On 22 February 1994 Queen Elizabeth entertained the Eton Beagles to the annual lawn meet at Royal Lodge. Now that her great-grandsons Prince William and Prince Harry were set to go to Eton, and Martin Charteris was the Provost, her affection for the school was reinforced. She became close to the Head Master, Eric Anderson, and his wife Poppy – who had made friends with Prince Charles when Anderson taught him at Gordonstoun in the 1960s. She enjoyed visiting the school; she made a point of talking to as many boys as she could on every occasion.
That year Queen Elizabeth began a series of long conversations with Anderson, at the suggestion of Prince Charles; many of her comments have been quoted already in this book. She greeted him over tea at Royal Lodge with the disarming words, ‘I’m afraid Charles has been bullying you. I’m a very ordinary person. There is nothing very interesting about me.’ She talked at length about the jolly conviviality of her childhood. Living at Glamis as a child, she said, was like being in a happy village – ‘A big family was fun. You were brought up by your brothers and sisters as well as by your parents and the servants.’ Talking of the authors and wits she had always enjoyed, she praised Joyce Grenfell, a favourite comedienne, Peter Sellers (a 1960s friend of the Snowdons) and, more recently, Alan Bennett, whose gentle ragging of British habits she loved. But ‘Kitchen sink is not my cup of tea.’
Asked about the abdication she said, ‘The terrible thing was that the two brothers were such friends. So it was such a terrible shock.’ During the war, she never thought Britain would not win. ‘The worse things are, the more the British become determined.’ When Anderson told her that the country owed a lot to her and the King, she replied, ‘Oh, I don’t think so, I think it was the people who won the war. We happened to be there.’
She spoke well of many politicians, including Clement Attlee and other Labour leaders. All in all she had few complaints; optimism and faith in Britain always defined her. But ‘one of the banes of my life’ was that she tended to remind middle-aged men of their mothers. ‘I recognize the glazed look that comes over their faces,’ she said, ‘a sort of glazed look of memory’ just before they would tell her so. This happened famously with US President Jimmy Carter who, extolling the cherished likeness, kissed her full on the lips. ‘I took a sharp step backwards,’ she recalled. ‘Not quite far enough.’ She was quoted in the press as saying that no one had kissed her on the lips since her husband the King had died.
As for her present interests, she cited above all the need for preservation – ‘I’m a great preserver.’ She mentioned also the Shaftesbury Society, a Christian charity which helped disabled people and poor children. ‘It’s extraordinary,’ she said, that in every town and village in Britain there were always people helping each other. ‘You never hear about those, but it’s going on all the time.’ She recalled visiting an old ladies home in Glasgow where they all looked very jolly – ‘and I discovered that the boys from the local High School came along two or three times a week, took the old ladies out, took them for walks, jollied them up, got their newspapers. And you see, if you can get that mixture, it’s wonderful.’
She loved that mixture for herself. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without my grandchildren, you know. We have great rags. They keep one up to date … We don’t always agree on things, which is a very good thing, I think.’ She was endlessly curious about the younger generations and their changing interests. But she also believed that values such as duty should remain eternal. She told Anderson that she had not understood the Princess of Wales’s announcement, made after her separation, that she was giving up her charitable works. ‘I can’t believe she won’t come out and do some things. I may perhaps bully her into doing things. It’s no good sitting back. Your devoir, your duty. There we are back again. It’s the same old thing. Your devoir.’85
In fact the Princess did resume her public life and became active in several causes, especially the campaigns to help AIDS sufferers and to ban land mines. But her marriage could not be saved. In 1996, the Prince and Princess of Wales were divorced, as were the Duke and Duchess of York. Throughout, Queen Elizabeth talked constantly to the Queen, and wrote to her, commiserating with her about all the strain that these events inevitably placed upon her.86
*
TED HUGHES’S friendship was a great support throughout this difficult time. He could understand the horror of what was happening to the Royal Family; his own unhappy marriage had ended with the suicide of his wife Sylvia Plath and he had been publicly excoriated by her champions ever since. Like Queen Elizabeth herself, he knew how to be sympathetic and to give pleasure. After one visit to Birkhall he wrote to remind her of ‘the skylines rolling away, the nearest brownyred heather, the next the dense green of pine-forest, & beyond that, highest and furthest, the snow-patched hills. You remember we tried to photograph it in our memories? The trees by the stream just coming into their new green. And the ranger’s falcons that preferred a bath in the burn to hunting rabbits! And all our conversations about everything.’87 She loved such letters and she told him so.
