The Queen Mother Part 24

This time we left out Mauritius.

But indeed as if to spite us

Fate called in appendicitis.

Why should Fate thus aim at you

Something we would never do?

Let us take firm hold of Fate

'Get well at a rapid rate.'

And though there's no one wants to wait

Pencil in another date.22

She was willing to do that right away. Gilliat reported to Bernard Fergusson, now Governor General of New Zealand, that she was 'quite open-minded' about a visit in one or two years' time.23 (The next Adelaide Festival would be in March 1966.) She herself wrote to Fergusson about how badly she felt about having let everyone down. After so many inoculations and so many dress fittings, 'I should not be p.r.o.ne to typhoid or small pox or yellow fever for some years, & tho' perhaps the chiffons will be a little old fas.h.i.+oned by the time I get out to you, I hope to be fairly healthy.'24 *

ON 24 JANUARY 1965 the news reached Sandringham at breakfast time that Winston Churchill had died. It was a solemn moment for Britain. While Churchill lay in state in Westminster Hall, 300,000 people filed past his coffin. At St Paul's Cathedral on 29 January he was given the first state funeral for a person not of royal rank since that of the Duke of Wellington in 1852. The ceremony was attended by 6,000 people and all senior members of the Royal Family, including the Queen and the Queen Mother. Fifteen heads of state were there and 112 countries were represented. The ceremony was sombre but stirring and, as Churchill promised, there were 'lively hymns'. The historian Andrew Roberts later wrote that Churchill's funeral 'marked the end of a distinctive epoch in British history, one that had been as glorious as it was long'.25 Indeed, the era of British imperialism into which both Churchill and Queen Elizabeth had been born was gone. But over the years to come Queen Elizabeth remained true to the concept of British greatness which Churchill had defended, preserved and personified. In particular she did everything she could to sustain the Commonweath, Britain's inspired attempt to come to terms with the end of, and the legacy of, Empire. Her daughter the Queen was, if anything, even more pa.s.sionately committed to the ideals of the Commonwealth.

Three weeks after Churchill's death, Queen Elizabeth set off for a visit to Jamaica, where she had been invited to receive the first honorary degree awarded by the University of the West Indies, of which Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone, was chancellor. The journey out on 18 February involved an exhausting wait in a 'super heated VIP lounge' at Kennedy Airport, and two more flights before Queen Elizabeth and her party arrived at King's House, Jamaica, at 5 a.m. London time.26 On the evening of 20 February her degree of Doctor of Letters was conferred upon her by Princess Alice. She made a short speech of thanks, which was followed by an unexpectedly long peroration by Adlai Stevenson, the distinguished American statesman. As a result it was 10.30 p.m. before the reception for her could be held. By now she was tired, but when a steel band played, she asked to be shown the local Ska dance.

The next morning, Holy Communion at St Andrew's Parish Church took some time over 800 people had come to share the sacrament with her. Then she had a spectacular, twisting drive up into the hills above Kingston to lunch at the military camp of Newcastle. That evening at a special service at the University Chapel, the lights all failed and a torch had to be found so that Princess Alice could read the lesson. When power was restored a dog appeared and wandered up and down the aisle. 'It was an unusual service!' noted Queen Elizabeth's lady in waiting.27 She was enjoying her trip, Queen Elizabeth wrote to Princess Margaret, but 'I always have very bad luck with the drinks! Perhaps because I am considered a frail invalid, I am always given delicious fruit drinks with so little alcohol that one feels quite sick! Then I ask timidly if I might have just a very little gin in it, & then too much is put in, & I have to ask for a little more ice to stop my throat being burnt, & so it goes on! This is usually at Government Houses, I may say.'28 No such problem was likely to arise when she went to lunch with Noel Coward at his house, Firefly Hill. It was a small party and lunch was a delicious curry cooked in a coconut sh.e.l.l. She always enjoyed Coward's wit and she invited him to stay at Sandringham for the King's Lynn Festival that July to hear the Russian cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich.* 'Should I brush up my Russian?' Coward asked her. 'It is limited at the moment to "How do you do?" "Shut up you pig" and "She has a white blouse". But I am eager to improve.'29 On the afternoon of 26 February, after a drive through cheering crowds, Queen Elizabeth flew home via New York. On the last leg of the journey, overnight to London, her party let themselves go. 'Dinner on board the aeroplane was very gay and lasted so long that no one had more than an hour's sleep.'30 The British High Commissioner in Jamaica reported to the Commonwealth Secretary that Queen Elizabeth impressed everyone with her charm and 'zestful interest' and that the visit 'will have served to strengthen the attachment to the Throne of an already "loyalist" country'.31 *

ANOTHER LOYALIST country, another visit: in June 1965 Queen Elizabeth returned to Canada, this time in honour of the Toronto Scottish, whose fiftieth anniversary was to be celebrated. By now, however, the Canadian government's expansive att.i.tude towards royal visits the more the merrier had given way to an understandable reluctance to foot the bill for visits which were purely for the benefit of local organizations. This led to a testy correspondence between Canadian officials and Martin Gilliat. The Toronto Scottish, together with the Ontario Jockey Club, which had invited her to attend the running of the Queen's Plate, agreed to pay the costs of the trip. But Queen Elizabeth was worried about her regiment taking on such an expense, and asked Gilliat to approach the British government to pay for her flights to and from Canada. This was agreed; but the Canadian government, which had not been consulted, was affronted, and finally a compromise was reached by which the regiment paid for her journey out on a commercial flight and the Canadian government provided a Royal Canadian Air Force Yukon to fly her home.32 She flew to Toronto on the afternoon of 23 June and stayed with her party at Windfields, the home of Mr and Mrs E. P. Taylor, who shared her enthusiasm for racehorses. The following day after several engagements in the city she was taken to see Taylor's stud farm and some fifty-five thoroughbred yearlings. In the evening her regimental duties began with the presentation of former officers of the Toronto Scottish and of its precursor, the 75th Battalion. Then there was a dinner given by the Empire Club in honour of the regiment.

Over the next three days Queen Elizabeth presented colours to the regiment at a ceremony attended by some 22,000 people, and went to a service for the laying up of the old colours at the Knox Presbyterian Church. Among other engagements she lunched with Vincent Ma.s.sey at Batterwood, and watched the Queen's Plate Stakes at the Woodbine racetrack. When she left, she drove the ten miles to the airport in an open car along a road lined by thousands of cheering people. She arrived back in London on 28 June.

Two weeks later she flew to Germany to visit British regiments and units in the British Army of the Rhine, accompanied by Princess Marina, d.u.c.h.ess of Kent. At Celle they watched an impressive parade by the 11th Hussars, in which the d.u.c.h.ess's son Prince Michael was serving, on their 250th anniversary. Then Queen Elizabeth went to Minden to visit the 1st Battalion The Black Watch; she took the salute and inspected a guard of honour, but the Highland Gathering which had been planned was washed out by a thunderstorm. The last day was devoted to another of her regiments, the 9th/12th Royal Lancers at Osnabruck, where she watched a mounted parade and attended a regimental fete before flying back to London.

