The Queen Mother Part 21
The refuelling in the Cocos Islands was without incident. But about two hours before arriving in Mauritius for another fuelling, a cylinder seized in one of the plane's four engines. Serious damage was caused. Cyclones in the Mauritius area added to anxiety about a safe landing. To everyone's relief they made it into Plaisance airport, but it then became clear that the engine's cowling needed to be replaced. The intended one-hour stopover had to be extended and extended. In the end the necessary repairs delayed them for three nights. The weather was dreadful: airless and steamy, crackling with violent electrical storms or pouring with rain. But Queen Elizabeth made the best of her enforced holiday. The Governor concocted an impromptu programme and she was cheered by crowds of delighted Mauritians wherever she went. She toured Port Louis, and at Pamplemousses she inspected the araucaria tree she had planted in 1927 on the way back from Australia; she drove up into the mountains for a picnic. Everywhere she went, she met with enthusiastic crowds.
She was offered another aircraft to continue, but knowing how upset her Qantas crew (and their superiors back home) already were, she said that she preferred to stay with her Qantas flight. Back in Australia Sir Allen Brown, the director general of her visit and a keen writer of rhymes, concocted a telegram about her plight: A cowling's just a piece of tin
To keep the aircraft engine in
But without it one gets vicious
Especially if in Mauritius
Antic.i.p.ating that Martin Gilliat would be more upset than his mistress, he added, I fear the rage of Comrade Martin,
Because the aircraft won't get startin'
Yet tell him that the loudest howling
Will not replace the missing cowling51
On 11 March, after a new cowling had eventually arrived from Australia, she flew away, church bells pealing, people shouting farewells as she waved goodbye from the steps of the plane.52 Her greatest concern was for Kenya where she had been scheduled to open Nairobi's new airport during another stopover. The delays had made this impossible and she sent a message to the Governor of Kenya saying how sad she was about this, but expressing confidence that 'on another voyage, which I hope will not be too far in the future, my aircraft will land at your new airport'.53 It happened just one year later.
Instead of Nairobi, her plane was routed by Entebbe where she landed in the middle of the night. Once again, engine trouble prolonged what was to have been a refuelling stop. Once again, she was offered another aircraft but declined. A further eighteen hours late, she took off for Malta. She was almost home but even here there was trouble and another delay of at least twelve hours was promised. So finally she agreed to transfer to a BOAC plane and completed the journey to London, landing on the morning of 13 March, sixty-eight hours late. When the desolate Qantas manager in London apologized, she rea.s.sured him, 'It could have happened to anyone. I feel very sorry for the crew; they all worked so hard.'54 Typically, she saw the incessant delays in her flight home more as an adventure than as a setback. She had reason to be pleased with her trip; in one letter home she wrote, 'I have been deeply touched by their very true feelings of love, & amazed at their enthusiastic reception.'55 *
ALL IN ALL the Queen Mother was becoming an avid traveller. She had enjoyed flying since her first flight in 1935, and she loved to be the Royal Family's pioneer in the air. She was one of the first in the family to fly by helicopter, which she loved indeed it became a method of transport she enjoyed till the very end of her life.
She was also gaining confidence in her own ability to represent her country abroad. She was widely, visibly present in Africa as what Harold Macmillan later called 'the winds of change' swept through the continent, fanning nationalist sentiments and removing British colonial rule. Ghana was the first African colony to become independent, in 1957, and it was followed by Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanganyika (Tanzania), Uganda, Kenya, Nyasaland (Malawi) and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) through the 1960s. All became members of the British Commonwealth. Its growth, as the Queen herself later said, marked 'the transformation of the Crown from an emblem of dominion into a symbol of free and voluntary a.s.sociation. In all history this has no precedent.'56 In early 1959 Queen Elizabeth made an official tour to Kenya and Uganda. It was nostalgic for her, the first time she had been to Kenya since she and the Duke of York had been there in 19245. The visit to Kenya was arranged partly in order to make up for the previous year's cancelled visit to open Nairobi Airport. This time the British government considered cancelling the visit again, because of political unrest in the colony. The African elected members of the Kenya Legislative Council had decided to boycott any official functions during the visit, but their leader Dr Kiano sent Queen Elizabeth a personal message a.s.suring her of their esteem for her and the Royal Family.57 The authorities in Nairobi were unworried, and persuaded the Colonial Office that cancellation was unnecessary.58 She was met at Nairobi airport on the afternoon of 5 February by the Governor of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring, and his wife Molly. The Governor had devised a sophisticated programme for her and his efficient staff guided her with care around the country.
East Africa had been suffering serious drought, but, soon after she arrived in the almost waterless Masai district of Narok, not for the first time in royal history fate obligingly took a hand. At a picturesque baraza with Masai tribesmen, some in lion-skin headdresses, Queen Elizabeth made a speech expressing a hope for rain. 'An hour later the skies opened & an inch fell in 20 minutes,' recorded her lady in waiting. 'The Masai were convinced that HM had magic powers.'59 Princess Margaret congratulated her on being a rain-maker: 'The BBC man read it out quite seriously and dead-pan which made it sound even more unbelievable. It reminded me so much of when Papa said "Pula" in Bechua.n.a.land. That worked too!'60 Queen Elizabeth travelled widely through Kenya by train, sitting for hours on the observation platform and being welcomed with huge enthusiasm at every halt and road crossing, where hundreds of people had gathered and waited to glimpse her, even at night.61 Evelyn Baring commented that from the train she had a real glimpse of true rural Kenya. 'There were European farmers, Asian traders, Africans working on farms or in forest villages, and the forest officers in charge of them.' At one station there was a farmer with five couple of fox hounds which he hunted himself, 'since in Kenya the eccentric English individualist is not yet a thing of the past'.62 On Valentine's Day the train crew sent her cards. The best was hand drawn, with a background of a smiling sun above mountains and a little train weaving past hearts and cherubs: To show you our affection this is a simple sign
And tell you most sincerely, you are our Valentine
The only thing that worries us when we are on the line,
Is that there is no corridor between our coach and thine.
At the bottom of the card was a line of black Africans waving Union flags and a fat bald white man, also waving his flag.63 She drove through the Nyeri Reserve, past crowds of cheering Kikuyu tribesmen, to spend a night in the new Treetops Hotel (the original cabin in which Princess Elizabeth had stayed in 1952 had been burned down in the Mau Mau revolt in 1954) and enjoyed the wild animals. Rhino, buffalo, baboon, the rare giant forest hog and many shapes and sizes of antelope appeared that night for her and her party but, alas, no elephants.
