The Queen Mother

by William Shawcross

  For her eightieth birthday her friends and members of her Household had decided to combine the pleasures of moor and stream and eating alfresco; they clubbed together to build her a log cabin at Polveir. On the morning of Saturday 17 May the presentation ceremony took place.

  The beauty and excitement of the spring day was sadly dashed by a telephone call. Queen Elizabeth’s beloved niece, Elizabeth Elphinstone, had died of a heart attack during the night. The news was broken to Queen Elizabeth by her nephew, Fergie Strathmore, who with his wife Mary was to have driven Elizabeth to Birkhall. According to Mary Strathmore, There was a long pause on the line after Fergie told her. Then Queen Elizabeth said, We have to go ahead. We can’t let everyone else down.’63

  It was a terrible shock – Elizabeth Elphinstone had been a bridesmaid at her aunt’s wedding to the Duke of York and the two women had always been close; the difference in their ages was only eleven years and they were more like sisters than aunt and niece. Her sudden death cast a dark shadow over an otherwise lovely day, particularly for the Queen Mother. But Queen Elizabeth refused to allow her own sadness to diminish the pleasure of others. She was driven the short distance from Birkhall through the dappled Caledonian pines along the river to Polveir and was happily surprised to find there such a large gathering of friends from far and wide.* She was presented with the key to the cabin in a box wrapped in birthday paper and tied with a large bow. Entering for the first time, she found it fully furnished with a long table and chairs all ready for lunch. She admired the chimneypiece, which had been built with local stone by two craftsmen as their last job before retirement. A long and lively lunch ensued, though Elizabeth Elphinstone was missed throughout that day, and beyond.

  The new cabin quickly became a much loved spot. Queen Elizabeth sent dozens of thank-you letters to all those friends who had contributed to its cost. It had ‘settled in most happily between the river and the pine trees, and I have spent many blissful hours there, in fact I cannot think what we did before it arrived,’ she wrote.64 From now on she used it on holiday after holiday, year after year for the rest of her life. If only because it was warmer than the huts and old Victorian cottages often used for picnics, her guests appreciated it too, particularly if, with the passing of the years, they felt the cold on the moors or in the river more acutely. (Picnics at Mey, by contrast, remained draughty.)

  Her equerry Ashe Windham recalled that after breakfast at Birkhall he would telephone Queen Elizabeth in her room and she would ask, ‘What is the fishing like today?’ Often he would reply, ‘Not so good, Ma’am, but it’s a lovely day for a picnic.’ ‘What a good idea,’ she would reply. ‘Let’s go down to the old Bull and Bush’65 – her name for the cabin. The staff from Birkhall would light the wood-burning stove and bring down lunch. For the Queen Mother this would often start with a gin and Dubonnet; she and the guests would sometimes cook little sausages from Ballater on the stove. A fish mousse and cold meats would follow and the picnic would often end with the jam-puff exercise. Guests were expected to slice off the top and fill the brittle pastry with cream before manoeuvring it into their mouths. Old hands would put a drop of cream in the bottom; newcomers tended to be more enthusiastic with their helpings and covered themselves with cream.

  Until she was no longer able to do so, Queen Elizabeth, invariably dressed in her beloved blue kilt skirt, blue coat and blue hat, would walk part of the way back to Birkhall, supported latterly by two sticks. She insisted she needed them only for balance, which was sensible enough since she was so small and frail that it seemed the slightest gust could blow her over. Once home she would sit on one of the two seats built into the wall on either side of the porch talking to her guests as they arrived after ambling back from Polveir.