IN MARCH 1966 she set off for the postponed tour of Australia and New Zealand, flying with Qantas via Ottawa, Vancouver and Fiji. In Adelaide the official and formal engagements included many drives through crowded streets, a civic welcome at the Town Hall, a reception for the media, luncheons and a tour of floral and handicraft exhibits put on by 600 members of the Country Women's a.s.sociation. There were more floral creations in the Victoria Parks: the tour de force was a carpet of flowers made in an aboriginal design. She attended a performance of the Australian Ballet, went to a reception for the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps, of which she was colonel-in-chief, mingled at a garden party with 6,000 guests, and opened the new Flinders University. She and her lady in waiting, Frances Campbell-Preston, drove there in an open car 'in a gale, mostly crouched on the floor of the car & clutching their hats & arrived a little battered and blinded to be received by the Chancellor'.33 In her speech, the Queen Mother noted the remarkable development of Adelaide and praised universities as the centre of hope. 'We live in an age in which higher education has become a matter of national concern,' she said.34 Dinner at Government House was followed by a concert by the Australian Youth Orchestra. The music was rousing but even that 'did not quite succeed in keeping all members of the party awake all the time'.35 Next day the Queen Mother made an unscheduled visit to the National Gallery where Sir Hans Heysen, an endearing figure dressed in knickerbockers, showed her around an exhibition of his own paintings.* She made a final speech praising the Festival and its 'far-sighted' organizers and then spent a pleasant afternoon at the races.36 On this as on other such trips, Queen Elizabeth was irritated only if there was too much formality or protocol. She was always looking for ways to make officials relax and, if engagements were going well, she stayed on, thus pleasing her interlocutors but upsetting the schedule. She enjoyed slip-ups. Frances Campbell-Preston recorded that 'Martin a.s.sured me that nothing pleased "People" [as he called her to mislead any eavesdroppers] more' than if the lady in waiting 'did something wrong or arrived in the wrong place at the wrong time'.37 Across the country in Perth, 'People' had another five busy days. These included a visit to an Aquatic Carnival at the Beatty Park Aquatic Centre which was packed with 5,000 children for her visit. As she arrived, the announcer on the public address system declared 'The Queen Mother is now in the Pool' this raised a storm of laughter and cheering which continued unceasing until she left, rather deafened, an hour and a half later. On returning to Government House she found the drive lined with members of the Boys' and the Girls' Brigades, and got out of her car to walk down the ranks and talk to as many of the young people as possible. From Perth she went to Fremantle where, among other engagements, she gave a speech to a room full of teenagers. Frances Campbell-Preston recorded that she had 'rather dreaded' this occasion, but that it went off very well in the event.38 It was then on to Canberra where she was overjoyed to have a rendezvous with Prince Charles. He had been released from Gordonstoun to be an exchange student for two terms at Timbertop, the rural outpost of Geelong Grammar school in Victoria. Princess Margaret wrote to her mother to say that she was so happy that she and Prince Charles were together 'for I have never known a grandson more devoted than Charles is to you.' She said that she and her sister, the Queen, had had glowing accounts of their mother's 'usual smash-hit success. "Her Majesty, in powder blue, stepped from the plane, radiant"!'39 The most enjoyable part of the trip for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles was a visit to the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric project in New South Wales. Between visits to dams and power stations, they stayed in the delightful Queen Elizabeth Cottage at Island Bend where the Prince and other members of the party fished. He and his grandmother spent so much time joking together that they reduced the whole party to giggles, which proved hard to control when the Commissioner of the Snowy Mountains Authority and his wife came to dine, give a lecture and show a film. According to Frances Campbell-Preston, 'suppressed & not so suppressed laughing went on to our guests' bewilderment as they weren't consciously adding to the fun'.40 The Australia tour ended on 7 April after a return visit to Canberra and a dinner party attended by the Prime Minister and Mrs Harold Holt. (Holt later disappeared off a beach in Victoria his body was never found.) Prince Charles returned happily for his last few weeks at Timbertop and the Queen Mother and party flew to Fiji, where Britannia was waiting to take her on the next part of her tour.

Embarking on the yacht was 'rather a splendid moment, a little like arriving home', wrote Frances Campbell-Preston, doubtless echoing the Queen Mother's own views.41 On Easter Sat.u.r.day the s.h.i.+p docked in Suva for the formal welcome from a Fijian chief. The short formal visit to Suva was somewhat spoiled by rain, but Queen Elizabeth held a reception and a dinner aboard the yacht before sailing for New Zealand. She landed at Bluff on 16 April in pouring rain, and was greeted by the Governor General, Sir Bernard Fergusson, his wife Laura Frances Campbell-Preston's sister and the Prime Minister and his wife.

Her punis.h.i.+ng schedule over the coming weeks was made possible by Britannia, both an agreeable means of transport and a refuge after long days of exposure to the crowds and the elements. When there were evenings in the yacht with no engagements, Queen Elizabeth encouraged everyone to let their hair down. Laura Fergusson had heard that after-dinner games were obligatory and was daunted, but they turned out to be both silly and easy, 'and she is such enormous fun playing them. It's gloriously childish and very restful as a result.'42 In town after town across New Zealand, the Queen Mother was greeted by huge crowds, of all ages, cheering her along streets from one civic reception to another. In Wellington on 25 April she marked Anzac Day at the National War Memorial in Wellington she always found such moments of remembrance for the war dead intensely moving. The engagements continued. On 1 May, after Sunday service in St John's Anglican Church at Te Awamutu, she flew to Auckland where, despite torrential rain, the crowds packing the streets and the wharf by Britannia were so dense that it took an hour for her car to reach the yacht. Next day there was a civic reception and a performance by children dancing and doing gymnastics in Eden Park.

On one quiet day off, there was enough suns.h.i.+ne to go fis.h.i.+ng on Lake Wanaka. Queen Elizabeth was not greatly amused by having to pose, in waders, tweed jacket, a green felt hat and pearls, casting with an unfamiliar rod, for a horde of photographers. They 'looked as though they were going to swallow her', according to Laura Fergusson, but the deal was that they would then leave her alone, and they did.43 Near the end of her trip, she received a contingent of London Scottish Old Comrades, was greeted by '26,000 children yelling their heads off quite uninhibitedly',44 made a quick private visit to a stud and attended a reception at Government House. On her last day, she opened a new Science Building at the University of Auckland and received an honorary degree. She went to the races at Ellerslie, and gave a dinner in Britannia followed by a reception on board for 300 people, as rain leaked through the awning.

Next morning there was long 'farewelling' (a term they had picked up in Australia), to the officers and crew of the yacht before Queen Elizabeth left for the airport. Admiral Morgan had organized the Royal Marine Band to play 'Will Ye No Come Back Again?' while the entire s.h.i.+p's company stood and saluted on the top deck. 'There was hardly a dry eye,' wrote Frances Campbell-Preston.45 Once again the roads to the airport were lined with thousands of people.