The deterioration in the health of her friends and then their deaths was an inevitable but sad theme of this decade. This year, two of her long-serving ladies in waiting, Patricia, Viscountess Hambleden, who had been a friend since their debutante days, and Lady Victoria Wemyss, both died; the latter, born a Cavendish-Bentinck and a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, was 104.
In June 1994 Queen Elizabeth took part in celebrations to mark the fiftieth anniversary of D-Day. On 4 June she flew by helicopter to HMS Vernon, Portsmouth, and embarked in the royal yacht; later, accompanied by the Princess Royal, she landed at Whale Island for the ceremony of Beating Retreat. The next morning, Sunday 5 June, a Drumhead Service was held on Southsea Common, which she attended with the Queen and the Duke and other members of the Royal Family, together with the assembled heads of state and statesmen representing the Allied nations during the war. She enjoyed such commemorations above all because they evoked the spirit of unity that had prevailed during the war. Of the Portsmouth celebration, she said, ‘It’s very strange. I think it brought people together in the most amazing way. They suddenly remembered that we were all together then … And it was a wicked thing we were fighting.’88
Queen Elizabeth’s summer continued with all her usual fixtures – her progress to Walmer Castle, the King’s Lynn Festival, her birthday at Clarence House (followed by Romeo and Juliet with Princess Margaret at Covent Garden), the Castle of Mey and then Birkhall. Whenever she was at Birkhall she would ask the Balmoral factor and his wife to dinner. Latterly that was Peter Ord, who had been the factor at Glamis before. He thought her interest was not just to get the latest news and gossip of the area but also to remind him of her views and values on the running of the estate. Her view, simply put, was that Balmoral belonged to the Queen and she could do with it as she wished. She was correct, but in practice the demands for public accountability grew all the time, even though Balmoral was one of the best-run private estates in Scotland.
She liked continuity in employment and felt a responsibility for all those who worked in the estates. ‘If I wanted to get a good gardener, she might ask me to employ Jimmy’s son, rather than an experienced man from outside,’ said Peter Ord. She encouraged the employment of young people in order to try and keep the school rolls up. She always wanted to know who was with child, who was ill. She would say to new arrivals, as she did to the Ords, ‘You are family now.’89 It was an unashamedly paternalistic way of doing things – and it worked well in tempering more modern methods. The disadvantage, however, was that it sometimes led her to insist on retaining, out of loyalty, staff who were ineffective, which could cause exasperation in her family and Household.
After her return to London she suffered from considerable pain in her right leg, but she insisted on attending the 1994 Royal Smithfield Show at Earls Court, the Middle Temple Family Night dinner, and even a reception at St James’s Palace given by the Cookery and Food Association. Despite rest
and recuperation – over Christmas and New Year at Sandringham – her leg and her foot were now giving her so much trouble that she could not manage her favourite walks, but she managed to see ‘dear old Bustino’ and other horses.90
She nevertheless carried out thirty official engagements in 1995 and only three had to be cancelled because of her health. Wherever she went, she still managed to appear deeply interested in the people she met. One Member of Parliament later identified this quality. On a visit to his constituency, he said, she had lingered, saying, ‘I am not in a hurry. I have time. Time is not my dictator; I dictate to time. I want to meet people.’91 That remained true until the end. In May 1995 she enjoyed lunch as much as ever with her friends the Farrells in their ‘salle de glace’ – ‘Chicken with Tarragon! What a treat!’ She was happy to see Paul Getty transformed in health,92 and ascribed this miracle, correctly, to his new wife Victoria, whom he had married in 1994 and who did indeed transform his life.
