The Queen Mother Part 26

* Anthony Gurney and George Dawnay were, along with Harry Birkbeck, farmers and neighbours to Sandringham in Norfolk whom Queen Elizabeth enjoyed visiting. Eldred Wilson was the senior tenant farmer on the Sandringham Estate, a skilled horseman who broke in Queen Elizabeth's horses. Len Bradley was the retired stud groom at Wolferton.

* b.u.mmarees were porters at Smithfield Meat Market; Queen Elizabeth was an honorary freeman of the Butchers' Company. Queen Elizabeth always enjoyed her Smithfield lunches. Deborah, d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re described one of them with her customary eloquence: 'Smithfield looms, Cake to lunch there, much raising of gla.s.ses & toasts to Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry, any excuse really. I love going in her wake through the crowds, she has an extraordinary effect on the populace, the faces when she's pa.s.sed unexpectedly are v revealing, giggles, amazement, cameras too late, only getting backs of people like me. Worth seeing.' (In Tearing Haste: Letters between Deborah Devons.h.i.+re and Patrick Leigh Fermor, ed. Charlotte Mosley, John Murray, 2008, p. 211) * The guests included Lord and Lady Abergavenny, Lord and Lady Dalhousie, Lord and Lady Strathmore and their son Michael, Lord Glamis, Martin and Catriona Leslie, Brian and Carey Ba.s.set, Sir Martin Gilliat and many more.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

POETRY AND PAIN.

19811999 'It's no good sitting back. Your devoir, your duty'

IF THE LOG CABIN at Polveir, happily placed between river and trees, had been a perfect eightieth-birthday present, a gift which Queen Elizabeth valued highly ten years later was a poem by Ted Hughes, the Poet Laureate. He wrote her an epic of the century, hers, his and everyman's. He called it A Masque for Three Voices' and considered it 'a drama of the modern age'.1 He used a variety of tones to bring different moments from the Queen Mother's life into focus 'against a procession of simple historical tableaux'.

Hughes was a pa.s.sionate man and a patriot. He thought that any country needing to defend itself must call upon its 'dormant genetic resource', its 'sacred myth', and in Britain's case that was the Crown. In 1939 'the mantle of this palladium settled on the Queen Mother, who was then Queen.' He believed that 'She rose to the occasion in such a way that she became the incarnation of it.'

His poem began with a statement of the importance of monarchy: A royalty mints the sovereign soul

Of wise man and of clown

What subst.i.tute's debased those souls

Whose country lacks a crown

Because it lies in some Swiss bank

Or has been melted down ...

The century, he wrote, 'dawned at your first smile/Lit with another wonder'. Hughes took the reader through both the innovations and the horrors of the twentieth century, the Great War, Einstein, the Ford motor car, Mickey Mouse, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini. But in the 1930s, he wrote, tyranny 'alchemised its antidote, the true' and by 'the true' he meant the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

He ended in the present day with new generations who had never known what the First and Second World Wars meant, nor 'how the Queen Mother comes to be at the centre of Britain's experience of the drama by which the 20th century will be remembered'.2 Much like the heart that carries us about,

The fearless hope beneath the fearful doubt,

You have worn the n.a.z.i and Soviet Empires out ...

Your birthday shares this present with the world.

Simply yourself, like the first smile you smiled,

A small blue figure, bending to a child.

Queen Elizabeth took the poem with her to the Castle of Mey in August 1990. It was a good place, she told him, to concentrate: 'There is only the sea and an immense sky, and the images that you create in your great poem seem to float in one's mind, in fact every time I read it a new one appears.' Thanking him, she said that she was full of admiration for its beauty and was amazed that he had been able to put into glorious words the whole history of the previous ninety years. 'And slipping from horror words like Stalin and Hitler suddenly into lovely things like a salmon lying under a white stone. There is a white stone in my favourite pool on the Dee, Polveir, and there is nearly always a fish under it, just moving in a languid way against the stream. And you even remembered when Mickey Mouse came upon the scene!' She felt she did not have words enough to tell him 'what immense joy your poem has given me, it is so beautiful and so moving, there are several pa.s.sages that make me cry, and this happens every time I read it.'3 *

TED HUGHES'S tribute came at the end of a happy decade for Queen Elizabeth. She loved her eighties and thrived throughout them. When Dame Frances Campbell-Preston later reached what she considered the ripe old age of eighty and thought she ought to retire, Queen Elizabeth would have none of it. 'Congratulations. You will feel marvellous,' she said.4 Dame Frances stayed en poste.

