. That evening Britannia sailed from St John and the Queen Mother came on deck in a pale-yellow evening gown and, while the band played ‘Auld Lang Syne’, waved to the large crowds on the dockside.
The next few days brought thick fog which made navigation difficult, and rain which forced changes of plan at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia – an open-air ceremony had to be moved into an overheated ice rink. Voyages from port to port in Britannia and car journeys as often as possible in open cars made this a pleasurable visit. On Sunday 16 July she and her party attended St Andrew’s Anglican Church at Sydney and then the yacht anchored off a deserted island on which the company picnicked and spent an afternoon enjoying wild flowers, walking, fishing and even water-skiing. The Queen Mother presided benignly and signed the book of the island’s only inhabitants, the lighthouse keeper, his wife and baby.
After the yacht had berthed at Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, the Queen Mother opened the new Provincial Government Building. The royal party was then offered a mammoth lunch of soup, lobster and an entire stuffed chicken each. A garden party at Government House took place in a rainstorm which apparently daunted neither guests nor the Queen Mother, who walked around the garden talking to people under an umbrella. That evening she saw a musical version of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, which is set in the island.
In St John’s, Newfoundland, the Queen Mother was greeted by at least a thousand children yelling and cheering in the Memorial Stadium; she pleased them by giving an unscheduled address. After a good lunch, a hot afternoon watching Trooping the Colour by the Royal Newfoundland Regiment was followed by an even muggier ordeal in a sweltering marquee while more than a hundred officers, wives and officials were presented to her. The day ended with a reception on board the yacht.
Next day, the last of the visit, there were more formalities and a farewell dinner on board – after which Admiral Morgan invited the Queen Mother and her party to the wardroom where they had fun, games and a singsong conducted by the Bandmaster till 1.15 a.m. On Saturday 22 July she flew back to London, sending a telegram to the Admiral to thank him and all the officers and yachtsmen ‘from my heart’ for ‘such a very happy’ voyage. ‘I hope you will have an excellent passage home and No Fog.’58 It had been a hugely successful tour. Once again Canadians had shown that they loved her and she had shown that she loved Canada.
*
IT WAS SEVEN years before she went back again. In June 1974 she was invited by the Canadian government to present colours once again to her two regiments, the Black Watch of Canada and the Toronto Scottish. She flew to Toronto in a Canadian Armed Forces Boeing 707 that was carrying home about a hundred families from the Canadian Army stationed in Germany and Cyprus. Queen Elizabeth walked through the aeroplane talking to them.
The hospitable Taylors again put their comfortable house, Wind-fields, at her disposal. Her first full day in Toronto, 26 June, was exhaustingly long and ended with an interminable dinner and speeches at which 1,500 guests were served eight courses. ‘HM should have returned to Windfields at 10.30 pm & in fact did so at 1 am,’ noted the lady in waiting, Frances Campbell-Preston.59 The next day she flew to Montreal for the Black Watch ceremonies. French Canadian separatist aspirations had given rise to a tense political situation, and so her visit was restricted to regimental business, and to a single day.
On Friday 28 June, back in Toronto, she met Canada’s young and debonair Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau. A civic reception, a walkabout and two speeches later she was allowed a brief rest in the Royal Suite of the Four Seasons Sheraton Hotel. ‘This was the only moment on the whole tour when HM admitted to feeling utterly exhausted,’ wrote Frances Campbell-Preston, ‘but after a few minutes of rest she was quite alright.’60 A civic luncheon for over a thousand people followed; and that evening she presented the new Queen’s colour to the Toronto Scottish in a stadium filled with some 25,000 enthusiastic people who cheered her as she drove around in an open car.
Saturday was race day but first she met officers from the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. Then it was off to the races at Woodbine where, after a night of heavy rain, the conditions were appalling. The horses ran, with difficulty, in a sea of mud, and the colours of the jockeys were completely obliterated by the time they reached the finishing post. Nonetheless, the Queen’s Plate was run and Queen Elizabeth presented the trophy to the winning owner and congratulated the bedraggled but jubilant jockey.
The Toronto Scottish Regiment had another turn on Sunday 30 June when, after lunch with the officers, she attended a service at Knox Presbyterian Church for the laying up of the old colours and then took the salute at a march-past. That evening she dined with officers of all her Canadian regiments and they had a nostalgic evening watching a film of her 1939 visit with the King.
Next day was Dominion Day, a public holiday, and she drove to the Legislative Building, Queen’s Park, for a brief ceremony where she presented Gold Awards on behalf of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.* She then flew home on another troop flight and once again talked to soldiers and their families heading for Europe. The trip had encouraged her to believe that her role in Canada was unusual and valuable. It was a widely shared view. Pauline McGibbon, the future lieutenant governor of Ontario, subsequently wrote of the Dominion Day ceremonies, ‘The affection that literally flowed to the Queen Mother from young and old can only be understood if one was present. It was a revelation to both my husband and myself.’61
*
ONE OF QUEEN Elizabeth’s most important official visits was to Iran in April 1975, only four years before the fall of the Shah in the face of an Islamic revolution which was to change the world.