That summer Britain celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, VE Day. The festivities were remarkable; once again both monarchists and republicans were struck by the affection in which the monarchy was still held by large sections of the population, of all ages. On Saturday 6 May Queen Elizabeth inaugurated the celebrations in Hyde Park – after a Drumhead Service she spoke briefly, without notes, of all those ‘whose courage and fortitude brought us the victory’.93 The next day she accompanied other members of the Royal Family to the service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral and then to lunch at Buckingham Palace for all the heads of state visiting London.
On Monday 8 May Queen Elizabeth joined her daughters on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, to wave to the crowds just as they had done in May 1945. Only the King, husband and father, was gone. As a demonstration of the continuity of monarchy it could not be bettered. The cheering seemed endless. Queen Elizabeth loved seeing the ‘old patriotism’ shine through again, ‘but it was so funny being there, just us three on the balcony.’ She told the Queen, ‘We are just war relics.’94
Another ‘war relic’, Vera Lynn, sang ‘We’ll Meet Again’. Harry Secombe and Cliff Richard also performed. There was vigorous singing of ‘Rule Britannia’, ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ and the National Anthem. A clutch of surviving wartime aircraft flew overhead, followed by the Red Arrows, and finally there were fireworks from the roof of Buckingham Palace – making a noise very reminiscent of the Blitz, the lady in waiting noted, and at one stage almost engulfing the royal ladies in smoke. Some of the fireworks were supposed to drop Union flags on little parachutes, but not all the parachutes opened and one bundle fell on Queen Elizabeth’s shoulder. Princess Margaret recalled that the Queen then said, ‘Come on, Mummy, I think you had better get back.’ ‘Into shelter,’ added Queen Elizabeth.95
The summer was punctuated by her usual engagements, including her annual visit to the Cinque Ports, but in mid-July she quietly went into King Edward VII’s Hospital for the removal of a cataract in her left eye.* No engagements were cancelled, and the operation did help a little to improve her vision. For her ninety-fifth birthday, Queen Elizabeth used the golf buggy to move among the usual crowd of well-wishers at Clarence House. She then had lunch and dinner with family and friends and next day flew to Scotland. Ted Hughes sent her another birthday poem. ‘How fortunate I am to have a friend who is a great poet!’ she thanked him. ‘Lucky lucky me!’96
By November that year both hips were giving her considerable pain. On 15 November she calmly went to lunch with friends at the Ritz, and then was driven to King Edward VII’s Hospital. She had decided to have a right hip replacement. The operation was performed successfully, though not without difficulty, by Roger Vickers the next morning, assisted by the anaesthetist Dr Di Davis. Vickers, who had taken over as the orthopaedic surgeon to the Queen in 1993, had been reluctant to carry out the operation until it became essential. In the event he found her to be a good patient. She stayed longer than most patients in hospital, because she wanted to be able to walk unaided down the steps when she left. Afterwards she invited all the doctors and nurses and their spouses, and the cleaners of her room, to a party at Clarence House. They were moved and delighted.97
While she was at Sandringham after Christmas another member of her family, Rachel, widow of her much loved brother David, died. The roads around Sandringham were impassable with snow and ice and Queen Elizabeth was distressed that she could not get to St Paul’s Walden for the funeral. She sent a tender letter to her nephew Simon, talking of his mother’s brave spirit, her courage, her humour and ‘her great loving kindness. I know that when my heart fails me I shall hear Rachel saying come on now, don’t give up.’98
On 6 February, the anniversary of the King’s death, Queen Elizabeth celebrated Holy Communion as usual at the Royal Chapel in Windsor Great Park. She received a heartening letter from the former chaplain of the Royal Chapel, the Rev. Anthony Harbottle, a devout and kindly man who had served with the Royal Marines during the war and was also a distinguished lepidopterist, the first person in Britain to breed the New Pale Clouded Yellow butterfly. He had become close to many members of the Royal Family, but particularly the Queen Mother, throughout his time as chaplain from 1968 to 1981. In 1972, on the twentieth anniversary of the King’s death, she wrote to tell him that the family had all thought his sermon was ‘perfect’. In February 1982, the first year after he had ceased to be chaplain, she wrote to tell him how much they missed his ‘sympathy and understanding’ at the service.99