It is often said that people rarely make new friends late in life. With Queen Elizabeth this was not so. She remained particularly good at forging new friends.h.i.+ps among younger people, often much younger than her. During her eighties and nineties many new friends.h.i.+ps were begun, many older ones ripened and matured. Lady Diana Cooper, socialite, writer and wit, widow of Duff, gave bohemian lunch parties for Queen Elizabeth which she loved. After one typically convivial occasion at the Cooper home in Little Venice, west London, she remarked that it was 'great fun to watch the famous HOUSE POISON doing its work, voices rising, conversation becoming more & more sparkling, & even the dear faces of the clergy becoming a tiny bit roseate'.5 Another private fixture she much enjoyed was lunch with her friends Charles and Lady Katharine Farrell (niece of Lady Diana Cooper) at their house in Oxfords.h.i.+re. As with letters to other friends, her thank-you letters to the Farrells, stretching over more than twenty years, have their own refrain. She often referred to the brilliance of the 'Palais de Glace' the conservatory which they built on to their house and in which they often ate and the 'ANNUAL INSPECTION' of the hedge they had planted in the garden. The lunches were merry, bucolic occasions. She enjoyed the neighbours and friends whom they invited and was especially intrigued by Paul Getty, the philanthropist whose love of English traditions in general and cricket in particular had a Wodehousian quality.

Her own invitations were cherished. Her guests whether they were shooting friends or bibliophiles or music lovers or fishermen and women or walkers or racegoers loved her stylish, generous entertainment at Clarence House and Royal Lodge, Birkhall, the Castle of Mey and, in July, at Sandringham.

Outside her intimate circle, she had her critics. James Lees-Milne, the diarist, commented ungallantly on her appearance. 'Her teeth, which are her own, are bad. She has little finger nails upturned at the ends not pretty. Her hair straight, wispy, stringy. Nevertheless, she has dignity and charm how often has that been said? however evanescent; and stamina. For 1 hours she stood never once sat talking to total strangers and making herself agreeable.'6 Lees-Milne criticized her for 'sugary insincerity', which he found quite unlike the bright, direct dignity and humour of the Queen. He recorded a story told him by Johnny Lucinge, the impresario of her French visits, who had stayed with her at Sandringham for the Flower Show in 1983. There, local women were displaying their pet rabbits.

One old lady, very eccentric and untidy, had an awful exhibit, an ancient, bald rabbit like a melon which she adorned with ribbons and furbelows. The other old ladies did their best to s.h.i.+eld the spectacle from the Queen. But the Q. made straight for her, talked to her only and stroked the animal. When urged by Fortune Grafton to walk on to some other stall she lingered, turning her head towards the proud owner as though most loath to leave. All the other respectable old lady compet.i.tors furious, of course. This is an example of her compelling charm, he says.

Lees-Milne himself sounds unconvinced.7 But even he was wary when the novelist Penelope Mortimer came to interview him for 'yet another biography of the Queen Mother'. She had brought a tape recorder which alarmed him and 'so long as the machine was whizzing I remained discreet.'8 Mortimer's biography was probably the most unsympathetic ever written about the Queen Mother.*

Writing of Queen Elizabeth's many charitable appearances, Mortimer said: The Queen Mother Image is dressed, coiffeured, transported, deposited. When the performance is over it is fetched, deposited, fed, cleaned and put carefully away for the night. If the Queen Mother beckons, someone notices; if she calls, someone comes. All she has to do when she drops fresh as a daisy from the sky is to generate love, delight and enthusiasm ... It may be increasingly difficult for an octogenarian to climb into the helicopter, but once air-borne the flight is effortless, skimming over the dull, pedestrian world, skimming over empty s.p.a.ces and uneasy silences, over neglect and indifference, landing only where the lights s.h.i.+ne and the climate is entirely dependable. One day she will simply spin out of sight, emerging G.o.d knows where to carry on with the angels.9 But there were other authors whom she helped with their books she a.s.sisted Kenneth Rose with his well-received biography of George V. Rose, diarist extraordinaire of the Daily Telegraph, was one of the few journalists whom she trusted. He sent her flowers with kind notes on her wedding anniversary every year. She also talked to her friend the Cambridge historian Professor Owen Chadwick, in preparation for his book Britain and the Vatican during the Second World War. This paid what she thought was overdue tribute to D'Arcy Osborne's wartime achievements as British amba.s.sador to the Vatican. Chadwick, like Queen Elizabeth herself, admired Osborne for both his courage and his delightful personality and she enjoyed talking with him. On another occasion, ever true to her love for P. G. Wodehouse, she advised him to read Gussie Fink-Nottle's prize-giving speech in Right Ho, Jeeves. Chadwick did so, with great pleasure, and wrote to tell her that his laughter had caused consternation in the silent college library.10 One of the great new friends of her eighties was Ted Hughes. They met when he spoke at the King's Lynn Festival and Queen Elizabeth invited him and his wife Carol to dinner at Sandringham. The following year she invited them to Royal Lodge for her Musical Weekend. She asked him to read some of his poems, which he did 'with some trepidation'. He need not have worried; he was captivated by her and she by him.11 Hughes was a dedicated countryman and fisherman. Queen Elizabeth liked that sort of person and she also found his looks tall, craggy and well built 'very striking'.12 Writing to his brother after one visit to Birkhall, Hughes said, 'the morale and general spirits in her group is always incredibly high. And she never alters in the slightest way. Interested in everything, amused by everything. Her secret is one of her secrets to be positive about everything. Another must be to be pretty strong. She climbs about the steep gardens. Stands & walks for hours at a time. There's something about her that's kept very young like a young woman. But everybody is so fond of her that she escapes the psychological isolation for most old people inescapable.'13 *