Queen Elizabeth's enjoyment is evident from the letter recalling the best moments that she wrote to thank the Fergussons. There were some things that really mattered to her in the fast-changing world of the 1960s. 'The love & loyalty of the NZ people is something I shall always treasure long may it be part of their philosophy of life.'46 The flight home was long; the aircraft landed to refuel in both Honululu (where she joined in a dance by hula girls in her honour) and Vancouver (where, during her one-day stopover, she visited City Hall and attended a formal lunch). She arrived back in England to find, to her joy, that spring was there 'the cherries are bowed down with blossom, & the birches & chestnuts a most tender green.'47 Politics was another matter. Towards the end of her trip she had written to her son-in-law Lord Snowdon, saying that she loved New Zealand's great mountains and lakes and rivers' but was rather longing to get home 'and hear those yelling dogs, and play with the grandchildren and burn with rage at politics!'48 She disliked the Labour government's mishandling as she saw it of taxation. Harold Wilson's administration was into its second year of reforms and was now planning a selective employment tax which she feared would 'hit many excellent inst.i.tutions very hard'.49 And she hated what she saw as the government's 'mismanagement of the Rhodesia question'.50 In November 1965 the white Rhodesian government had made its unilateral declaration of independence (UDI) rather than move swiftly towards black majority rule, as demanded by the British government.

ON HER RETURN she resumed her round of public engagements. She presided at the presentation of degrees of the University of London at the Albert Hall; she went to Cardiff for the service of dedication of the Welsh National Book of Remembrance in Llandaff Cathedral and the opening of an extension to the Royal Gwent Hospital in Newport. In Sheffield she received an honorary doctorate of music and visited her regiment, the Queen's Own Hussars, at Catterick Camp. In Northern Ireland in early July she visited another of her regiments, 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards, at Omagh. Such visits had their own protocol and form there was a regimental dismounted parade, during which the Queen Mother addressed the regiment; an inspection of the Old Comrades; photographs with the warrant officers and sergeants and with the officers; luncheon in the officers' mess; and finally informal meetings and chats with the NCOs and troopers and their wives.

At the end of July, as usual, she attended the King's Lynn Festival, which included a thrilling performance of Benjamin Britten's The Burning Fiery Furnace given by the English National Opera at St Margaret's Church, with Peter Pears singing Nebuchadnezzar. Afterwards Pears and Britten stayed with her at Sandringham. She celebrated her sixty-sixth birthday in London and went with her daughters to the theatre to see The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Next day she flew up to Wick for her summer visit to the Castle of Mey and Birkhall.

In September 1966 she launched HMS Resolution, the first of Britain's Polaris-cla.s.s nuclear submarines, now to be the front line of the country's independent nuclear deterrent, and a few days later flew by helicopter to land on the deck of one of her favourite s.h.i.+ps, HMS Ark Royal, which she had launched in 1950. She enjoyed her day watching various types of aircraft landing and being catapulted off the deck, the firing of live ordnance, air-sea rescue and mid-air refuelling. On her departure her helicopter circled the carrier and, the lady in waiting recorded, 'Queen Elizabeth waved her scarf through the open door. A Russian trawler snooped about all day & had to be warned off because of the firing. It was a very special day.'51 After a busy autumn, filled with engagements, on 6 December she gave a lunch party at Clarence House and attended a reception given by the Women's Royal Voluntary Service* at St James's Palace. After dinner that evening she checked quietly into the King Edward VII Hospital.

Queen Elizabeth had been diagnosed with cancer of the colon. The tumour was successfully excised in an operation on 10 December.52 Members of her family visited her and from Gordonstoun Prince Charles wrote, 'I hope they re looking after you well. Mummy said that you had difficulty getting around two gi-normous policemen wedged into the corridor outside your room.'53 She was still in hospital over Christmas and so, on Christmas Day, the Queen, with Princess Margaret, Prince Charles and Princess Anne drove down from Sandringham to see her. She left hospital on 28 December and convalesced at Clarence House until she felt well enough to travel to Sandringham in the middle of January. She had no recurrence of the disease.

Rumours subsequently spread that she had had a colostomy. This was not true. Her office was careful to say very little on the subject, but some years later Sir Richard Bayliss, physician to the Queen, wrote to Queen Elizabeth's lady in waiting, Olivia Mulholland: 'I understand that there have been a number of letters about the colostomy operation which Queen Elizabeth is alleged to have had. We of course know that this is incorrect and I think it is time that as un.o.btrusively as possible this lie is countered.'54 But the rumours that the operation had included a colostomy persisted. Many people who had to endure that operation themselves derived comfort from the belief that even someone with as active a life as Queen Elizabeth could manage so well after such a difficult procedure.

It is perhaps worth pointing out that, even though the operation did not include a colostomy, the cancer from which she had suffered was serious. The illness crystallized concerns within her family and Household about the pace at which she was still performing her duties as she approached her seventieth birthday.

In most respects her health remained remarkably good. She no longer suffered from the frequent bouts of tonsillitis that she had endured as a young woman. She still believed in the power of homeopathy. Sir John Weir had been succeeded by Dr Marjorie Blackie as her homeopathic doctor, and, after Dr Blackie died, Dr Anita Davies, who was a conventional as well as a homeopathic doctor, took over. Dr Davies would create an individual mix of const.i.tutional powders' for each patient. She also treated Queen Elizabeth for the painful ulcers which developed on her legs with propolis, a resinous mixture produced by bees which is thought to reduce inflammation naturally. She prescribed hawthorn for blood pressure and belladonna for sore throats. Queen Elizabeth also continued to swear by the healing power of arnica in both tablet and ointment form. She handed it to any of her guests who bruised themselves.

Following her operation, she cancelled nine engagements during the first three months of 1967. Altogether that year her public engagements were down to fifty-two, which included eight for the University of London. She spent January as usual at Sandringham where, she said, the Norfolk air made her feel much better, then February and March at Clarence House and Royal Lodge, with frequent expeditions to race meetings. Her first public engagement was the annual meeting of Queen Mary's London Needlework Guild at St James's Palace on 21 March, and on 27 April she dined with the London Scottish Regiment.

That May she made a significant broadcast to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the enrolment of women on active service. In her address, heard throughout much of the world on the British Forces Broadcasting Service, she referred to the 'pioneers' of the First World War and told of her own memories of women serving in the Second 'of WREN Boat-Crews, who never failed in their task, regardless of the weather; of cheerful girls of the ATS, on bleak Anti-Aircraft Gun sites; of WAAF Radio Operators, who were on watch night and day detecting the approach of enemy aircraft'.55 After her spring holiday at Birkhall she left for another tour of Canada, this time of the Maritime Provinces. (Martin Gilliat had at first turned down the invitation but the Governor General and the Prime Minister of Canada had begged the Queen Mother to reconsider.56 She did, and kept to her promise despite her cancer operation.) She flew first to New Brunswick to join Britannia, which was in Canada for the Queen's visit to Expo 67, the world's fair at Montreal. Once again, her trip was crowded in every sense. On the first day, at St John, after a mayoral lunch she visited the Veterans Hospital, where she talked to patients lying on their beds in the suns.h.i.+ne and then although it was not on the programme agreed to the Mayor's request to unveil a plaque to open Rockwood Park, where she was 'like the Pied Piper' surrounded by thousands of children, according to the lady in waiting's diary.57 Next day, among other engagements in Fredericton, she was given an official welcome at the Legislative Building and watched a parade of the Canadian Black Watch. That evening Britannia sailed from St John and the Queen Mother came on deck in a pale-yellow evening gown and, while the band played 'Auld Lang Syne', waved to the large crowds on the dockside.