Every year thereafter Harbottle would write to her on the anniversary of the King’s death, and every year she would reply. Queen Elizabeth took comfort in his vivid statements of belief in an all-encompassing, loving God, the resurrection of the dead and the reunion of souls. Her faith was traditional and uncomplicated and she derived a great deal of support from it. She was more interested in liturgical tradition than in theological subtleties. She preferred, to put it mildly, the 1662 version of the Prayer Book and the Authorized or King James Version of the Bible. Her friend Lord St John of Fawsley, a regular guest at her home, said, ‘It was the Prayer Book that she loved.’* She did not like such new-fangled ideas as ‘the kiss of peace’ or even the handshake. ‘When she saw it winging its way towards her, she stiffened and took evasive action. Her religion was loving kindness.’100 Her devotion to the truths of the Christian gospel sustained her through sadness and nourished her sense of commitment to others.
Another friend and lady in waiting, Lady Elizabeth Basset, put it thus: ‘In LIVING, her faith shines out almost unconsciously and speaks through her dedication to her country, in her tremendous sense of duty, and her endurance, her courage, and last but not least her sense of humour and enjoyment of life.’101
*
IN 1996 QUEEN ELIZABETH was cheered by the state visit of President Nelson Mandela to London, following South Africa’s readmission to the Commonwealth. He came to tea with her at Clarence House on 9 July and she then attended the state banquet in his honour. She marvelled in the change that Mandela had peacefully brought about, and dared for the first time in decades to be hopeful about the beloved country.102
It was the summer of heroes. On 18 July she received the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet. The meeting took place at a complex time, just one year before Hong Kong was due to revert from British rule to China. The Chinese government was always sensitive to criticism of its human rights record in Tibet. The day before Chinese officials had attacked a cross-party group of British politicians for inviting the Dalai Lama to address members of the Lords and Commons. Their actions, said a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, ‘will have an adverse affect on the Sino-British relationship’.
This was the first time that the exiled Tibetan leader had been received by a member of the Royal Family. It was a moving encounter and the Tibetan spiritual leader explained to the Queen Mother that as a boy in Tibet he had seen newsreel and pictures of her and the King in bombed-out London and
had wanted to meet her ever since. The Dalai Lama seemed, in the words of Robert Ford, the Foreign Office official with him, to be ‘captivated by the charm of Her Majesty’. This was very clear when he left her – he took her hand and placed it to his bowed forehead, a mark of sincere respect and affection.103 For years afterwards the Dalai Lama referred to this meeting in speeches and interviews, saying how impressed he had been by Queen Elizabeth’s optimistic view of the world and of improvements that she had witnessed during the twentieth century. ‘I was deeply impressed and inspired’ by her, he said. Her optimism reinforced his own and he was further encouraged when Prince Charles inherited and expanded his grandmother’s interest in the plight of Tibet.104
At the Sandringham Flower Show, in late July that year, Queen Elizabeth arrived in a carriage with Prince Charles; they then toured the stalls together in her golf buggy. Ted Hughes, who was again among her guests, captured it all in another poem, called ‘The Prince and His Granny’. The second of the five verses ran:
The Police Brass Band, they puffed and frowned
To turn their duty into sound.
They woke the flowers and the flowers swooned
To meet the gaze of the Prince and his Granny.
Then hearing the bees boom ‘Taste our honey!’
The Lemon Curd and the Marmalade
Rose from the stalls, no matter who paid,
And joined in the joys of the Royal Parade.105
The Queen Mother Page 117