ISOLATED SHE never was. Through this decade she watched with pleasure (and sometimes concern) her grandchildren growing older and her great-grandchildren's infancy. She continued with her private trips to France and with her official visits abroad, particularly to Canada. The pattern of her years remained much the same as it had always been, with the regular commitments to her charities, her regiments, her s.h.i.+ps and of course her horses. Not all of these engagements need to be rehea.r.s.ed; at the risk of showing favouritism (which she always tried to eschew) a few landmarks should be recorded.

Spring 1982 saw her carrying out her military obligations, presenting shamrock to the Irish Guards at Pirbright on 17 March and visiting her regiment, 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards, in Northern Ireland at the end of April. Earlier that month an unexpected war had broken out when Argentina seized the Falkland Islands, a British colony in the South Atlantic. The British government immediately declared its intention of regaining the islands; a task force was prepared and dispatched. Prince Andrew went out with the force as a naval helicopter pilot in HMS Invincible. With her habitual horror of war, Queen Elizabeth wrote to the Queen, One feels such a dark cloud in one's mind over the Falklands'; she longed for a solution to be found.14 In early June she lunched privately with Mrs Thatcher at Chequers, the Prime Minister's official country residence, and shortly afterwards President and Mrs Reagan arrived in England on an official visit, during which the American leader made clear his support for British determination to recapture the Falklands. Queen Elizabeth attended the banquet for the Reagans at Windsor Castle. The war ended with British victory on 14 June.

Queen Elizabeth was to have flown by helicopter from Royal Lodge to Margate for the start of her Cinque Ports visit on 8 June. But one engine failed just after takeoff and the helicopter had to make an emergency landing. She seemed not in the least alarmed; after lunch at home she took a plane of the Queen's Flight from Heathrow to Marston in Kent instead.

She had a busy summer which included a visit to Barnard Castle in County Durham to open three galleries at the Bowes Museum, in which her family connection gave her a personal interest.* She travelled to Glasgow for the Centenary Service of the St Andrew's Ambulance a.s.sociation and a visit to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama; and she paid a two-day visit to Germany to see her regiments the 9th/12th Royal Lancers and the 1st Battalion The Black Watch. On 16 July she returned to Scotland to celebrate the centenary of the University of Dundee, and on 26 July she attended the Falklands thanksgiving service at St Paul's Cathedral before driving to Sandringham for the King's Lynn Festival and her usual July house party. Her birthday that year had a special resonance; Prince William, the first son of the Prince and Princess of Wales, was christened by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Buckingham Palace. After the ceremony the family celebrated both events at a lunch at the Palace.

