In fact she had been far from idle, but an enforced rest followed. During a shooting weekend at Royal Lodge a fishbone lodged in her throat at dinner one evening, and she had to have an operation to remove it. Letters and flowers arrived from many people, including Margaret Thatcher, who sent ‘affectionate good wishes’ from everyone at 10 Downing Street, and Lord Snowdon. ‘Do look in if you are down our way. It would be lovely to see you,’ she wrote back to him from Royal Lodge. ‘A thousand thanks, ever your affec Ex M in L.’16
After two weeks she was able to resume her public life and in early December went to Southampton to visit the liner Queen Elizabeth 2, the Cunard Line’s successor to Queen Elizabeth, which she had launched in 1938, and she unveiled a plaque to mark the ship’s role as a troop carrier in the Falklands War.
On St Patrick’s Day 1983 she flew to Munster in West Germany to present shamrock to the Irish Guards stationed there. The cheers they gave her ‘were deafening and straight from the heart’.17 A very different ceremony took place later in April when Queen Elizabeth opened a Luncheon Club and Day Centre for the West Indian Elderly in Railton Road, Brixton, a part of south London with a large West Indian population. There had been violent riots there in 1981, and the Mayor of Brixton had asked her to make this visit as a way of restoring confidence in the area. She toured the building while children danced and sang to a steel band. The visit was a great success and the director of the Brixton Neighbourhood Community Association thought that she had ‘kindled a ray of hope for the future of our neighbourhood’.18
Perhaps the next most significant public event of her eighty-third year was her visit to Northern Ireland, still in the throes of the Troubles. In 1958, a more peaceful time, she had visited the Territorial Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve Association for Northern Ireland for their fiftieth anniversary. Now they asked her to come again to celebrate their seventy-fifth. She decided to do so, but after the news leaked to the press the visit had to be cancelled. It was then quietly rearranged and she flew to Northern Ireland to preside over the association’s parade at St Patrick’s Barracks, Ballymena, on Monday 20 June. Afterwards Lieutenant General Sir Robert Richardson, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, wrote that her determination to come, despite the press leaks and threats from the IRA, ‘impressed everyone, yet again, with her personal courage’. The visit was ‘a triumph’.19
In another symbol of the lasting strength of her commitments, on 4 March 1984 she helped celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Cumberland Lodge. She could take satisfaction in the fact that this institution, which she had hoped would contribute to a more Christian future for Britain, had at least survived in a much more secular age.
Later that month she unveiled a memorial in Westminster Abbey to Noël Coward, whose wit had given her so much pleasure and whose death in 1973 she had much regretted. On 5 June that year she honoured her hero General de Gaulle, unveiling a blue plaque on his wartime residence in Carlton Gardens. On the evening of 30 July she was quietly admitted to the King Edward VII Hospital in Marylebone. There she underwent a simple excision for carcinoma of the breast and the doctors were confident that the entire tumour had been removed.* Her spirits were high and her lady in waiting’s diary recorded that she ‘came home on the morning of 2 August “in very good form” ’20 – then she dived gaily into the celebrations of her eighty-fourth birthday.
*
ON 16 JULY 1985 Queen Elizabeth, on her eleventh visit to Canada, was flying from Regina, Saskatchewan, to Edmonton, Alberta. A sudden violent storm hit Edmonton and her Canadian military plane was at the last minute diverted to the military base of Cold Lake, Alberta. There was something akin to panic on the ground. The officers on the base had only a few minutes’ warning of the royal arrival and they rushed around finding cars and a bit of carpet to be placed at the steps of the plane. As many of the top brass as could be gathered hurried over. When she came down the steps Queen Elizabeth greeted the welcoming party on the ground with words that some of them never forgot: ‘Ah, Cold Lake! I’ve always wanted to come here.’21
Like other members of the Royal Family, Queen Elizabeth usually enjoyed herself when things went wrong. Surprises were often a welcome relief from the official round set months before. She seemed genuinely amused by this unexpected little adventure. In the officers’ mess they rustled up refreshments and she talked happily to the officers and their wives until, after an hour and a half, the weather cleared enough for the pilot to resume the flight to Edmonton. The plane was some four hours late when it finally touched down at its destination.