  THE FORMAL celebrations for her eightieth birthday in August gathered pace throughout the year. She was touched by the suggestion of the Dean of St Albans that a carving of her head be placed in the porch of the Abbey to commemorate her birthday.66 She was happy for the British Gladiolus Society to name a new seedling after her but asked that it be called Queen Mother rather than Queen Mum.67 The Zoological Society gave her 4,000 tickets for London Zoo and Whipsnade, which were distributed among thirty of her charities connected with children. The Queen gave a party at Windsor Castle, a joint celebration for Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke of Beaufort and her mother. Among the guests were some of Queen Elizabeth’s hosts and hostesses from France – she was pleased because the news ‘will whizz round France (or rather Paris!)’.68

  Lady Fermoy and Sir Martin Gilliat took her to see Noël Coward’s Private Lives at the Duchess Theatre on 11 June. Two weeks later Dick Wilkins gave her a birthday dinner at the Savoy to which the Queen, Prince Philip and Princess Margaret also came. In July she attended two days of celebrations in Edinburgh, after which she returned to the south for a tour of the Cinque Ports based in Britannia.

  The Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, now elderly and unwell, wrote a poem which he described as ‘late and tired Tennyson’; but as he told Martin Gilliat, ‘I wanted to make a personal tribute to a wonderful friend and a thanksgiving for the spreading oaks and hospitality of Royal Lodge and that ground floor bedroom and those church services with the family and the young thereof. In the fourteen-line poem, the Laureate began:

  We are your people

  Millions of us greet you

  On this your birthday

  Mother of our Queen.

  Waves of goodwill go

  Racing out to meet you

  You who in peace and war

  Our faithful friend have been.

  He was not sure whether the lines should be published, and indeed they did not do him justice, but he was pleased when Gilliat told him that Queen Elizabeth would like them released for her birthday.69

  On 15 July her birthday was marked by a thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral. She drove with Prince Charles in an open carriage to the service and massive crowds cheered her along the route. It was a moment to reflect on the remarkable role she had played since the death of the King in personifying the continuity of monarchy. For almost thirty years she had devoted her personality and her energy to the support of her daughter, her country and the institutions she loved. In his tribute, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, spoke appositely: The Queen Mother has shown a human face. Royalty puts a human face on the operations of government.’ The Prince of Wales put it another way, writing to her afterwards, ‘You give so many people such extraordinary happiness, pleasure & sheer joy.’70

  Two days later she met many friends and admirers at a celebratory afternoon garden party at the Palace – she seemed untiring and did not leave until 6 p.m. There was a birthday carnival at her childhood home, St Paul’s Walden Bury, dinner with the Lord Mayor of London at the Mansion House, and then on 24 July she attended the Royal Tournament. This was a special birthday edition of the then annual military tattoo and embraced all of the many units of the armed forces with which she was associated. That evening she gave a party at Clarence House for the colonels of all those regiments and other organizations which had taken part.

  She loved and was touched by it all. Almost all. The only birthday celebration she did not much enjoy was one which was repeated rather too often across the country – planting the first of a group of eighty rose trees in her honour. It seemed to her that she had to do it ‘all over the place, & if I ever get to 81, there won’t be room anywhere in England & Scotland for any more Roses, thank goodness.’71

  At the end of July she went, as usual, to Sandringham for the Flower Show and the King’s Lynn Festival. It was the centenary year of the show and she was presented with a cheque for plants from the Committee; she then returned to London where she received a deluge of letters, cards, telegrams, birthday cakes and bouquets of flowers. At Clarence House her staff had reckoned on some 20,000 messages, on the basis that Winston Churchill had received 23,000 for his eightieth birthday. In the event there were more t
han 30,000 for Queen Elizabeth, and extra staff had to be brought in, some of whom worked twelve-hour shifts, seven days a week for a month, to reply to all well-wishers.72

  On the morning of her birthday she went out of the gate of Clarence House to wave to the large crowd; there was a fly-past of ten Jet Provosts in E formation at noon, her daughters and four of her grandchildren came to lunch and that evening she went with Prince Charles to a gala at the Royal Opera House. Her grandson was again much moved by the enthusiasm expressed for her.73

  Parliament was well represented in tributes. On 5 August the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, and the Speaker of the House of Commons, George Thomas (two of the parliamentarians closest to her), came to present messages of congratulation along with eight members of each House. She entertained them to drinks in the garden.