The Shah, a bulwark of Western policy in the Middle East and also an aggressive champion of high oil prices, had sent an invitation to her in 1974 to visit Iran whenever it suited her, and the Foreign Secretary, James Callaghan, urged her to accept on the grounds that close relations with Iran were very important to Britain. Moreover, the Shah, very conscious of his own royal status, would much appreciate a visit by Queen Elizabeth.62 It was rather a gruelling undertaking, but she seems to have had no doubts about accepting it.
She left on Monday 14 April, in what was by now rather an elderly RAF Comet, and flew to Tehran, where she was met by the British Ambassador, Anthony Parsons, his wife Sheila and various Iranian courtiers and officials. She was taken to the relatively new Saad-Abad Palace, used by the Shah in summer, which had large and l
avish reception rooms but surprisingly few bedrooms; only Queen Elizabeth, her dresser and Ruth Fermoy stayed there.
She had a full programme; on the first day she met the Shah’s wife, Empress Farah, and other members of his family. She went to the Empress’s Nursery Society Orphanage, one of almost 8,000 such orphanages established throughout Iran. That first day she also had lunch with the Shah’s twin sister, Princess Ashraf, and attended a garden party in the wisteria-clad grounds of the British Embassy. There she met all 400 guests; the ‘rather strenuous’ day ended close to midnight.63
The next morning she flew to Shiraz and was taken to visit the sumptuous tent city which the Shah had erected at Persepolis in 1971 to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy. These celebrations, which were directed more towards foreign guests than the Persian people, were later seen as symbolic of the excesses of the Shah’s rule and an important element in the rise of the Islamic movement against him. Queen Elizabeth was reported to be ‘greatly impressed by all she saw’.64
Every day was overfilled and tiring but she stood up to it well. She impressed with her consideration all those with whom she came into contact. Indeed, Lady Parsons commented that Persians were struck and ‘slightly puzzled’ by the Queen Mother’s ‘kindness and good manners to everyone regardless of their status or importance’.65 They were not used to such courtesy from members of their own royal family.
From Shiraz she flew on to Isfahan, landing in heavy rain, and spent much of the day sightseeing. A reception for the British community was followed by a banquet given by the Governor General of Isfahan, and next morning she returned to Tehran. That afternoon, after a visit to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery, she laid the first brick at the site of the British Institute of Persian Studies, had ‘endless presentations’, and finally at 8.30 p.m. arrived at the Niyavaran Palace for dinner with the Shah and his wife. This was followed by an entertainment consisting of folk dancing and singing, in which the last item was, curiously, ‘Annie Laurie’.66
Parsons cabled the Foreign Office that her visit had been ‘a triumph’. She had ‘cast her spell’ across a wide spectrum of Persian life. He thought that the most touching of the many tributes paid to her came from his driver, who spent much of his time with the servants and police who had looked after the Queen Mother. ‘He told my wife that they said that they had never looked after anyone who had shown them so much kindness and attention, who had taken such trouble to speak to each of them personally and to take an interest in them as individuals.’ This was rare praise in a country where hierarchical lines were rigid and people at all levels only looked upwards and ignored those less fortunate than themselves. ‘I hope that the Persian courtiers and other members of the Persian hierarchy who took note of Her Majesty’s conduct will have learnt some lessons.’67
Whatever the lessons learned, less than four years later the Shah was driven into exile, his Imperial Court broken and dispersed, by a brutal Islamic revolution, the effects of which were felt long afterwards.
*
QUEEN ELIZABETH’S official visits around the world (and particularly to Canada) continued. She also developed a happy new habit in the 1960s of making private visits to France, and by the 1970s and 1980s these had became an annual event. She had loved the country and its people ever since her visits as a young woman in the early years of the century and she longed to be able to explore it more. In 1955 she told Sir Alan Lascelles that she had always wanted to visit the châteaux of the Loire – ‘& it would be so delicious to go to France without any real timetable or set programme.’68 It was not until 1962 that a private trip to the Loire seemed possible, but then there were more delays because of difficulties with the French over Britain’s application to join the Common Market.