This trip to Canada had been built around Queen Elizabeth’s enthusiasm for Aberdeen Angus cattle. The Fifth World Aberdeen Angus Forum was being held in Edmonton. On the way across Canada she had spent three days in Toronto and attended the 126th running of the Queen’s Plate Stakes at the Woodbine racetrack. She dined, as she liked to do, with the Ontario Jockey Club, and went to a garden party for her Canadian regiments next day. She made an unscheduled visit to the CN Tower, at that time the highest in the world, insisting that the morning’s rain and mist had cleared sufficiently for the view to be worth while. Rather to the consternation of her tour staff, who were worried about the effect on her of the high-speed lifts, she made for the fastest lift and was ensconced at the top with a drink before the rest of the party arrived.* Next day, flying to Edmonton, she paused for a Provincial reception and luncheon at Regina before the unexpected detour to Cold Lake.
Restored by a good night’s sleep at Soaring, the elegant modern home of Mr and Mrs Sandy McTaggart, the Queen Mother resumed her delayed programme in Edmonton. On Thursday 18 July she opened the Forum, where, amongst others, she met delegates from Argentina and farmers from Zimbabwe – the former Southern Rhodesia – whom she remembered from a visit there. After lunch and a warmly welcomed speech, she returned to the show and spent two hours viewing the cattle and talking to almost all of the exhibiting farmers.
*
BACK HOME Queen Elizabeth spent her eighty-fifth birthday at Sandringham. The crowd at the church for Matins was so large that the service was relayed to those who could not get inside. That evening she enjoyed a concert by the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and a high-spirited dinner party which included the Queen, Princess Margaret and the Prince of Wales. After dinner she danced with Sir Frederick Ashton to music played by the Russian maestro. The Prince of Wales wrote to her afterwards of his delight ‘in you and Freddie dancing that demented scarf dance to the accompaniment of Rostropovich’s equally demented mazurka’.22 Next day in London she was greeted by large crowds outside Clarence House and on 6 August she was treated to a birthday present by British Airways – a two-hour flight in Concorde up to Scotland and back. Now she could say that, having started her life in the horse age, she was a supersonic traveller.
She returned to the Castle of Mey by a more mundane flight the following day and summer in Scotland followed its usual pattern – guests, fishing, stalking, shooting, picnics, Racing Demon and favourite videos in the evenings.
Through the 1980s her health remained remarkably good. She still swore by her herbal and homeopathic medicines and powders. Her biggest problem remained the lesions on her legs; and she suffered further occasional obstructions in her throat. In August 1986, she choked at dinner one night at Mey and refused all help until Britannia arrived the next day, when she reluctantly accepted a visit from the ship’s doctor. She was in considerable discomfort but said there was no need to make a fuss. Finally, she agreed to be flown by helicopter to hospital in Aberdeen where she was X-rayed and kept in overnight. The lady in waiting’s diary recorded that ‘the doctors were amazed by her resilience, and attitude to what had been a very unpleasant, painful episode.’23 Prince Charles wrote to tell her how relieved he was that she was all right and asked her to be more careful with fish dishes in future.24 The rest of the holiday at Mey passed without incident and then, as usual, she went south to Balmoral and Birkhall.
; Three weeks later, on 9 September 1986, she gave a remarkable demonstration of her continuing stamina. She flew from Birkhall by helicopter to Glasgow, where she opened the Pollok Leisure Centre, a £3½ million development in a deprived area of the city. This included a lunch (to which she had to climb two flights of stairs) and a visit to the new gallery housing the magnificent Burrell Collection of works of art. Then it was immediately off to Govan Shipbuilders, where she launched the MV Norsea, a £40 million P&O cruise ferry and the largest passenger-carrying ship built in Britain since 1969. When the ceremony was over she met members of the workforce and patients from the Princess Louise Scottish Hospital. She then drove to the Crest Hotel for a reception, meeting more people, before flying back to Birkhall for dinner and an evening of Racing Demon.