Next day she spoke for some time with a group of Kikuyu chiefs before flying back to Nairobi. Baring was struck that the Kikuyu were more enthusiastic than almost any of the other African tribes and that the cheering in Nyeri 'was the loudest heard during the visit'. It was particularly remarkable because this was an area 'where the struggle against the Mau Mau had been at its hottest'. The Governor believed that Queen Elizabeth's presence in their lands 'gave to many Kikuyu there a feeling that the bitter story of the past was closed, and she appeared as a symbol of a new and a better era'.64 Similarly the two barazas held with the Masai and with the Elgeyo and Marakwet tribes seemed great successes. 'Here there was no sign of political trouble and there were no dark memories of the Emergency to forget. The people received Her Majesty with great enthusiasm.'65 African nationalist politicians had tried to persuade the citizens of Nairobi not to turn out in the streets to cheer her. To the great relief of the Governor their attempts failed; she was welcomed heartily everywhere, and by everyone Africans, Asians and Europeans. In Mombasa the Arab population greeted her with courtesy. There were dances in her honour at a reception for women of all races.66 She was struck by the achievements of the colony. In Nairobi she visited the King George VI Hospital for Africans and, according to the Governor, was impressed by the standard of medical care dispensed. Everywhere she went she seemed to be delighted and this in turn pleased everyone she met. The Governor concluded that her visit was 'a most outstanding success. It made a profound impression on all the people of Kenya. In my view it has, in an indirect but a powerful way, a.s.sisted the recent more hopeful political developments in this complex and often troubled country.'67 Lady Baring wrote to the Queen Mother, 'There has been a most genuine drawing together of all sorts of people & races & groups as a direct result of your coming.'68 'Kenya was very crowded as to programme,' Queen Elizabeth wrote to Princess Margaret, 'but goodness, what a beautiful country it is!' The only drawback, she said, was that people constantly told her how much they had enjoyed Princess Margaret's own visit two years before. The sheikhs in Mombasa had 'looked gravely at my flushed & streaming face, & red eyes (v. small too) and said "We DID so love having Princess Margaret here I do hope she comes again soon, soon." '69 On 18 February she flew from Nairobi to Kisumu on Lake Victoria for a brief visit, and then on to Entebbe, the capital of neighbouring Uganda, still a British protectorate. In Kampala, as chancellor of the University of London she visited the University College of Makerere, which had a close relationship with her university. There, suffering from the heat in her Chancellor's robes, she presented doctorates and opened the new University Library. On the green college lawns she was surrounded by students and academics in coloured robes, all anxious to talk to or at least glimpse her. It was a relaxed occasion.
That afternoon she opened the new headquarters of the Uganda Sports Union, and watched boxing, athletics, hockey, tennis and cricket. Everyone was impressed when the Kabaka's brother, Prince George Mawanda, hit two magnificent sixes clean out of the ground. This was followed in the evening by the Uganda Royal Tattoo in a crowded stadium. Among the displays the Queen Mother watched was, rather astonishingly, a reconstruction of the Battle of Leik Hill in Burma, during the last war, by the 4th King's African Rifles. This was followed by African, Indian and Scottish dancing, and music by military and police bands. The whole Tattoo, she told Princess Margaret, was 'so gloriously English that it was almost funny'. All was most enjoyable except, she wrote, 'I had a lizard in my room all night, & it hung over my bed looking at me with bulging eyes. I felt quite embarra.s.sed.'70 She visited the Western, Northern and Eastern provinces of Uganda, travelled to two national parks and sailed on Lake Victoria, Lake Albert and the Nile, spotting birds, hippos and crocodiles. She was pleased that she was often taken on the same route and to the same places that she and the Duke had visited in 1925 the trip that she later described as the best time of their lives. In each province she listened to kind addresses of welcome.
At Paraa in the Murchison Falls National Park a special cottage overlooking the Nile had been built for her visit; there she watched a spectacular display by Acholi dancers, each of whom wore a large headdress of ostrich feathers. To general delight she repaid the compliment by wearing her tiara.71 In Jinja, in the Eastern Province, the welcome was even more enthusiastic with thousands of people lining the streets. She was presented with many gifts, including a bag of coffee from Bugisu, accompanied by a plea that Her Majesty 'influence the British people to take to drinking more coffee and less tea'. She loved it all, and in her farewell speech said that the 'spirit of courage, confidence and enterprise' she had seen 'bodes well for the future of Uganda'.72 As she left, the East African Standard a.s.serted that her tour was one of the most successful ever undertaken by a member of the Royal Family. In his report to Alan Lennox-Boyd, the Colonial Secretary, the Governor praised Queen Elizabeth's demeanour throughout, stressing that 'the unqualified success of the visit was attributable above all to the Queen Mother herself, to Her Majesty's visible affection for and interest in all those she met and to her gracious and friendly manner to all on all occasions'. Over 950 people were presented formally to her and the Governor noted that she had 'a friendly and informal word for scores of others and a gracious smile and wave for thousands'. He thought that it all amounted to 'a personal triumph'.73 It was not just loyal colonial administrators who thought this. George Thomas, the Labour Member of Parliament for Cardiff West and future Speaker of the House of Commons, returning from a trip to Kenya, wrote to Martin Gilliat that everywhere he had heard 'profound appreciation' of the good the Queen Mother had done. The Arab community in Mombasa 'were quite ecstatic' at the interest she had shown in them, and all other races felt the same. 'It is not my habit to write to pay this sort of tribute but in view of the tremendous surge of appreciation of this Royal visit I am breaking a rule! It will do no harm for you to know that people like myself feel the impact of what this visit meant. Above all I felt that it had been a real tonic for those folk who have the sticky job of everyday administration in that difficult country'.74 *
SOON AFTER Queen Elizabeth's return from Africa she prepared for a trip to Rome with Princess Margaret. It was an unofficial visit but she was to have an audience with Pope John XXIII and unveil a monument to Byron in the Borghese Gardens. She wrote a happy letter to D'Arcy Osborne, saying, 'I can't believe that at last I am coming to Rome! It really is too exciting, and I am looking forward to it all so much It is the first time in my life that I am to visit a place just for pleasure.'75 She told him that she had already been inundated with anxious letters from Protestants about her visit to the Pope. 'I wish that one could convey to these people (who are simple & good) that if one goes to Rome, the Pope, being a Sovereign, must be visited out of politeness if nothing else. There is great ignorance & fear still about the R. Catholic religion possibly because they are so well organised.'76 The visit went well and included lunch with D'Arcy Osborne and a lunch at a trattoria on the Via Appia Antica. The British Amba.s.sador to Italy, Ashley Clarke, reported that the Romans were usually cynical about distinguished foreign visitors to the city. But the warmth of the welcome given to the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret was striking.77 On the way home they stopped in Paris at the suggestion of Lady Jebb, whose husband was still British amba.s.sador. She had proposed that the Queen Mother visit the International Floral Exhibition and the exhibition of British furniture, 'The Century of Elegance in England', at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs.78 Queen Elizabeth rarely needed encouragement to visit Paris, one of her favourite cities, and, while there, she was pleased to have lunch with General de Gaulle, now President of France.