The visit was postponed until April 1963. In January 1963, President de Gaulle uttered his magisterial ‘Non’ to Britain’s admission to the European Economic Community. The Queen Mother was not outraged. Her natural loyalty was to the Commonwealth, many of whose members were alarmed by the probable loss of trading privileges if Britain joined the EEC. Moreover, she retained her wartime affection for de Gaulle and seems to have been almost amused by his demarche. ‘Everyone is slightly indignant about de Gaulle’s rather high handed pronouncement on the Common Market, & indeed he might have saved everyone a great deal of work & worry if he had said it before! So like him!’69
Queen Elizabeth’s visit to the Loire went ahead, with the Foreign Office anxious to emphasize the private and informal nature of the trip. Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary, did his best to persuade Queen Elizabeth that the British Ambassador, Sir Pierson Dixon, should not accompany her for more than a day. Martin Gilliat was instructed to respond that, since Pierson Dixon had arranged the whole trip and was an old friend, it would be sad if he could not be with her throughout. ‘Queen Elizabeth very much hopes that Lord Home will see his way to agree with her in this matter.’ He did.70
Acting as her French tour director was the Vicomte de Noailles, who became a firm friend over the next few years. She flew out on 17 April with her friends Hugh and Fortune Euston (later the Duke and Duchess of Grafton) and Ruth Fermoy; Ralph Anstruther, a fluent French-speaker, went ahead with the motor cars. They stayed at the nineteenth-century Château d’Artigny, a hotel at Montbazon, in lovely countryside overlooking the River Indre. On the first night, before dinner, the President of the Council of Indre et Loire made a long speech of welcome which was eventually cut short because he was overcome with emotion.71
Over the next week she visited several of the most celebrated châteaux – Chambord, Cheverny, Chenonceaux, Azay-le-Rideau and Villandry – as well as some lesser-known ones including La Gueritaulde, Couzieres and Rochecotte. The owner of Cheverny, the Marquis de Vibraye, was a widower and something of a character in the French hunting world. To welcome the Queen Mother, he had his hunt servants lined up on the steps, dressed in scarlet, playing their hunting horns. After an excellent lunch the mounted huntsmen and hounds paraded in front of the chateau. The Queen Mother, who loved seeing people and animals in their habitat, enjoyed herself talking to many of the hunt servants and visiting the kennels.
She went also to Chinon and the Abbey of Fontevraud. Lunch at the Château de Rochecotte was followed by tea with the Duc and Duchesse de Blacas at the Château d’Ussé, which was said to be the original fairy-tale castle of the Sleeping Beauty. The chateau too needed resuscitation. In the drawing room the legs of a sofa were resting on the joists, the floorboards having disintegrated.
Everything was kept as informal as possible, though even on such a private visit the Queen Mother aroused intense enthusiasm and curiosity and local officials and dignitaries all begged for access to her. She made speeches in French and talked to as many ordinary people as she could. One night she and her party dined in a little restaurant – a pleasure which she could rarely enjoy.
Madame Guérin, her old French governess, came to have tea with her at the hotel on 19 April, a lovely sunny afternoon. It was their last meeting: Madame Guérin died not long afterwards, and Queen Elizabeth wrote to her daughter Georgina sending her condolences and speaking affectionately of the governess ‘qui a été si près de nous dans notre enfance’.72
On the final day, 21 April, she flew to Fontainebleau to tour the palace and have a grand lunch with Charles de Noailles in the Pavillon de Pompadour, and then back to London. She and her friends all agreed that they had had a marvellous time. ‘We certainly had more than our usual laughs,’ wrote Lord Euston to her afterwards.73
Over subsequent years she covered almost every region of France, visiting Provence, Burgundy, Normandy, Bordeaux, the Dordogne, the Languedoc and Lorraine. Each trip took roughly the same form. In April or May she would fly out, usually to a small local airport; with her would be the Eustons, Ruth Fermoy and Ralph Anstruther, who later compiled an account of her journeys and had it bound into a book for her.74 She would be accompanied by a staff of about half a
dozen, including a police officer, her page, her dresser and sometimes her hairdresser; her equerry would drive out with the chauffeurs bringing her two cars. It was quite a group.
In Provence in 1965 she was lent the fifteenth-century Château Légier at Fontvieille, close to the windmill which inspired Alphonse Daudet’s Lettres de mon moulin. She loved the architecture and the ambience of Provence; she toured the fountains of Aix-en-Provence with the mayor, and visited the Roman temple (the Maison Carrée) and the Jardin de la Fontaine at Nîmes. She lunched with the Marquis and Marquise de Saporta at Fonscolombe, and at the beautiful Câateau de Vézénobres, untouched since the eighteenth century.
She and her party spent the best part of two days in and around Avignon, the former Papal State: they visited the Château de Castille, briefly home of the exiled Stuart royal family after the failed 1715 rising, and now owned by an Englishman, Douglas Cooper, who had filled it with a remarkable collection of paintings by Picasso, Braque and others. They sauntered on the bridge where ‘on y danse tout en rond’ and visited the Palais des Papes; they went to the ancient town of Arles, where the Arena was being prepared for a bull fight, and the wilderness area of the Camargue. Paris Match commented on her tireless progress: ‘La reine mère sillonne [criss-crosses] infatigablement la Provence.’75 At the fortress-like Château d’Ansouis, perched on top of a rocky spur in beautiful country, and home to generations of the Sabran family, she was entertained by Lord Euston’s cousin the Duchesse de Sabran-Ponteves, to a feast including whole black truffles. She and her party enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of Provence – Hugh Euston commented that the people were ‘ideal, much better (& funnier) than the ones in Touraine [on her visit to the Loire two years before]’.76
The Queen Mother Page 107