The next few days brought thick fog which made navigation difficult, and rain which forced changes of plan at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia an open-air ceremony had to be moved into an overheated ice rink. Voyages from port to port in Britannia and car journeys as often as possible in open cars made this a pleasurable visit. On Sunday 16 July she and her party attended St Andrew's Anglican Church at Sydney and then the yacht anch.o.r.ed off a deserted island on which the company picnicked and spent an afternoon enjoying wild flowers, walking, fis.h.i.+ng and even water-skiing. The Queen Mother presided benignly and signed the book of the island's only inhabitants, the lighthouse keeper, his wife and baby.

After the yacht had berthed at Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island, the Queen Mother opened the new Provincial Government Building. The royal party was then offered a mammoth lunch of soup, lobster and an entire stuffed chicken each. A garden party at Government House took place in a rainstorm which apparently daunted neither guests nor the Queen Mother, who walked around the garden talking to people under an umbrella. That evening she saw a musical version of L. M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, which is set in the island.

In St John's, Newfoundland, the Queen Mother was greeted by at least a thousand children yelling and cheering in the Memorial Stadium; she pleased them by giving an unscheduled address. After a good lunch, a hot afternoon watching Trooping the Colour by the Royal Newfoundland Regiment was followed by an even muggier ordeal in a sweltering marquee while more than a hundred officers, wives and officials were presented to her. The day ended with a reception on board the yacht.

Next day, the last of the visit, there were more formalities and a farewell dinner on board after which Admiral Morgan invited the Queen Mother and her party to the wardroom where they had fun, games and a singsong conducted by the Bandmaster till 1.15 a.m. On Sat.u.r.day 22 July she flew back to London, sending a telegram to the Admiral to thank him and all the officers and yachtsmen 'from my heart' for 'such a very happy' voyage. 'I hope you will have an excellent pa.s.sage home and No Fog.'58 It had been a hugely successful tour. Once again Canadians had shown that they loved her and she had shown that she loved Canada.

IT WAS SEVEN years before she went back again. In June 1974 she was invited by the Canadian government to present colours once again to her two regiments, the Black Watch of Canada and the Toronto Scottish. She flew to Toronto in a Canadian Armed Forces Boeing 707 that was carrying home about a hundred families from the Canadian Army stationed in Germany and Cyprus. Queen Elizabeth walked through the aeroplane talking to them.

The hospitable Taylors again put their comfortable house, Wind-fields, at her disposal. Her first full day in Toronto, 26 June, was exhaustingly long and ended with an interminable dinner and speeches at which 1,500 guests were served eight courses. 'HM should have returned to Windfields at 10.30 pm & in fact did so at 1 am,' noted the lady in waiting, Frances Campbell-Preston.59 The next day she flew to Montreal for the Black Watch ceremonies. French Canadian separatist aspirations had given rise to a tense political situation, and so her visit was restricted to regimental business, and to a single day.

On Friday 28 June, back in Toronto, she met Canada's young and debonair Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau. A civic reception, a walkabout and two speeches later she was allowed a brief rest in the Royal Suite of the Four Seasons Sheraton Hotel. 'This was the only moment on the whole tour when HM admitted to feeling utterly exhausted,' wrote Frances Campbell-Preston, 'but after a few minutes of rest she was quite alright.'60 A civic luncheon for over a thousand people followed; and that evening she presented the new Queen's colour to the Toronto Scottish in a stadium filled with some 25,000 enthusiastic people who cheered her as she drove around in an open car.

Sat.u.r.day was race day but first she met officers from the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. Then it was off to the races at Woodbine where, after a night of heavy rain, the conditions were appalling. The horses ran, with difficulty, in a sea of mud, and the colours of the jockeys were completely obliterated by the time they reached the finis.h.i.+ng post. Nonetheless, the Queen's Plate was run and Queen Elizabeth presented the trophy to the winning owner and congratulated the bedraggled but jubilant jockey.

The Toronto Scottish Regiment had another turn on Sunday 30 June when, after lunch with the officers, she attended a service at Knox Presbyterian Church for the laying up of the old colours and then took the salute at a march-past. That evening she dined with officers of all her Canadian regiments and they had a nostalgic evening watching a film of her 1939 visit with the King.

Next day was Dominion Day, a public holiday, and she drove to the Legislative Building, Queen's Park, for a brief ceremony where she presented Gold Awards on behalf of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award.* She then flew home on another troop flight and once again talked to soldiers and their families heading for Europe. The trip had encouraged her to believe that her role in Canada was unusual and valuable. It was a widely shared view. Pauline McGibbon, the future lieutenant governor of Ontario, subsequently wrote of the Dominion Day ceremonies, 'The affection that literally flowed to the Queen Mother from young and old can only be understood if one was present. It was a revelation to both my husband and myself.'61 *

ONE OF QUEEN Elizabeth's most important official visits was to Iran in April 1975, only four years before the fall of the Shah in the face of an Islamic revolution which was to change the world.

The Shah, a bulwark of Western policy in the Middle East and also an aggressive champion of high oil prices, had sent an invitation to her in 1974 to visit Iran whenever it suited her, and the Foreign Secretary, James Callaghan, urged her to accept on the grounds that close relations with Iran were very important to Britain. Moreover, the Shah, very conscious of his own royal status, would much appreciate a visit by Queen Elizabeth.62 It was rather a gruelling undertaking, but she seems to have had no doubts about accepting it.

She left on Monday 14 April, in what was by now rather an elderly RAF Comet, and flew to Tehran, where she was met by the British Amba.s.sador, Anthony Parsons, his wife Sheila and various Iranian courtiers and officials. She was taken to the relatively new Saad-Abad Palace, used by the Shah in summer, which had large and lavish reception rooms but surprisingly few bedrooms; only Queen Elizabeth, her dresser and Ruth Fermoy stayed there.