In her published diaries, Lady Jebb painted an unflattering portrait of Princess Margaret, whose 'disagreeable' behaviour she contrasted with her mother's 'sparkling and delightful' manners. The Princess, she said, 'wishes to convey that she is very much the Princess, but at the same time she is not prepared to stick to the rules if they bore or annoy her, such as being polite to people.' She claimed that the Princess faked a cold to get out of engagements and that her only interests were to have her hair coiffed by the famous hairdresser Alexandre and to have a fitting for a Dior dress. Lady Jebb complained about the Princess to the Queen Mother's lady in waiting, Patricia Hambleden, who, she claimed, was not surprised and observed that the Queen Mother would not be concerned in any way by her daughter's behaviour: 'Nothing will disturb her happiness.' Lady Jebb asked if Queen Elizabeth had always been so philosophical and Lady Hambleden replied, 'Yes, I think she always had this quality. And a sort of serenity, and of being unhurried.'79 A year later, in May 1960, Queen Elizabeth made her second visit to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland and spent nineteen days there. This was perhaps her favourite part of the British Empire in Africa. She listened to the growing concerns of the white minority in Southern Rhodesia but was told by people she trusted that relations between black and white were likely to get much worse. Major General Sir John Kennedy, the former Governor, thought the white settlers were 'diehard' and 'unrealistic'.80 Once again there were fears that, given what the Governor of Nyasaland called 'the uneasy political atmosphere', there might be boycotts or 'unhappy incidents'.81 In the event there were none at all. The princ.i.p.al purpose of Queen Elizabeth's visit was to open the Kariba Dam, intended to provide hydro-electric power for the copper belt. She made numerous other visits to schools, factories and farms; one child whose school she had visited wrote an essay about her saying 'she had gloves studded with rubies ... Her shoes were pink, studded with diamonds ... The jewels on her dress and her tiara twinkled like stars ... On her gloves were small emeralds.'82 She travelled widely throughout the Federation, visiting small towns far from the usual beaten track. She went to Barotseland, which delighted her. 'No roads, and a vast plain, which every year is inundated by the mighty Zambesi, too beautiful for words, because the water is just going down now, & the tall gra.s.s is growing through the water, & this endless vista of shimmer & light is really fascinating.'83 More schools, tea plantations, farms, tobacco estates and hospitals welcomed her. Near Blantyre, the capital of Nyasaland, she unveiled a war memorial to African and European servicemen who had fallen in the two world wars. She spoke movingly of the sacrifices that colonial soldiers had made for Britain and laid a wreath of poppies on the memorial, which bore the inscription 'Lest we forget'.
The Governor of Nyasaland noted that it was above all the Queen Mother's 'charm and dignity' which ensured the great success of the visit at such a politically difficult time. 'Tales of her friendliness and personal charm' spread quickly and as a result what began as small crowds grew to throngs of thousands.84 She was pleased too. Martin Gilliat wrote to the Governor to say that her hopes had been 'fulfilled beyond her keenest expectations'.85 From this period on Queen Elizabeth followed the affairs of all of eastern and southern Africa with great attention. She admired what the white settlers had achieved while understanding that 'the winds of change' must indeed produce just that and would lead to black majority rule. In the case of Southern Rhodesia she grew more and more concerned by the gulf between the whites and the blacks, by the white minority government's later unilateral declaration of independence, and by the way in which subsequent British governments handled the crisis.
IT WAS NOT just the Empire that was having to change at the end of the 1950s. The imperial monarchy at home also began to come under scrutiny, along with many other British inst.i.tutions. The years following the failure of British intervention in the Suez crisis of 1956 were a time of national rea.s.sessment. The Conservative Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, resigned and was replaced by Harold Macmillan. The country was still poor and battered, struggling to recover from the immense exertion of winning the war. There were still bomb sites all over London and other great cities. Added to the expense of rebuilding were the costs of nationalization and the welfare state embarked upon by the radical Labour governments of 194551 and accepted by the Conservative government that succeeded them.
Britain was still an overwhelmingly white nation. The first immigrants from the British colonies, particularly the West Indies, had begun to arrive in 1947, but there were only 36,000 a decade later. Cla.s.s divisions had been diminished but not ended by the war. Social rank was easily identified by accents and clothing, even by men's hats. The monarchy was not just accepted but was enjoyed by the overwhelming majority of the population. But, even for the monarchy, change had begun.
In 1953 the Royal Family had profited from a romantic sense of renewal and hope after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. But public att.i.tudes by the end of the decade were much more questioning. There was love still, but it was no longer unconditional. The period of scepticism was triggered (or was subsequently seen to be triggered) when a young peer, Lord Altrincham (John Grigg), criticized the Queen in National Review, a small magazine he owned. He called her speeches 'prim little sermons' and said that her background and training were too limited and her advisers too narrowly chosen. He thought she needed 'a truly cla.s.sless and Commonwealth Court'. His remarks were thoughtful and intended to be supportive of what he called 'the genius of const.i.tutional monarchy'. Privately, some of the Queen's own advisers considered that such comments were helpful and that it was time for the Palace to shed its 'tweedy' image. But such criticism was unprecedented and raised a public storm.
In these circ.u.mstances, the arrival of Antony Armstrong-Jones in the royal firmament was propitious he was far from the tweedy set that Lord Altrincham had criticized. A young and attractive society photographer, his uncle was Oliver Messel, a well-known artist and theatrical designer. Armstrong-Jones had been at Eton and had then c.o.xed the winning Cambridge boat in the 1950 boat race against Oxford.
His friendship with Princess Margaret began to develop in 1958 after they were introduced by Elizabeth Cavendish, a sister of the Duke of Devonshire. His bohemian lifestyle was instantly attractive to the cloistered but somewhat rebellious Princess. He had a studio and flat in the Pimlico Road and also a hideaway south of the Thames in Rotherhithe, in those days a very unfashionable part of London that would have seemed exotic to someone nurtured in the greatest palaces and castles of the land.