In October she stepped on ‘a dead but vicious piece of wood’25 while walking in Scotland. It seemed at first to be a mere graze but on her return to London her doctor advised that she avoid standing – advice which she cheerfully ignored. By 7 November the leg had become inflamed. She insisted on carrying out her usual Remembrance Day engagements. But she had to go into hospital again for five days and, to her regret, cancelled one of her favourite excursions – lunch with Charles and Kitty Farrell.
*
THE LOVE AFFAIR between Queen Elizabeth and Canada persisted throughout the 1980s. In 1986 Martin Gilliat’s desk overflowed with requests for a major trip in 1987, including visits to four provinces with dozens of projected events. Gently he batted many of these back, suggesting that she might limit her visit to Montreal, in order to take part in the 125th anniversary celebrations of her regiment, the Black Watch of Canada. Reluctantly, the Canadian hosts agreed to a shortened version of the trip and she left London on 4 June 1987, landing in Montreal that afternoon.
This was a visit with political importance. Queen Elizabeth was the first member of the Royal Family to return to French-speaking Quebec since the deterioration in relations between anglophone and francophone Canada in the 1960s – there had been riots when the Queen went to Quebec in 1964, and in 1967 President de Gaulle had made his inflammatory ‘Vive le Québec libre’ speech in Montreal. The Queen had been to Montreal for Expo in 1967 and for the 1974 Olympics, but only to these events – she had not ventured outside the grounds on to Quebec territory on either occasion. In a real sense, therefore, Queen Elizabeth was ‘testing the waters’ for the Queen; she even went to the spot where de Gaulle had spoken, and drew small but friendly crowds.
In Montreal, Queen Elizabeth stayed in a charming private house, but she found the food surprisingly unpleasant. Her staff discovered why – the chef had a health inspector standing beside him, ‘ “monitoring” every gesture, causing him to wash his hands in iodine about forty times a day & insisting on all meat being done to a frazzle’. Not only that – after the Queen Mother had eaten, any food left on her plate was taken for analysis. She complained in fairly strong terms and the culinary censorship was relaxed.26
On her first full day she made two long speeches, each of them partly in French, and her lady in waiting thought she must be tired. Not so – she considered her twenty-minute afternoon rest period far too long. Next morning she was dismayed to find she had a completely free morning so a visit to the Musée des Beaux Arts was hurriedly arranged, to see a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition. She apparently impressed her guides by her questions – and by speaking French throughout the visit.
That afternoon she went to Molson Stadium to see Trooping the Colour by the Black Watch. Colonel Victor Chartier, at that time the commanding officer, later recalled her impressive knowledge of the regiment’s history. Talking to one veteran, she said, ‘You weren’t always with the Black Watch, were you?’ She had seen the Italy Medal on his chest and she knew the Black Watch had not served there. She was right: the soldier had transferred temporarily to the Signallers, with whom he had been in Italy.27
After a regimental dinner at the Reine Elizabeth Hotel she passed a room where French Canadian high-school students were having a graduation party to noisy discotheque music. To the alarm of her flagging Household she asked to go in. The students recognized her at once and gathered around cheering, ‘Vive la Reine.’ She emerged a few minutes later, dancing.28
Before she left the city on 8 June the Queen Mother thanked all ten of her motorcycle escorts in French, and posed for photographs with them.29 Her reception in Montreal had broken the ice in Quebec. When the Queen visited the city in October, she was given a friendly welcome.30 No one doubted that Queen Elizabeth’s earlier venture had helped to ease the Queen’s way.
*
QUEEN ELIZABETH’S last trip to Canada took place shortly before her eighty-ninth birthday. It was part of a crowded summer: she had inaugurated two new oilfields – Tern and Eider – at Aberdeen, made a private visit to the Languedoc in France and celebrated the tenth anniversary of becoming lord warden of the Cinque Ports with a visit to Dover in Britannia. At the end of the ceremonies she sailed in the royal yacht for France, disembarked at Caen and drove to Bayeux, where she unveiled a memorial window in the Cathedral and laid a wreath at the 50th (Northumbria) Division Memorial, commemorating the D-Day landings. In June she visited Oxford to mark the University’s development programme, went to Tyne Tees Television in Newcastle and visited Hadrian’s Wall to open a National Trust hostel. On 16 June she gave a reception at Clarence House for members of the French Resistance and the RAF Escaping Society and made a visit to RAF Scampton to see the RAF Central Flying School.