She had a full programme; on the first day she met the Shah's wife, Empress Farah, and other members of his family. She went to the Empress's Nursery Society Orphanage, one of almost 8,000 such orphanages established throughout Iran. That first day she also had lunch with the Shah's twin sister, Princess Ashraf, and attended a garden party in the wisteria-clad grounds of the British Emba.s.sy. There she met all 400 guests; the 'rather strenuous' day ended close to midnight.63 The next morning she flew to s.h.i.+raz and was taken to visit the sumptuous tent city which the Shah had erected at Persepolis in 1971 to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian monarchy. These celebrations, which were directed more towards foreign guests than the Persian people, were later seen as symbolic of the excesses of the Shah's rule and an important element in the rise of the Islamic movement against him. Queen Elizabeth was reported to be 'greatly impressed by all she saw'.64 Every day was overfilled and tiring but she stood up to it well. She impressed with her consideration all those with whom she came into contact. Indeed, Lady Parsons commented that Persians were struck and 'slightly puzzled' by the Queen Mother's 'kindness and good manners to everyone regardless of their status or importance'.65 They were not used to such courtesy from members of their own royal family.

From s.h.i.+raz she flew on to Isfahan, landing in heavy rain, and spent much of the day sightseeing. A reception for the British community was followed by a banquet given by the Governor General of Isfahan, and next morning she returned to Tehran. That afternoon, after a visit to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery, she laid the first brick at the site of the British Inst.i.tute of Persian Studies, had 'endless presentations', and finally at 8.30 p.m. arrived at the Niyavaran Palace for dinner with the Shah and his wife. This was followed by an entertainment consisting of folk dancing and singing, in which the last item was, curiously, 'Annie Laurie'.66 Parsons cabled the Foreign Office that her visit had been 'a triumph'. She had 'cast her spell' across a wide spectrum of Persian life. He thought that the most touching of the many tributes paid to her came from his driver, who spent much of his time with the servants and police who had looked after the Queen Mother. 'He told my wife that they said that they had never looked after anyone who had shown them so much kindness and attention, who had taken such trouble to speak to each of them personally and to take an interest in them as individuals.' This was rare praise in a country where hierarchical lines were rigid and people at all levels only looked upwards and ignored those less fortunate than themselves. 'I hope that the Persian courtiers and other members of the Persian hierarchy who took note of Her Majesty's conduct will have learnt some lessons.'67 Whatever the lessons learned, less than four years later the Shah was driven into exile, his Imperial Court broken and dispersed, by a brutal Islamic revolution, the effects of which were felt long afterwards.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S official visits around the world (and particularly to Canada) continued. She also developed a happy new habit in the 1960s of making private visits to France, and by the 1970s and 1980s these had became an annual event. She had loved the country and its people ever since her visits as a young woman in the early years of the century and she longed to be able to explore it more. In 1955 she told Sir Alan Lascelles that she had always wanted to visit the chateaux of the Loire '& it would be so delicious to go to France without any real timetable or set programme.'68 It was not until 1962 that a private trip to the Loire seemed possible, but then there were more delays because of difficulties with the French over Britain's application to join the Common Market.

The visit was postponed until April 1963. In January 1963, President de Gaulle uttered his magisterial 'Non' to Britain's admission to the European Economic Community. The Queen Mother was not outraged. Her natural loyalty was to the Commonwealth, many of whose members were alarmed by the probable loss of trading privileges if Britain joined the EEC. Moreover, she retained her wartime affection for de Gaulle and seems to have been almost amused by his demarche. 'Everyone is slightly indignant about de Gaulle's rather high handed p.r.o.nouncement on the Common Market, & indeed he might have saved everyone a great deal of work & worry if he had said it before! So like him!'69 Queen Elizabeth's visit to the Loire went ahead, with the Foreign Office anxious to emphasize the private and informal nature of the trip. Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary, did his best to persuade Queen Elizabeth that the British Amba.s.sador, Sir Pierson Dixon, should not accompany her for more than a day. Martin Gilliat was instructed to respond that, since Pierson Dixon had arranged the whole trip and was an old friend, it would be sad if he could not be with her throughout. 'Queen Elizabeth very much hopes that Lord Home will see his way to agree with her in this matter.' He did.70 Acting as her French tour director was the Vicomte de Noailles, who became a firm friend over the next few years. She flew out on 17 April with her friends Hugh and Fortune Euston (later the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Grafton) and Ruth Fermoy; Ralph Anstruther, a fluent French-speaker, went ahead with the motor cars. They stayed at the nineteenth-century Chateau d'Artigny, a hotel at Montbazon, in lovely countryside overlooking the River Indre. On the first night, before dinner, the President of the Council of Indre et Loire made a long speech of welcome which was eventually cut short because he was overcome with emotion.71 Over the next week she visited several of the most celebrated chateaux Chambord, Cheverny, Chenonceaux, Azay-le-Rideau and Villandry as well as some lesser-known ones including La Gueritaulde, Couzieres and Rochecotte. The owner of Cheverny, the Marquis de Vibraye, was a widower and something of a character in the French hunting world. To welcome the Queen Mother, he had his hunt servants lined up on the steps, dressed in scarlet, playing their hunting horns. After an excellent lunch the mounted huntsmen and hounds paraded in front of the chateau. The Queen Mother, who loved seeing people and animals in their habitat, enjoyed herself talking to many of the hunt servants and visiting the kennels.

She went also to Chinon and the Abbey of Fontevraud. Lunch at the Chateau de Rochecotte was followed by tea with the Duc and d.u.c.h.esse de Blacas at the Chateau d'Usse, which was said to be the original fairy-tale castle of the Sleeping Beauty. The chateau too needed resuscitation. In the drawing room the legs of a sofa were resting on the joists, the floorboards having disintegrated.

Everything was kept as informal as possible, though even on such a private visit the Queen Mother aroused intense enthusiasm and curiosity and local officials and dignitaries all begged for access to her. She made speeches in French and talked to as many ordinary people as she could. One night she and her party dined in a little restaurant a pleasure which she could rarely enjoy.

Madame Guerin, her old French governess, came to have tea with her at the hotel on 19 April, a lovely sunny afternoon. It was their last meeting: Madame Guerin died not long afterwards, and Queen Elizabeth wrote to her daughter Georgina sending her condolences and speaking affectionately of the governess 'qui a ete si pres de nous dans notre enfance'.72 On the final day, 21 April, she flew to Fontainebleau to tour the palace and have a grand lunch with Charles de Noailles in the Pavillon de Pompadour, and then back to London. She and her friends all agreed that they had had a marvellous time. 'We certainly had more than our usual laughs,' wrote Lord Euston to her afterwards.73 Over subsequent years she covered almost every region of France, visiting Provence, Burgundy, Normandy, Bordeaux, the Dordogne, the Languedoc and Lorraine. Each trip took roughly the same form. In April or May she would fly out, usually to a small local airport; with her would be the Eustons, Ruth Fermoy and Ralph Anstruther, who later compiled an account of her journeys and had it bound into a book for her.74 She would be accompanied by a staff of about half a dozen, including a police officer, her page, her dresser and sometimes her hairdresser; her equerry would drive out with the chauffeurs bringing her two cars. It was quite a group.