Armstrong-Jones sent Princess Margaret long-playing gramophone records of a popular musical, Irma la Douce, and then invited her to see it.86 She took her mother into her confidence and Queen Elizabeth asked Armstrong-Jones to lunch at Clarence House. The Princess warned him that if he came she would 'bore you by forcing you to look at my photograph of Mama in the heather which has blown up very nicely. It's interesting (to me) for its textures ... Altogether it would be too sad if you cannot come!'87 The lunch went well; the Queen Mother liked this engaging young artist and encouraged her daughter to pursue the friendship. Armstrong-Jones liked the Queen Mother too he enjoyed her coquettish familiarity touched with formality. Their friendship became close and was to survive to the end of her life.
Armstrong-Jones took scores of photographs of the Princess, as he did of all his friends. In April 1959 she asked him to photograph her 'properly' and suggested he come to Royal Lodge for the weekend of 1 May.88 That summer they fell in love and by August she was writing to him joyful letters from Balmoral. 'You've made me happy. Are you pleased? I am ... I left London tremendously NOT in turmoil. Are you aware how much that means to me having travelled unhappily, b.u.mping about.' Now, by contrast, she had 'golden dreams' and found herself 'smiling unconsciously. What a short time it is since April really. Three months, not counting the last blissful weeks ... every time you came to stay it was nicer than the last ... my sister is glorious, my b[rother] in l[aw] better now and the children are c.o.c.kahoop, camping the night in a stalking house. Darling do write back and tell me everything that happens to you, every detail please.'89 All that summer they wrote to each other, letters filled with endearment. On her birthday, 21 August, she waited in her room for his call and next day she wrote to tell him again how happy she now was. 'Dare one say that word ... I'm afraid of stating it.' She had been unhappy for a long time but now she thought she really was happy 'because I feel peaceful and unworried and you are nice and gentle, very rare'. Later that evening the family, she told him, 'sat for hours after dinner singing songs round the table, and then on and on in the drawing room'.90 At the end of August President Eisenhower, near the end of his second term in office, took up a long-standing invitation to visit the family in Scotland. The Princess wrote a long and hilarious description of the occasion. 'Excitement, arrangements, arrangements, nonsense talked, wrong information, confirmation of wrong information, diet sheets, screening by G men, last minute refutation of wrong information, that went on before his arrival put us all in a frenzy of nerves.'
Prince Philip met Eisenhower's flight and drove with him to Balmoral. The Queen and the Princess walked down the drive and waited just around a corner and out of sight of the horde of photographers outside the gate. Prince Philip had forgotten that they were planning to do this and his first reaction, he said afterwards, was 'who are those two idiotic women?'91 They took Eisenhower into the hills and the Queen cooked him drop scones on a barbecue. Then it was 'on for a drink with my glorious Mum at a party at Birkhall where everybody produced cameras so that instead of faces there were just a lot of old lenses on the lawn'.92 In October Armstrong-Jones came to stay at Balmoral and he and the Princess enjoyed exploring together all the places the Princess loved the most. They visited the Queen Mother at Birkhall too. He showed the Princess how to take better photographs and took many himself. Afterwards, he sent her a parcel of hundreds of photographs she handed them around with pride and was particularly pleased if someone said, 'What a marvellous Armstrong-Jones portrait,' and she could say 'I took that one myself.'
While the family was at Balmoral the general election called by Harold Macmillan took place on 8 October, and on election night, the Princess stayed up in 'the nerve centre' (the equerries' room) watching the results; she was much cheered when Macmillan and his Conservative Party won another victory.93 Later, after a visit to Glamis, the Princess wrote to tell Armstrong-Jones that it gave her such pleasure to be there 'and it brings back hundreds of blissful memories of a sunny childhood and loving, fond grandparents'. She was about to take the train 'back to London and you. I love you pa.s.sionately and peacefully and I've thought of you every second which has resulted in long periods of day dreaming out of which I have to be literally shaken. I have missed you all the time darling and can't wait to see you.'94 On 27 February 1960, shortly after the birth of Queen Elizabeth's third grandchild, Prince Andrew, the Court Circular announced: 'It is with the greatest pleasure that Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother announces the betrothal of her beloved daughter The Princess Margaret to Mr Antony Charles Robert Armstrong-Jones, son of Mr R. O. L. Armstrong-Jones, QC, and the Countess of Rosse to which engagement the Queen has gladly given her consent.'
The news was greeted with astonishment Armstrong-Jones had never been mentioned as a possible suitor and great pleasure. Many people felt that Princess Margaret had been dealt a poor hand over Peter Townsend; the fact that she could now be happy was doubly pleasing. And the fact that the Queen's sister was marrying neither prince nor duke nor even aristocrat found favour with many. He was widely described in the press as a 'commoner', though the Daily Mail rea.s.sured its readers that both his parents were from the landed gentry. By comparison with his new family, he was seen as somewhat raffish. His boyish good looks, his wide smile, the fact that he worked for a living and his obvious talent endeared him to many people, and to the spirit of the more populist age.
Some of Armstrong-Jones's friends were concerned that the love match might also in the end prove a mismatch. And some members of the family were not sure what to make of it all. The d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester wrote to Queen Elizabeth to say that she and her husband had been 'wondering how you feel about Margaret's great venture'. She thought 'her "Tony" ' looked very nice in the photographs '& sounds an interesting & rather unusual sort of character'. The fact that they had never come across him 'all makes it so much more difficult to know what to say or think about it. Anyway it is very exciting news.'95 The Queen Mother was pleased. In a letter she wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury* she said, 'I feel very happy about it, and feel sure too, that Margaret has found someone with whom she can be happy ... they went to Holy Communion together on the first Sunday after they became engaged, which seems encouraging for the future.'96 She presented the beaming couple to the world at a gala evening at the Royal Opera House. They all waved from the royal box while the audience in the stalls and the circles cheered with evident pleasure.
Preparations for the wedding went on alongside the Queen Mother's normal official life. In early April there was a charming interlude. The President of France and Madame de Gaulle made a state visit to London. De Gaulle had always been one of the Queen Mother's heroes. She stood on the balcony of Clarence House to watch his carriage drive up the Mall to Buckingham Palace. When the carriage was opposite Clarence House it stopped; the General stood up and saluted her.97 Later he and his wife came to tea at Clarence House, and the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret attended the state banquet in his honour at Buckingham Palace.
The wedding took place at Westminster Abbey on 6 May 1960. It was the first great royal event since the Coronation. Now, seven years later, the country was bursting into the 1960s and what the Queen's biographer Elizabeth Longford called 'a period of brittle animation'.98 The Mall was decorated with arches of roses, the sun shone; the crowds, according to Noel Coward, 'looked like endless, vivid, herbaceous borders'. 'We want Margaret,' they shouted. Three million more people watched the ceremony on television.