Then on 5 July she boarded a Canadian Armed Forces Boeing 707 to Ottawa. This trip had originally been envisaged to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the historic tour she had made with the King just before the outbreak of war. On arrival in Ottawa, in fierce heat, she was driven through the city in the open Buick that she and the King had used in 1939, for an official welcome on Parliament Hill. At tea with the Governor General afterwards she cut a birthday cake with the same knife she had used to cut a cake fifty years before. The ride back to the airport, in a modern car with a low seat and a small window, was less pleasant. Frances Campbell-Preston, who had been her lady in waiting on all her Canadian visits since 1967, recorded ‘Poor Queen Elizabeth has to sit very bolt upright & wave frantically. Window sealed as car bullet proof and air conditioned. It’s extremely tiring for her.’31 They flew that evening to Toronto where, fortunately, she had been lent the comfortable home of Galen and Hilary Weston, friends of the Royal Family who were frequent guests at Royal Lodge.*
Next day, after a gargantuan civic luncheon, she had a long, humid afternoon inspecting a combined guard of honour of her two regiments, the Toronto Scottish and the Black Watch of Canada. She talked at length to the soldiers and as a result she was quite a long time in the heat without shade or water.32 In London, Ontario, the following day, after another long hot lunch and an enjoyable meeting with veterans, it was on to Sir Frederick S. Banting Square to unveil a statue of the man who had discovered insulin in 1922 and thus saved the lives of millions of diabetics thereafter. She lit an ‘eternal flame’ to his memory.†
On Saturday 8 July there was yet another long luncheon in Toronto, this time with the officers of her regiments, then a tiring walkabout among the soldiers and some impromptu sightseeing. That evening, after a reception for her regiments and an enjoyable dinner with the Ontario Jockey Club, she met all the Club Trustees, two by two, over liqueurs and coffee. With the final pair, David Willmot and Bob Anderson, a young Aberdeen Angus cattle breeder, she talked and talked about her favourite cattle as she plied them with Drambuie. She told them of an alarming experience she had once had in a landau on an English racecourse; the coachman lost control of the team of horses and they ran on and on for three circuits. What did she do? Willmot asked. She just gave the spectators a royal wave each time she went past the stands, she replied.33
Queen Elizabeth’s last Canadian engagement, appropriately, was at the races – attending the 130th running of the Queen’s Plate Stakes
at the Woodbine racetrack that afternoon. The next day the royal party flew back to London. ‘The tour had been punishing for HM at moments,’ Dame Frances recorded; ‘but she is so loved and venerated in Canada that it was impossible not to be buoyed up by the enthusiasm of so many nice people.’34 Canadian officials and politicians asked for yet another visit in the early 1990s. The Queen was consulted and came to the reluctant decision that eighty-nine was old enough for such adventures. Thus the long and happy saga of Queen Elizabeth’s trips to Canada came to an end in her ninth decade.35
*
IN 1990, LUNCHEONS, dinners, garden parties and other events were held all over the kingdom in honour of Queen Elizabeth’s ninetieth birthday. Among them were celebrations organized by the Lord Mayor of London, by the Black Watch in Northern Ireland, by the Queen and Prince Philip at Holyrood. The tributes were substantial – it is probable that most of those who took part did not expect her to complete another decade.
The highlight came on 27 June 1990 when, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and Princess Margaret, she rode in a carriage to Horse Guards Parade, for a procession of tableaux in her honour. This was organized by Major Michael Parker, of the Queen’s Own Hussars (one of her regiments), who had been planning military and royal events for many years. This time the display included many of the hundreds of organizations – military, medical, social, cultural, animal – that she patronized.36
Queen Elizabeth inspected the parade while Princess Margaret and the Prince of Wales watched together from a window overlooking Horse Guards Parade. The Queen was away on an official trip to Iceland and Princess Margaret wrote to tell her sister of the event, saying that their mother was ‘looking very her in blue, while the choir, orchestra & massed bands played & sang “I was Glad” so of course Charles and I were sobbing’.37
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