In Provence in 1965 she was lent the fifteenth-century Chateau Legier at Fontvieille, close to the windmill which inspired Alphonse Daudet's Lettres de mon moulin. She loved the architecture and the ambience of Provence; she toured the fountains of Aix-en-Provence with the mayor, and visited the Roman temple (the Maison Carree) and the Jardin de la Fontaine at Nimes. She lunched with the Marquis and Marquise de Saporta at Fonscolombe, and at the beautiful Caateau de Vezen.o.bres, untouched since the eighteenth century.

She and her party spent the best part of two days in and around Avignon, the former Papal State: they visited the Chateau de Castille, briefly home of the exiled Stuart royal family after the failed 1715 rising, and now owned by an Englishman, Douglas Cooper, who had filled it with a remarkable collection of paintings by Pica.s.so, Braque and others. They sauntered on the bridge where 'on y danse tout en rond' and visited the Palais des Papes; they went to the ancient town of Arles, where the Arena was being prepared for a bull fight, and the wilderness area of the Camargue. Paris Match commented on her tireless progress: 'La reine mere sillonne [criss-crosses] infatigablement la Provence.'75 At the fortress-like Chateau d'Ansouis, perched on top of a rocky spur in beautiful country, and home to generations of the Sabran family, she was entertained by Lord Euston's cousin the d.u.c.h.esse de Sabran-Ponteves, to a feast including whole black truffles. She and her party enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of Provence Hugh Euston commented that the people were 'ideal, much better (& funnier) than the ones in Touraine [on her visit to the Loire two years before]'.76 At the end of her trip, on 10 April, Queen Elizabeth paid a visit to the Hotel de Ville at Fontvieille and was received by the Mayor he was thought to be a communist but had bought a new suit for the occasion and made a charming speech. On arrival at the Chateau de Castries, the Duc met Queen Elizabeth at the door holding a lighted candelabrum, as was the custom when the King of France visited a subject. When she left the next day for London, the maid at the Chateau Legier, who had cooked excellent meals for the party, remarked, 'La Reine Mere est bien plus commode que Madame.'77 On a shorter visit to Normandy and Brittany in May 1967, Queen Elizabeth used the royal yacht Britannia (in which she had just completed a tour to the West Country) as her base, and had on board d.i.c.k Wilkins and her niece Margaret Elphinstone with her husband Denys Rhodes, together with Ruth Fermoy and Ralph Anstruther. Martin Gilliat and Alastair Aird were also in the party and Charles de Noailles joined them. Bad weather rather spoiled the visit, but she enjoyed seeing both the Bayeux Tapestry and Mont-Saint-Michel. Aboard Britannia, Ruth Fermoy took her familiar place at the piano and there was singing and dancing.78 By the late 1960s Charles de Noailles, unlike the Queen Mother, was flagging; he stood aside and the role of her escort was taken on by Prince Jean-Louis de Faucigny-Lucinge, an elegant Frenchman of her own generation. He had known Queen Elizabeth since the 1930s, and during the war he had been at the French mission in Britain when, he recalled later, 'she was very kind to the French.'79 He came from an ancient family, and he had connections with great houses all over the country. He was a most sophisticated tour guide and also arranged Italian trips for her.

He found her an easy client. 'When we first arrive people are delighted, but probably sometimes a little nervous. Not for long though; she's such a charmer. It's that extraordinary natural niceness she has, and then that kindness.'80 He thought her love of France was in her Scots blood and she in turn was 'adored' by the French, he said. 'There's not a village we pa.s.s where people are not at their windows or in the street waving at her. I think she's about the most popular person I know, and in France certainly.' Her vitality, he thought, came from her curiosity, her sense of fun and her natural good health. He thought her perceptive and able to see people as they really were. She rightly had a sense of her mission and role, and while people were excited to see her he never saw anyone become familiar 'they wouldn't do it because she inspires natural respect in people.'81 Her sense of fun was very much to the fore on these trips and many of them featured moments that could have come from the pages of her beloved P. G. Wodehouse. On a trip to Burgundy, in 1976, the Prince arranged for them to stay at the Chateau de Sully, as guests of the Duc and d.u.c.h.esse de Magenta. It was a chilly April; after dinner, attended by a canon of Autun Cathedral who (according to Anstruther) 'wore a trendy white polo-neck sweater and was obliged reluctantly to say Grace', they all went on to the balcony and, in a light frost, fed the carp in the moat. The next day the canon showed Queen Elizabeth his Cathedral; a choir of children held pink roses and sang Purcell in her honour.82 An unhappy incident occurred when the Captain of the Gendarmerie who was escorting the cars was thrown from his motorcycle into a ditch. Fortunately he just missed hitting a telegraph pole, but even so he broke his arm in two places and looked alarmingly white as he lay on the ground. The Queen Mother and the d.u.c.h.esse de Magenta covered him with a rug and a coat and they waited for forty-five minutes, picking violets and cowslips by the roadside, 'keeping a watchful eye on the Captain' until an ambulance finally arrived.83 At Cluny, the Queen Mother admired the stallions of the State Stud; at Tournus she stopped to see the Cathedral, its pink brick pillars aglow in the afternoon light. Lunching at La-Roche-en-Brenil with the Montalembert family she met again a dancing partner from debutante days, Comte w.i.l.l.y de Grunne. At one dinner, the Prefet's wife produced from her bag a mouth organ which she gave to Queen Elizabeth. When the Queen Mother retired to her room, she was serenaded by the son-in-law of the house, who for some reason was known in the family as 'Naughty Boy', playing a hunting horn outside. The Queen Mother responded by playing the 'Ma.r.s.eillaise' on her mouth organ from the window.84 In 1977 came the turn of the great vignerons in Bordeaux. She stayed at Chateau Mouton with Baron Philippe de Rothschild, who showed her his cellars and then drove her to lunch with the Baron and Baronne Elie de Rothschild at Chateau Lafite. In Pauillac the entire town seemed to be on the streets to welcome her; in one village the local pony club formed a guard of honour, all waving Union flags. It was a shorter visit than usual and so at a lunch at the Chateau de Beychevelle she met all the owners whose great estates she did not have time to visit Latour, Margaux, Pontet Canet, Yquem.85 When she went to the Dordogne in 1978 she was received by the Mayor of Limoges and the British Consul General, Robert Ford. Her hostess on this occasion was the Baronne Henry de b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Her house, the Chateau de Hautefort, had just been restored for the second time after the first restoration one of the neighbours' children had apparently dropped a cigarette and burned it down.