Queen Elizabeth wrote to her daughter on her honeymoon in terms which many mothers would understand. 'After the tremendous bustle and noise and beauty of your wedding day, you suddenly disappeared, and I feel that I haven't seen you since you were about 9 years old!' She thought the wedding was perfect 'I felt that it was a real wedding service, holy & beautiful, and you looked heavenly darling.'99 From Britannia Tony Armstrong-Jones, thanked his mother-in-law for 'the wonderful feeling of warmth and welcome' she had given him; he had never in his life been as contented as during the weekends at Royal Lodge.100 Princess Margaret told her mother that every minute of her wedding 'was a dream of happiness' and she thanked her 'for being so absolutely heavenly all the time we were engaged, you were so encouraging and angelic and it is something that is difficult to express on paper because it is really thanking you for being you'.101 * d.i.c.k Francis CBE (b. 1920), one of the most successful National Hunt jockeys of his time. He won over 350 races, and raced in Queen Elizabeth's colours 19536. In 1957 he had to retire from the track after a serious fall and subsequently became an equally successful author of racing thrillers.
* Devon Loch recovered and later in 1956 he came second in the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park to Rose Park, another Cazalet-trained horse. He was then injured and retired. The Queen Mother gave him to Noel Murless, one of the Queen's trainers, and his daughter Julie rode him constantly until he had to be put down, aged seventeen, in 1963. (Sean Smith, Royal Racing, p. 60) * Queen Elizabeth had become patron of the service in 1953; its name was later changed to Queen Elizabeth's Overseas Nursing Service a.s.sociation.
* The letter was never sent, as she noted on it herself, and remained among her papers probably, therefore, an oversight on her part.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
THE HEART OF THE MATTER.
'I would LOVE to be Patron'
IN THE 1960s Britain embarked on an extensive social revolution, one which led to more questioning of ancient inst.i.tutions than ever before. It was uncomfortable for members of the Royal Family. The social historian Asa Briggs suggested later that culturally and politically the year 1956 had seemed to mark the symbolic break with the past. That was the year of John Osborne's play Look Back in Anger, of James Dean's Rebel without a Cause, of Elvis Presley's 'Heartbreak Hotel', of Bill Haley and the Comets' 'Rock around the Clock'. It was also the year, as we have noted, of the failed British intervention at Suez, which showed the British more clearly than anything else that their country was no longer the Great Power that it had been.1 The country was becoming richer and the number of families owning refrigerators, washing machines and cars was increasing all the time. The sociologist Ferdinand Zweig saw such a domestic revolution as leading to 'a deep transformation of values', the development of other ways of thinking and feeling, a new ethos, new aspirations and cravings. It was the beginning of the era of what The Economist called 'the deproletarianised consumer'. What this would mean was not clear and The Economist agreed that 'deproletarianised societies' would not necessarily become 'more discriminate, more moral and more self-reliant'.2 In schools and universities students became more a.s.sertive. Everywhere authority was questioned. Even hospital matrons and station masters were no longer allowed to run their own empires. A new orthodoxy began to emerge in Britain, at least among the urban intellectual elite, which later came to be known as the chattering cla.s.ses. Deference began to die and was replaced by indifference, scepticism and satire. Established inst.i.tutions the state, the Church, the education system and the monarchy were suddenly questioned and satirized, if not challenged.
The most powerful harbinger of change was probably television. In 1955 the BBC had lost its monopoly of television broadcasting, after anguished Parliamentary debate, and new commercial companies flourished and competed thereafter. In 1960 there were ten million combined radio and TV licences in the country; within four years the number had doubled and the coming of colour in 1968 led to another surge in the sale of television sets and the numbers of viewers. In the 1960s, the BBC's mission changed: it had begun as a temple to arts, science, the glory of G.o.d and the propagation of knowledge.* Now its Director General, Hugh Greene, began to push the BBC away from its traditional culture of decorous reserve 'right into the centre of the swirling forces that were changing life in Britain'.3 Such television shows as That Was The Week That Was poked fun at the establishment. This popular programme's first satirical sketch about the Royal Family was broadcast in March 1963. The producer, Ned Sherrin, claimed that it had in fact been suggested by Princess Margaret. 'I think she'd been watching the programme,' said Sherrin. 'Anyway she said, "Why don't you do something about the ridiculous way that they report us?" '4 The sketch, called 'The Queen's Departure', described the Queen setting out from the Pool of London in a barge which started to sink. As it went down, the commentary became more and more reverential until it finally ended, 'The Queen is swimming for her life' and the band struck up the National Anthem.
The explosion of pop music was also a powerful harbinger of change. So was the public's att.i.tude to s.e.x, and it was s.e.x that claimed the political career of John Profumo, Minister for War in the Conservative government; he admitted lying to the House of Commons about his relationship with a call girl, Christine Keeler. His resignation weakened Harold Macmillan's government, and shortly afterwards Macmillan himself, believing (wrongly) that he was gravely ill, resigned and recommended that the Queen send for Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary, in his stead. She did so. Home, a Scottish friend of Queen Elizabeth, led the Conservatives into an election in 1964. After thirteen years in power, they narrowly lost to the Labour Party, under the leadership of Harold Wilson, who promised, rather oddly, that 'the white heat of the technological revolution' would transform Britain.
In social terms, the Wilson government, re-elected with a larger majority in 1966, did embark on more radical legislation than any before it. The age of voting was lowered to eighteen, the s.e.xual Offences Act permitted h.o.m.os.e.xual acts between consenting adults over the age of twenty-one, and abortion was legalized. Capital punishment was abolished. The Lord Chamberlain's powers of theatrical censorship were removed in 1968. The Divorce Reform Act of 1969 made it easier to end a marriage. s.e.xuality was discussed and explored more openly than ever before. Along with access to the birth-control pill, these liberalizing measures would have a huge impact on society in the decades ahead.
In these 'Swinging Sixties' the Royal Family was judged remote by the vanguard of the London-led cultural revolution. But others, less enamoured of the new standards with which society was experimenting, saw the monarchy and particularly Queen Elizabeth as symbols of the tried and traditional values of Britain.
'THE VERY important thing is to be busy,' Queen Elizabeth believed.5 It was advice she herself had followed after the death of the King and ever since. Although nothing could replace her loss, in the end she had found a new role and renewed zest for life in her public responsibilities.
As she grew older, she continued to bear a workload under which many much younger people would have faltered. Above all she displayed unceasing enthusiasm and diligence on behalf of the charities, regiments and other bodies of which she was patron, president, colonel-in-chief, honorary colonel or a dozen other t.i.tles. Her list of patronages grew to over 300, and she continued to accept new ones until the last year of her life. Her interest in people and curiosity about them kept her enjoyment of this work alive; and she would not have been human if she had not been gratified by the public acclaim it brought her. But in any event 'retirement' was not a concept she entertained for herself; the sense of duty with which she had been brought up remained with her. Having become aware of the contribution she could still make, she played her part conscientiously.