  Finally, on 6 August she was able to get away from it all and fly to Mey where, she told Prince Charles, she would ‘sink back into obscurity’. ‘Some obscurity …!’ he commented.74 Before leaving, she wrote to thank her daughter the Queen for all the celebrations – ‘such happy affairs, & enjoyed by everyone who was there’.75 The Queen replied with an emotional thank-you letter to her mother: she said that the family had loved it all and ‘rejoiced in the huge and loving feeling of thanksgiving for all that your life represents which has come from all walks of the people who make up this country and Commonwealth, and especially your own family. I only hope you have been buoyed up by knowing what people feel. From your very loving Lilibet’.76

  A few days later the Queen, Prince Charles and other members of the family sailed in Britannia through bad weather up the west coast of Scotland for their annual Western Isles cruise culminating in lunch at Mey. In preparation, the day before, Queen Elizabeth and Ruth Fermoy spent an hour shelling peas. On 14 August a happy day was had with the usual picnic lunch and much cheer.

  At the end of her Mey holiday that year Queen Elizabeth flew south for the traditional family weekend at Balmoral, before moving on to Birkhall. She was always slightly saddened to forsake the family at Balmoral to drive down the road to Birkhall alone. Now she found that the cabin eased that annual move. Leaving Balmoral at lunch time and breaking the journey at the Bull and Bush, in a spot that she loved, made the transition much less painful.77

  *

  THAT SUMMER Queen Elizabeth enjoyed the arrival not only of her new picnic place, but also of her future granddaughter-in-law. This was something to which she had long been looking forward. She had sat near her three grandsons in church at Crathie on a previous summer Sunday, admiring them in their kilts, and thinking how proud their mother the Queen must be of them – ‘so good looking & gay and clever. And such good company! How I hope that they will all find dear, charming, pretty, intelligent, kind, & GOOD girls to marry!’78

  In the media, if not within the family, most speculation at this stage inevitably centred on the Prince of Wales and his possible choice of bride and thus of the future Queen. The Prince often took his girl friends to meet his grandmother. After she had invited him and one young woman to the opera in early 1980, he wrote to Queen Elizabeth, ‘She so enjoyed it and I do hope you approved of her in that short time.’79 The Prince knew that, to win Queen Elizabeth’s approval, a young woman would have to have a clear sense of duty alongside her other qualities.

  In the second half of 1980 he became close to Lady Diana Spencer, the pretty nineteen-year-old daughter of Viscount Althorp, later Lord Spencer, by his wife Frances, the daughter of Lord Fermoy. The Spencers had a long history of service at Court and both Lady Diana’s grandmothers, Cynthia Spencer and Ruth Fermoy, had served Queen Elizabeth as ladies in waiting; indeed, Ruth Fermoy was one of her oldest friends. It has been alleged that Queen Elizabeth and Lady Fermoy had somehow contrived to bring about the marriage of their grandchildren. There is no evidence of this but, like others in the Royal Family, Queen Elizabeth seems to have been pleased with the Prince’s choice.

  From the start, the relationship between the two young people was crowded by the media. As soon as her name was linked to that of the Prince, Lady Diana became a star of the world’s press, the face that would sell millions of magazines and newspapers for years to come. Journalists now observed fewer and fewer boundaries; members of the Royal Family – now known as ‘the royals’ – became more and more the subjects of front-page speculation, innuendo, pursuit and attack. The obsession of the press with Lady Diana was sometimes welcome to her, but it was often invasive if not brutal. It made any pretence at normal life impossible.