On the first evening of her visit Queen Elizabeth attended a pre-dinner reception at the chateau for the Mayor and local notables. 'This was a great success,' noted Anstruther wryly, 'too great, in fact, as they were still there after dinner.' She was fascinated by the prehistoric cave paintings at Lascaux which were opened especially for her. That was followed by lunch in a charming country hotel and then a visit to the beautiful town of Sarlat.86 Her host and hostess in Lorraine in 1979 were the Prince and Princesse de Beauvau-Craon, at their magnificent early-eighteenth-century chateau, Haroue. The Queen Mother's hostess was struck by the fact that, along with her police officer, her dresser, two chauffeurs, a footman and a page (whose main task appeared to be mixing extremely dry martinis), she brought a hairdresser with a broken arm. This, the Princesse gathered, was because Queen Elizabeth wanted him to see France.87 As with all of her visits, this one began with a reception for the local authorities. The Mayor and the munic.i.p.al council came to Haroue for drinks and presented her with a medal, which she examined closely and gave to Ralph Anstruther, saying, 'Gardez-moi ce tresor.' They were enchanted. According to her hostess, 'Elle rayonnait' she radiated warmth; although the visit was officially incognito, going about with her was 'rather like following a pop star'; people waved out of their windows and exclaimed, 'Qu'elle est mignonne!'88 There was a long drive in pouring rain to Selestat in Alsace, for lunch at a restaurant with Commandant Paul-Louis Weiller, an air ace in the Great War. The restaurant served soup with frogs legs in it, even though Clarence House had insisted that she did not like them. Laure de Beauvau-Craon recalled that Weiller had been called 'froggie' in England in his youth, and was determined to make his English guests pay the penalty. Outside the window, a band played gamely in the rain.

It had become part of the pattern of the visits that Johnny Lucinge would organize a private dinner at a restaurant, and this time it took place at Le Capucin Gourmand in Nancy. A crowd of striking workers gathered outside the restaurant: according to Princesse de Beauvau-Craon, they had been locked out of their factory and wanted to force the Prefet, who was among the diners, to intervene, although Le Figaro reported later that they had intended to kidnap the Queen Mother to draw attention to their dispute. An unlikely story, perhaps; but it seems an angry crowd surrounded her Daimler as she left the restaurant. According to the Princesse, the Queen Mother behaved like 'un torero face au taureau'. She walked slowly towards the strikers, beamed at them and started to talk to them. She got an ovation and shouts of 'Vive la Reine!'89 She loved the beautiful library at Haroue and one evening, as she sat there with a gla.s.s of champagne, hearing that Ralph Anstruther and others in her party were missing, she said, 'They must have found a low joint in Nancy.' Her host and hostess told her that the family had buried its silver in the grounds of the chateau during the war but never found it again. To their surprise the plane which arrived to take Queen Elizabeth home brought out a large package from Harrods which she had ordered it was a metal detector. Sadly, after digging several holes in the garden the Princesse discovered only water pipes, and her husband put an end to her searches.90 In 1980 Queen Elizabeth stayed with Monsieur and Madame Kilian Hennessy in Cognac, where she was offered brandy from the year 1800 to taste, before visiting historic chateaux and Romanesque churches.91 In May 1981, she returned to the Loire, eighteen years after her first visit, and stayed at the moated Chateau de Serrant, near Angers; this was once the property of an Irish Jacobite family which had a.s.sisted Bonnie Prince Charlie in the '45, and now belonged to the Prince and Princesse de Ligne-La Tremoille. She watched a display by the Cadre Noir at the cavalry barracks at Saumur, and went to Gennes to lay a wreath of poppies at the memorial to the cavalry cadets who had defended the bridge over the Loire in 1940 and held up the German advance; they were nearly all killed.92 She was delighted with this trip, writing to Ralph Anstruther, 'I thought that this year it was better than ever.'93 In 1982 she made what was inevitably a rather formal trip to Paris to open the new wing of the Hertford Hospital, of which she was patron. She stayed at the British Emba.s.sy and called on President Mitterrand. Johnny Lucinge gave a c.o.c.ktail party at his flat and among the many guests was Princess Olga, the widow of her old friend Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, who had died in 1976.

In 1983 it was the turn of Champagne, where she stayed again with the Kilian Hennessys in a house which had belonged to the Chandon family. Champagne flowed throughout an excellent dinner. She was driven around the miles of Moet and Chandon cellars in an electric car.94 In Epernay she talked to a survivor of the Ravensbruck concentration camp, Madame Servagnat, who with her husband had been in the wartime Resistance and had helped British airmen shot down over France. Queen Elizabeth praised her courage. 'Vous avez donne l'exemple,' Madame Servagnat replied.95 In 1984 the Queen Mother visited the Sarthe region, south-west of Paris, and stayed with the Comte and Comtesse Rene de Nicolay at the Chateau du Lude on the River Loir. The streets of the little town of Le Lude were decked with Union flags and Tricolours, the Mayor received her with a 'vin d'honneur' and the town band played 'G.o.d Save The Queen' and the 'Ma.r.s.eillaise' before enthusiastic crowds.96 'She is very bon vivant,' the Comtesse later recalled.97 At the Chateau de Bournel, a large nineteenth-century house in Franche Comte, the following year the Marquis de Moustier was on the doorstep to greet her, but the rest of the family were all off hunting a dormouse in the dining room. Eventually they were presented to her. This house, which had wonderful views of the 'ligne bleu des Vosges', was unusual in France in that it had pa.s.sed intact from father to son for many generations. After visiting Besancon and other sights of the area, the Queen Mother was presented with a substantial and very heavy local cheese which was much appreciated after her return to Clarence House.98 One should not underestimate the difficulty to which Queen Elizabeth's guide, Johnny Lucinge, was put in organizing these tours. The diarist James Lees-Milne, who could be unkind, recalled talking about it to Lucinge: He has taken the place of Charles de Noailles in that he stays annually at Sandringham with the Queen Mother and pilots her around France each summer. Told me the difficulty was finding suitable hosts who were rich enough and possessed large houses with rooms enough and servants enough to accommodate her retinue, consisting of himself, Lady Fermoy, the Graftons, two maids, two valets, two detectives. He had just come from Sandringham and said the Q.M. is the only member of the Royal Family one could call cultivated. She has humour, and is never overtly critical. Interested, reads her prep. before making visits.99 Johnny Lucinge's daughter, the Marquise de Ravenel, later recalled that when her father ran out of castles in France, he looked to Italy, where fortunately he had good friends.100 Queen Elizabeth was happy to go there.

In October 1984 she visited Venice on behalf of the Venice in Peril Fund. This was the first time she had been to the city since she and the Duke of York had travelled on the Orient Express to the wedding of Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and Princess Olga in 1923. All they saw of Venice then was the railway station.

She joined the royal yacht Britannia at Ancona and sailed into Venice on 25 October. As well as her usual guests, she had invited the archiect Sir Hugh Ca.s.son and his wife on this trip.* He had accepted with great pleasure in a note adorned with a watercolour sketch of a corgi reclining in a gondola, adding that he had ordered himself a sailor suit.101 She entertained on board numerous Italian officials and n.o.bles and, although her health was now failing, the ninety-year-old explorer and writer Freya Stark came from her villa at Asolo in the Veneto. Queen Elizabeth had long admired Dame Freya's work, and in 1976 she had invited her to stay at the Castle of Mey; they had kept in touch since then with letters and Christmas cards.