Royal patronage of charitable organizations has a long history: successive monarchs not only considered it their duty to their people to support good works, but also recognized that it helped maintain the position of the monarchy. Indeed Frank Prochaska argued in Royal Bounty that it was of paramount importance to the monarchy: it brought the Royal Family into contact with a wide spectrum of the population, and it underpinned the monarch's role at the head of civic society.
Prochaska used the term 'welfare monarchy' to describe this role. But, as he pointed out, the growth of the welfare state in the twentieth century represented a potential conflict. The first twenty years of Queen Elizabeth II's reign were the heyday of state-directed health and social services in Britain. It was then almost universally accepted that the government should provide health, welfare and much else on a centralized basis. Voluntarism of the sort epitomized by charities supported by the Royal Family seemed almost to be quaint and outdated. Do-gooders or volunteers were not always made to feel welcome, let alone important. And yet, remarkably, they did not go away. To take just one example: in 1962 fourteen years after the National Health Service was founded there were 800,000 volunteers in one organization of which Queen Elizabeth was patron, the National League of Hospital Friends. The Labour government of the mid-1960s was in many circ.u.mstances ideologically opposed to the voluntary sector, and so, in general, was the civil service. But when Richard Crossman became Secretary of State for Health and Social Security in 1968 he was 'staggered' by the extent of voluntary help in the now twenty-year-old Health Service and he saw its value.6 Indeed, he realized that the Labour Party's obsession with centralized planning and welfare provision had done 'grievous harm' to philanthropy.
The monarchy's links with the voluntary sector increased. In the mid-1960s, a Ma.s.s Observation survey showed that the public identified the Royal Family with their welfare role much more than any other. The survey also showed some correspondents feeling that the Crown was 'a bulwark' against the danger of government taking away too many democratic freedoms.
Merely to note a few of the organizations to which Queen Elizabeth gave her patronage and the work she did for them over many years some since she had become d.u.c.h.ess of York is to realize the extent to which the monarchy had been woven into the fabric of British life. There was hardly any aspect of it she did not touch. In her choice of societies and inst.i.tutions, and in her speeches and messages to them, one can glimpse the nature of her priorities and her vision of the world. Clearly only a few of her patronages can be mentioned here, but a chronological sample can at least show the growth of her interests.* At the same time, it must be admitted that any selection goes against her own firm rule that all should be treated equally. 'Favourite' was a word she always avoided as invidious, whether it was a colour, a flower, food or drink, but most especially if it was a patronage or a regiment.
There is no question, however, that the University of London, of which she became chancellor in 1955, was in a league of its own for her and became one of her princ.i.p.al interests in the second half of her life. King George VI's uncle, the Earl of Athlone, had been chancellor of the University since 1932. Queen Elizabeth had no wish to antic.i.p.ate the retirement of 'Uncle Alge', but after he had indicated in early 1954 that he did want to step down at the age of seventy-nine, she happily allowed herself to be elected as his successor.7 In her acceptance speech she said, 'It is my hope that I may be able to forge a personal link between myself and this great University.'8 And indeed she did. 'It was the spark', Sir Martin Gilliat said later of her appointment, 'which set off this tumultuously varied way of life.'9 It helped her to remain in touch with young people, which was something she always sought to do. She was chancellor for twenty-five years, handing over to the Princess Royal in 1980. During this time she carried out 208 engagements for the University and made 132 speeches. Diligently every spring she went to the Albert Hall for the annual graduation ceremonies (Presentation Day), and every winter to Senate House for Foundation Day, when honorary degrees were conferred. Each year she and Gilliat would pore over the long list of the University's colleges and schools, acdemic inst.i.tutes, halls of residence, libraries and clubs, planning her visits so as to ensure that every aspect of the life of the University was included at some point, from the Inst.i.tute of Archaeology and Cla.s.sical Studies to the Sailing Club, from the CDC 6600 Computer Centre to the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies. The University's activities, and thus her visits, were not restricted to London: she went, for instance, to the Marine Biology Station on the Isle of c.u.mbrae, the British School in Tehran and the British Cultural Centre in Paris, all of which came under 'the marvellous umbrella of the University', as she put it.10 Her efforts helped the University's fundraising. In the 1970s, for instance, she strongly supported an appeal which garnered 1,800,000 for a new library for the London School of Economics. She opened the library in July 1979 and after congratulating all who had been a.s.siduous in raising the money she invoked the name of John Ruskin, the distinguished Victorian educationalist: 'Ruskin, in a lecture, once made the somewhat stern observation: "What do we, as a nation, care about books? How much do you think we spend altogether on our libraries, public or private, as compared with what we spend on our horses?" ' This brought the house down.11 Lord Annan, the Vice-Chancellor of London University for many years, recalled that whenever she visited any part of the University 'the whole morale of the place shot up. She had that gift of encouraging people simply by being there and taking an interest in what they did.'12 One of the features of the University which she particularly liked was its a.s.sociation with the Commonwealth through the universities with which it was linked. One of these was the University of Rhodesia: in 1957 she had opened the University College of Rhodesia at Salisbury and she was its president until it became a university in its own right in 1971. In 1963 she agreed to be president of the Golden Jubilee Congress of the a.s.sociation of Universities of the Commonwealth, a great gathering of distinguished academics. She attended the Congress's ceremonies for three days in July.
As chancellor she was able to put forward names for honorary degrees each year until 1975; her nominees included her childhood friend Professor Lord David Cecil, as well as Field Marshal the Earl Alexander of Tunis, Sir John Barbirolli, Benjamin Britten, Yehudi Menuhin, Sir Frederick Ashton, Sir Isaiah Berlin and Lord Goodman, the prominent solicitor. She was pleased when Princess Margaret was awarded an honorary doctorate of music in 1957; this she conferred on her daughter at a special ceremony at the Senate House.
Lord Annan recorded that, although she would never interfere in matters of policy, Queen Elizabeth might well express regret at changes. She did not like it when colleges had to be amalgamated and she was unhappy when the University sold the Athlone Press, named after her predecessor. Annan knew when she wanted something done. 'She would just lift her eyebrows slightly and give you a quizzical look as if to say: "I wonder if you could do that." And you knew you ought to do it!' It was equally clear when she did not like something. 'She simply had a way of slightly indicating if things could be done this way rather than that way.' He recalled one occasion in which a member of the House of Commons became rather 'tired and over-emotional' and 'to see the Queen Mother disentangle herself from his advances was really a lesson in courtly and firm behaviour'.13 She maintained her interest in the University to the end of her life. She was admitted to honorary fellowships of several colleges, and in September 1999 she approved the proposal that a chair of British History at the Inst.i.tute of Historical Research should bear her name. David Cannadine was the first to be appointed Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Professor of British History, and the subject he chose for his inaugural lecture in 2003 was, appropriately, the historiography of the modern British monarchy. In it he touched upon the themes of this chapter: welfare and warfare, as he put it royal links with charitable organizations and with the armed services.14 In fact, thanks to her popularity and longevity, Queen Elizabeth provided the historian with a striking and unprecedented case study in successful royal patronage, in the form of her ninetieth- and hundredth-birthday parades, which brought together on public display the evidence of her involvement with an extraordinary variety of charitable organizations, educational, medical and learned inst.i.tutions and elements of the armed services.