  The couple’s engagement was announced on Tuesday 24 February 1981. ‘Great excitement at the happy news,’ the Queen Mother’s lady in waiting wrote in the diary. That day Lady Diana arrived to stay for a few days at Clarence House and the Queen Mother gave a dinner party for her and Prince Charles. As an engagement present for Lady Diana she had chosen a sapphire and diamond brooch. Lady Diana thought it was a ‘staggering’ gift, and told her, ‘I have never owned a piece of jewellery like that & will be proud to wear it when I’m with Charles – I only hope that I’ll be able to do it justice!’ She added, ‘I could not have been happier at Clarence House, & to me it was the ideal place to escape to after all the excitement. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity of living there. One of the nicest things of being married to Charles is that I will be able to see more of you!’80

  Prince Charles was evidently delighted with his fiancée. In one letter to friends quoted by his biographer Jonathan Dimbleby, he wrote, ‘I do believe I am very lucky that someone so special as Diana seems to love me so much … Other people’s happiness and enthusiasm at the whole thing is also a most “encouraging” element and it makes me so proud that so many people have such admiration and affection for Diana.’81

  In early March 1981 Prince Charles brought his fiancée to spend the weekend at Royal Lodge with his grandmother; they all attended one of the Queen Mother’s favourite race meetings, the Grand Military Meeting at Sandown Park. Prince Charles rode Good Prospect in the Gold Cup race; the horse fell but no harm came to either horse or rider. The Prince thanked his grandmother for a lovely weekend: ‘it was particularly special that Diana was there too.’82 After another such visit to Royal Lodge a few weeks later, the Prince told his grandmother, ‘Diana, I know, adored every minute of our stay.’83

  The prospect of the royal wedding – the marriage of the future king of England and the first time a prince of Wales had married since the reign of Queen Victoria – fast became a subject of national and indeed international fascination. It was a welcome diversion from the economic and political difficulties of the time. Nineteen-eighty-one was a hard year. The Thatcher government’s radical, monetarist attempt to address Britain’s structural and financial problems was leading to a large rise in unemployment. Discontent grew and there were riots in London, Liverpool and other towns in protest against what seemed to many to be harsh economic measures.

  Fairy tale usurped reality, at least for a time. Hundreds of pages of newspaper supplements and magazine articles covered every aspect of the event. Thousands of items of memorabilia were launched with enthusiasm upon the market. ‘Charles & Di’ was emblazoned on everything. It was not just marketing, though that certainly was no barrier. Prince Charles was one of the most popular figures in the Royal Family at the time; he was regarded as a serious and decent young man, who worked hard and enjoyed pleasing the myriad people whom he had to meet. And Lady Diana seemed to be the perfect young bride, an exquisite future queen of the United Kingdom.

  In April 1981 the Prince made an official visit to Australia and New Zealand, Venezuela and the United States. In a long letter to his grandmother he wrote that people had been very kind and welcoming. He continued, ‘I must say, I am missing Diana a great deal & she seems to be missing me! She has written lots of letters that get better & better & funnier & funnier & seems to be doing wonderfully at home.’84 But in fact Lady Diana was finding it difficult to adjust to the pressures of her new life
and Queen Elizabeth – who had once been in a similar position herself – was concerned. She told Sir John Johnston, who as comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office was in charge of the protocol for the wedding, ‘I think she’s having difficulty finding her way.’85

  That summer, as the family and the country prepared for the royal wedding, Queen Elizabeth continued with her usual blend of duties and pleasures. In May she made one of her private trips to France and on 2 June she much enjoyed launching the new aircraft carrier Ark Royal at the Swan Hunter yard at Wallsend. Next day she attended the Derby which was won by Shergar, the superb horse owned by the Aga Khan which was later stolen and killed by the IRA. A few days later she opened the physiotherapy department and swimming pool at King Edward VII’s Hospital for Officers, familiarly known as Sister Agnes. The money for the pool had been raised in part by the Royal Warrant Holders Association as their eightieth-birthday present to the Queen Mother, who had then selected the hospital to receive their gift.

  The Queen’s Birthday Parade on 13 June 1981 was marred by two incidents. The public and dangerous one occurred when someone in the crowd fired shots near the Queen as she rode down the Mall, and frightened her much loved horse, Burmese. Fortunately both horse and rider were experienced (this was their eighteenth Trooping together) and neither was hurt. The Queen continued almost as if nothing had happened. It emerged that the gunman was firing only blanks, but that was not evident at the time – the Queen’s skill, her sangfroid and her courage were impressive and led to a new surge of monarchist fervour and patriotism just before the wedding.