The weather was poor and the tides were extreme during this visit. Rear Admiral Paul Greening, the Flag Officer in command of the royal yacht, was nervous that Queen Elizabeth's frequent tardiness might cause problems. It did. On one occasion her launch ran aground in the mud,102 and the church of San Nicolo dei Mendicoli, where paris.h.i.+oners were eagerly awaiting her, could be reached only by taking all the other pa.s.sengers out of her motor boat.103 In St Mark's Square, sudden rain forced her into the Cafe Florian, where she and her party were given a welcome tea. She was accompanied everywhere by swarms of photographers who, naturally, demanded that she be seen in a gondola. Her staff finally gave in and she made a short gondola ride with Admiral Greening. 'A really memorable spectacle,' commented the lady in waiting.104 Afterwards Hugh Ca.s.son sent her a booklet of sketches of the trip, which delighted her. 'Every page brings back memories,' she wrote to him, 'mostly blissful, and one or two funny, like the speeches in Church! The Service was marvellously chaotic, & most enjoyable wasn't it? It is quite difficult to take in so much beauty in a few days, and your heavenly and lovely drawings will always be a great joy to me.'105 Johnny Lucinge arranged a trip to Tuscany in 1986. She stayed with Duke Salviati and his wife in their country house at Migliarino. Sir Harold Acton was among those who came to dine with her there.* The next morning the Duke showed her around his greenhouses; he had started a business propagating seedlings for export and now employed 300 local people. For lunch they drove to the Villa Reale at Marlia, which had belonged to Napoleon's elder sister, Elise, when she was d.u.c.h.ess of Lucca and Grand d.u.c.h.ess of Tuscany.

One of the high points of the trip for the Queen Mother was a visit to the Villa Capponi, where she had stayed with her grandmother before the First World War. She looked again at the view over Florence she had first seen some eighty years earlier, then drove to Sir Harold Acton's home at La Pietra. In yet another villa with an exquisite garden, she met Pietro Annigoni, who gave her a book of the frescos he had just painted for Padua Cathedral. On the last evening, Johnny Lucinge took her party to dinner at the restaurant Solferino in the village of Marcario-in-Piano; after an excellent alfresco meal, in the company of a group of friendly doctors from Lucca, the party drove to Pisa to see the Tower, the Cathedral and the Baptistery. The Queen Mother talked with a group of students who had a guitar and were singing Neapolitan songs.106 In her six-page letter of thanks, she told Johnny Lucinge that he must be a magician to be able to conjure up such beautiful houses. The Duke, she said, 'with his splendid Graeco-Roman head made us feel so happy' and the villas, 'the gardens, the picnics, the fun of it all, will always remain a happy wonderful memory'. She loved the evening at Pisa and the charming restaurant dinner, with all the doctors. 'I couldn't help wondering about their patients.'107 In 1987 she visited the Palladian villas of the Veneto. She stayed at the Hotel Cipriani in Asolo and saw Freya Stark again. In the Villa Maser she admired the frescos by Veronese, and visited the only country church that Palladio built; the same afternoon, in Castelfranco, she visited the eighteenth-century theatre a young boy played the British National Anthem on the piano as she arrived. She then went to the Duomo San Liberale to see Giorgione's Madonna and Child. She went shopping for local china and tried the fiery local grappa; wherever she went she was greeted by enthusiastic crowds.108 In June 1988 she took her party to Sicily and Naples in Britannia. She was not feeling well when she flew out from London and was rather dreading her crowded schedule. But the Mediterranean suns.h.i.+ne revived her and she carried out an exhausting round of official and private visits with her habitual zest and energy. In Salerno she laid a wreath at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery at Battipaglia, and met the gardener and his son who together had looked after the graves since 1945.109 She entertained on board Britannia one night her grandson Prince Andrew, who had joined the Royal Navy in 1979 and whose s.h.i.+p HMS Edinburgh was in the Bay of Naples, came to dinner and she was feted and feasted in beautiful palazzi in both Sicily and Naples. The Archbishop showed her over the exquisite Cathedral at Monreale above Palermo, and then gave the party tea in his palace.110 Hugh Ca.s.son, whom she had again invited aboard, was impressed by her stamina; after each full day's sightseeing 'at six-thirty every evening she'd give a party on the s.h.i.+p for all the local dignitaries, and at eight-thirty it would be a dinner party, and at midnight she'd have the officers from the wardroom for a last drink before going to bed.'111 The British Amba.s.sador in Rome, Sir Derek Thomas, agreed he reported to the Foreign Office that 'Her sparkling personality, her unflagging energy, and her keen enjoyment of life so manifestly undulled by the pa.s.sage of years were universally admired by all whom she met.'112 She enjoyed the Italian trips but her greater love remained France. When Prince Jean-Louis asked her at the end of the Sicilian trip, 'What about next year, Your Majesty?' she replied, ' "Oh you know, I miss France a lot." So that made me understand that she'd like to come back.'113 But the Prince, her second cicerone and only three years her junior, was beginning to tire. In 1989 he took Queen Elizabeth to the Languedoc, where her party stayed in a quiet, comfortable hotel, the Hotel de la Reserve, in Albi on the banks of the River Tarn. There they visited the Toulouse-Lautrec family house, which now belonged to a young friend of Johnny Lucinge, Bertrand du Vignaud de Villefort, and his sister, whose mother was a Toulouse-Lautrec. The Prince had in fact asked the young man to take over his role.

The tour-director designate quickly discovered what he was up against. On the afternoon of the Queen Mother's arrival, after the customary reception for local dignitaries, he had left a short interval for the eighty-eight-year-old traveller to rest. Instead, he found himself hurriedly improvising a visit to two local villages in response to a telephoned request for 'something to do before dinner'.114 Two days later the party visited Toulouse on the same day that the right-wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen was holding a rally there. The authorities were anxious to get Queen Elizabeth away before this began; she wanted to stay and said mischievously that she would love to meet Le Pen. In the event she left before the rally, having proved, according to Sir Ralph Anstruther's account, a greater attraction than the politician. She questioned du Vignaud about Le Pen; although conservative in her own ideas, she was worried by the tendency he represented.115 Nineteen-ninety saw her in Brittany; she took a French naval barge up the River Odet to Quimper and had an excellent picnic lunch on board. In Quimper itself, the enthusiastic crowds were too big for her to be able to carry out a planned tour of the Old Town. At lunch the next day the Naval Pipe Band from Lorient played for her. They had gone to great trouble to learn a Scots tune they had chosen the dirge 'Flowers of the Forest'.116 In 1991 she made what proved to be her last French trip. Appropriately, it was to Savoie, where Johnny Lucinge's family had once ruled over Faucigny as an independent state. She stayed at the Hotel Royale in Evian and toured chateaux, gardens and churches on the edge of Lake Geneva and in the mountains near by, and laid a wreath on the memorial to Resistance fighters at the cemetery at Les Glieres.117 In early May 1992 she added Spain to her European list, when she was invited by the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Wellington to spend a private weekend at their house near Granada. The trip included a picnic lunch and a drive round one of the estates granted to the first Duke of Wellington by a grateful Spain after the Peninsular Wars. The next day the Wellingtons gave a lunch party to which the King and Queen of Spain came, and on the last evening Queen Elizabeth visited the Alhambra in