In her long life the first patronage Queen Elizabeth had accepted, and retained for almost eighty years, was, appropriately, of Scottish origin. She agreed to become patron of the Girls' Guildry, a Church of Scotland Sunday School organization, just before her marriage in April 1923. She went to her first engagement with the Guildry in Glasgow in September 1924, noting in her diary, 'B. went off to do industrial things & I went to a rally of the Girls' Guildry about 4000 girls. Very good thing.'15 In the 1930s she gave them the 'd.u.c.h.ess of York trophy' for an annual needlework compet.i.tion. Two weeks after the war began in 1939 one of her ladies in waiting wrote to the General Secretary to say that the Queen now felt it was more important 'that quant.i.ties of knitted and other garments' should be made by the girls, rather than that they should compete with each other.16 When the Guildry amalgamated with its English and Irish counterparts in 1965 to become the Girls' Brigade, she became joint patron with the d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester, who had been patron of the English organization (the Girls' Life Brigade).
Another natural leitmotif of her early patronages was the First World War. She became president of the Royal British Legion Women's Section in 1924. The Legion, formed in 1921 by bringing together the four previous ex-servicemen's organizations, was intended both to perpetuate the memory of those who died in the service of their country and to educate public opinion to the view that support for disabled ex-servicemen and their dependants was a public duty. The emblem of the Legion became the poppy, which had grown so abundantly in the fields of Flanders. Within just a few years of the First World War, the Legion had become one of the most important organizations in British society. Poppy Day was fixed for the Sat.u.r.day before Remembrance Sunday, which is always the second Sunday in November, close to Armistice Day, 11 November. Every year the Royal British Legion organizes a Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall, in the presence of senior members of the Royal Family; the ex-servicemen march to the Cenotaph in Whitehall the following day. Each year the Legion also lays out a Field of Remembrance of poppies on wooden crosses in the churchyard of St Margaret's, Westminster. From its beginning the d.u.c.h.ess and then Queen felt a special affinity with the organization.
In April 1934 she attended the annual conference of the Women's Section. Her handwritten speech commended the work of the section in providing country and seaside holidays for children in 'distressed areas', and praised a new scheme to provide special training for widows and dependants of ex-servicemen who were in a poor state of health but were obliged, 'through their dire need', to seek employment. 'Schemes such as these, which show permanent results in securing the health & happiness of our children, & a means of livelihood & a future free from care, for the women, are worthy of our very best efforts.'17 She continued to support them for the next six decades. In May 1991 she attended the national conference in Bournemouth, and in 1999, to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of her presidency, there was a parade of standards through the garden at Clarence House. Three hundred and forty standards from branches all over the country and 120 marchers led by the Band of the Irish Guards marched past Queen Elizabeth, who took the salute from the steps of the Garden Room. It was an astonishing spectacle which lasted some fifteen minutes, with a sea of blue and gold standards carried by women of all ages and sizes. Queen Elizabeth loved it, as she did the Legion.18 It seems to have been her mother's involvement with the Church of England Children's Society which led the d.u.c.h.ess of York to accept its patronage in 1924. In 1947, she sent a message on the Society's Diamond Jubilee in which she said, 'The care of children is near to my heart, and is all the more dear to me because my Mother for so many years took such a deep interest in the Society.'19 Over the years she attended Founders' Day Festivals at the Royal Albert Hall and in 1986 she opened the Society's new headquarters in Margery Street, in the Finsbury district of London. She supported many appeals to raise funds to help the children, dispatching another member of the Royal Family if she was unable to go.
Other children's charities looked to her for support: one was the Children's Country Holiday Fund, which Queen Elizabeth first took on as d.u.c.h.ess of York after the death of Queen Alexandra in 1925. The Fund organized holidays for underprivileged city children, and the d.u.c.h.ess's visit to a holiday camp in Epping Forest for a thousand slum children in 1923, one of her first public engagements after her marriage, may have sparked her lifelong interest in this organization. Even in the late 1990s there were plenty of children who needed the Fund's help.
Another long-lasting patronage had its origins in the First World War. This was Toc H, a worldwide movement which began as a club for soldiers opened in 1915 in Belgium by the Rev. Philip 'Tubby' Clayton. The club was intended to allow all ranks to mix freely, an unusual concept at the time. It was at first called Talbot House after a friend of Clayton, the Rev. Gilbert Talbot, who was killed in battle. But the name Talbot House soon became known to the soldiers of the Ypres Salient as Toc H, Toc being the army signaller's code for 'T'.
The club became an invaluable home from home for thousands of young soldiers whose morale had been damaged, if not destroyed, on the battlefield. After the Great War, Clayton transformed Toc H into an international Christian organization, designed to express ideals of co-operation and friendship across the barriers that often divide communities. Much of its work came to involve the improvement of children's lives. Each branch of Toc H had a little lamp similar to that used by Tubby Clayton which members lit for their 'ceremony of light' at meetings. Toc H was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1922.
Queen Elizabeth's involvement with Toc H seems to have begun during her Australian tour as d.u.c.h.ess of York in 1927, when she was given a banner by the Australian League of Toc H. On her return this was presented to Tubby Clayton at a short ceremony at his church in London, All Hallows Berkyngechirche by the Tower. Soon after that she became patron of the Toc H League of Women Helpers.
In July 1939, when she and the King visited the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth, she surprised and gratified a college servant by immediately noticing his Toc H badge and speaking to him about the movement.20 (This was one of many examples of her sharp eye for badges and other insignia, military or civilian.) In 1948, as we have seen, at the request of Tubby Clayton she laid the foundation stone for the rebuilding of his church, which had been bombed during the war, and she regularly accepted Clayton's requests for messages thereafter. When Tubby Clayton died in 1972 Martin Gilliat wrote warmly to the Director of Toc H of Queen Elizabeth's long and close a.s.sociation with his work.21 St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, one of the great London teaching hospitals, asked the d.u.c.h.ess of York to be its president in 1930. She accepted the invitation. Her first official visit to the hospital was in 1934 and in 1936 she opened the first phase of the new Nurses' Home, and then a new wing for paying patients. In 1945 she granted her patronage to the 5,000th performance of Me and My Gal, the proceeds of which went to the hospital.22 When the National Health Service was introduced, the Queen made it clear that she had no wish to give up her role. Sir Arthur Penn wrote to the House Governor of St Mary's saying, 'I do not suppose that there would be a desire on the part of any authority to suggest the termination of Her Majesty's Presidency of St Mary's Hospital, which I am sure she will never contemplate readily.'23 The Minister of Health, however, decreed that the position of president of an NHS hospital could no longer exist, and so the Queen became honorary president.24 Throughout the decades to come she continued to pay visits to the hospital; she presented prizes to nurses, attended the centenary celebrations at the medical school, and opened the east wing of the medical school and the new nurses' training school. She laid the foundation stone of the new paediatric Accident and Emergency wing of the hospital and opened the completed building, which was called the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Wing.25 The Queen Mother's links with another inst.i.tution to which she gave her name, Queen Elizabeth's Foundation for Disabled People, went back to 1934 when she launched the fundraising drive for what was then called the Cripples' Training College, at a public meeting at Mansion House. The project was the brainchild of the formidable Georgiana Buller, who had been made a Dame of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for her hospital work in the First World War and afterwards devoted herself to the rehabilitation of the disabled. In 1935 the d.u.c.h.ess opened the College at Leatherhead Court in Surrey. Her handwritten speech extolling its work survives in her papers.26 In 1942 she agreed to the College's name being changed to Queen Elizabeth's Training College for the Disabled, and still later to its renaming as a foundation. She became its patron in 1953. In 1960 she visited it for its silver jubilee, and over the years opened various new buildings and supported fundraising efforts.27 Not surprisingly, national women's organizations often sought her patronage, but some she enjoyed supporting on a small and local scale. One of the domestic organizations near to both her home and her heart was the Sandringham Women's Inst.i.tute, whose meetings she appears to have first attended in 1924. After she became queen she was appointed joint president with Queen Mary and every year she wrote out her own speech for the annual general meeting. In 1943 she praised the women for all the 'splendid' war work they had been doing: 'The collections of rose-hips, of horse-chestnuts, of rags & bones, the jam making, the savings group, the knitting, & the 90 per cent wartime supper dishes are some of the ways in which you here are helping to win the war.'28 In January 1945, with victory in sight, she reported the King's praise of all their work. In the final effort to beat the Germans, she knew, Sandringham Women's Inst.i.tute 'will do their bit'.29 In 1951 she quoted poignant words from the King's 1950 Christmas broadcast: 'Our motto must be, whatever comes, or does not come, I will not be afraid, for it is on each individual effort that the safety and happiness of the whole depends. And what counts is the spirit in which each one of us fulfils his or her appointed task.'30 These were sentiments which informed her own approach to life. In 1954, after the devastating east-coast floods of the previous year, she praised the Sandringham WI for all the help they had given their neighbours in distress. 'It is encouraging to think that when disaster strikes, self is forgotten, & the uplifting thought, "Love thy neighbour" is uppermost in people's minds.'31 Twenty-two years later, at a time of advances in feminist legislation, she insisted that 'the WI were pioneers in many of the moves towards a fairer society, and for the equal treatment of women in that society. And talking of that, what about the new s.e.x Discrimination Act? What are we going to do if the husbands & fathers demand to join, & win the compet.i.tion for a covered coat hanger or knitted bootees?'32 In her 1987 speech she praised the caring nature of the WI. 'The Annual Report tells of countless acts of kindness to the elderly, the lonely and the sick and to be cherished & knowing that someone cares, must be of infinite comfort to the recipients. This is an important side of community life.'33 Her message was always one of positive action and determined optimism.
Queen Elizabeth became president of the British Red Cross Society in January 1937 when King George VI became patron. (She had been elected to the governing council in 1923.) The Society, incorporated by Royal Charter in 1908, was part of the International Red Cross organization. By the middle of the twentieth century the British Red Cross was one of the largest and most effective charities in the country.
During the Second World War, the British Red Cross worked closely with the St John Ambulance Brigade and played a vital role in helping civilian victims of German bombing. Queen Elizabeth's childhood home, St Paul's Walden Bury, was used as a Red Cross convalescent home, as it had been in the First World War. Throughout the war the Queen identified herself with Red Cross work, attended its services in Westminster Abbey, visited Red Cross depots and exhibitions and sales to raise money for its work. After the death of the King she became vice-president of the Society and her daughter the Queen became patron and president. For the rest of her life Queen Elizabeth remained involved with it and after her death the Society launched the Queen Mother Appeal which by June 2002 had raised some 250,000 to be used specifically for the expansion and modernization of their vital tracing and messaging services.34 One of the charities to which she gave most financial a.s.sistance was the Soldiers', Sailors' and Airmen's Families' a.s.sociation. She became patron in 1937 but was much more closely involved after 1946, when Mrs Constance Cooke, widow of the Captain of HMS Barham, a ship which was sunk during the war with heavy loss of life, sought help to set up a rest home for bereaved widows and children. The Queen thought there was a genuine need for such a home but, after much discussion, felt that a fund would be more useful, so that money from it could be used by Barham widows as they pleased. In 1948 the Queen's Fund was set up and the initial sum raised was 10,000. The Queen contributed generously to it, using at first some money from the Queen's Canadian Fund.* She continued to take an active interest in how the Fund's money was spent (she often called it 'her' fund), and raised her own contributions from 2,500 a year in 1960 to 15,000 a year from 1993 onwards.35 A patronage which reflected a personal pa.s.sion was the Aberdeen Angus Cattle Society, of which King George VI became patron and she patroness in 1937. There had been royal patrons since the time of Queen Victoria, and Glamis lay in one of the princ.i.p.al districts from which the breed took its name. The Strathmores kept a herd of the cattle and the King and Queen began their own small herd on the farm at Abergeldie, near Balmoral. After the King's death Queen Elizabeth became patron, and started her own herd at the Castle of Mey in 1964. She was increasingly involved with the society, and in later years regularly invited the Society's President and its long-serving secretary, Captain Ben Coutts, to Mey. In October 1970 she opened the new headquarters of the Society in Perth and watched the final judging of the supreme championship at the bull sale, presenting the Balfour Trophy to the winning owner. The Society gave her a heifer calf for her herd, called Queen Mother of Clackmae.
Her interest in the breed was noted in farming communities far and wide, and over the years she attended meetings of national Aberdeen Angus a.s.sociations and sent messages of support to those in the United Sta