Towards the end of her customary Scottish holidays she paid her annual visit to the Lord Roberts Workshops for disabled soldiers in Dundee, named a British Railways locomotive The Queen Mother at Aberdeen and attended the Perth Bull Sales where she was delighted that her Aberdeen Angus bull won Reserve Junior Champion. Back in London she and Princess Margaret acted as Counsellors of State while the Queen was in Australia. She wrote to her daughter: 'Thinking of you in great heat & chiffon, I write, as usual, in a downpour of rain and thick wool!' and sent her horse news mostly bad at this point. She had been following the tour on television and thought of how hard the Queen worked, compared with how little she was doing.15 In fact she had been far from idle, but an enforced rest followed. During a shooting weekend at Royal Lodge a fishbone lodged in her throat at dinner one evening, and she had to have an operation to remove it. Letters and flowers arrived from many people, including Margaret Thatcher, who sent 'affectionate good wishes' from everyone at 10 Downing Street, and Lord Snowdon. 'Do look in if you are down our way. It would be lovely to see you,' she wrote back to him from Royal Lodge. 'A thousand thanks, ever your affec Ex M in L.'16 After two weeks she was able to resume her public life and in early December went to Southampton to visit the liner Queen Elizabeth 2, the Cunard Line's successor to Queen Elizabeth, which she had launched in 1938, and she unveiled a plaque to mark the s.h.i.+p's role as a troop carrier in the Falklands War.

On St Patrick's Day 1983 she flew to Munster in West Germany to present shamrock to the Irish Guards stationed there. The cheers they gave her 'were deafening and straight from the heart'.17 A very different ceremony took place later in April when Queen Elizabeth opened a Luncheon Club and Day Centre for the West Indian Elderly in Railton Road, Brixton, a part of south London with a large West Indian population. There had been violent riots there in 1981, and the Mayor of Brixton had asked her to make this visit as a way of restoring confidence in the area. She toured the building while children danced and sang to a steel band. The visit was a great success and the director of the Brixton Neighbourhood Community a.s.sociation thought that she had 'kindled a ray of hope for the future of our neighbourhood'.18 Perhaps the next most significant public event of her eighty-third year was her visit to Northern Ireland, still in the throes of the Troubles. In 1958, a more peaceful time, she had visited the Territorial Auxiliary and Volunteer Reserve a.s.sociation for Northern Ireland for their fiftieth anniversary. Now they asked her to come again to celebrate their seventy-fifth. She decided to do so, but after the news leaked to the press the visit had to be cancelled. It was then quietly rearranged and she flew to Northern Ireland to preside over the a.s.sociation's parade at St Patrick's Barracks, Ballymena, on Monday 20 June. Afterwards Lieutenant General Sir Robert Richardson, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, wrote that her determination to come, despite the press leaks and threats from the IRA, 'impressed everyone, yet again, with her personal courage'. The visit was 'a triumph'.19 In another symbol of the lasting strength of her commitments, on 4 March 1984 she helped celebrate the fortieth anniversary of c.u.mberland Lodge. She could take satisfaction in the fact that this inst.i.tution, which she had hoped would contribute to a more Christian future for Britain, had at least survived in a much more secular age.

Later that month she unveiled a memorial in Westminster Abbey to Noel Coward, whose wit had given her so much pleasure and whose death in 1973 she had much regretted. On 5 June that year she honoured her hero General de Gaulle, unveiling a blue plaque on his wartime residence in Carlton Gardens. On the evening of 30 July she was quietly admitted to the King Edward VII Hospital in Marylebone. There she underwent a simple excision for carcinoma of the breast and the doctors were confident that the entire tumour had been removed.* Her spirits were high and her lady in waiting's diary recorded that she 'came home on the morning of 2 August "in very good form" '20 then she dived gaily into the celebrations of her eighty-fourth birthday.

ON 16 JULY 1985 Queen Elizabeth, on her eleventh visit to Canada, was flying from Regina, Saskatchewan, to Edmonton, Alberta. A sudden violent storm hit Edmonton and her Canadian military plane was at the last minute diverted to the military base of Cold Lake, Alberta. There was something akin to panic on the ground. The officers on the base had only a few minutes' warning of the royal arrival and they rushed around finding cars and a bit of carpet to be placed at the steps of the plane. As many of the top bra.s.s as could be gathered hurried over. When she came down the steps Queen Elizabeth greeted the welcoming party on the ground with words that some of them never forgot: 'Ah, Cold Lake! I've always wanted to come here.'21 Like other members of the Royal Family, Queen Elizabeth usually enjoyed herself when things went wrong. Surprises were often a welcome relief from the official round set months before. She seemed genuinely amused by this unexpected little adventure. In the officers' mess they rustled up refreshments and she talked happily to the officers and their wives until, after an hour and a half, the weather cleared enough for the pilot to resume the flight to Edmonton. The plane was some four hours late when it finally touched down at its destination.

This trip to Canada had been built around Queen Elizabeth's enthusiasm for Aberdeen Angus cattle. The Fifth World Aberdeen Angus Forum was being held in Edmonton. On the way across Canada she had spent three days in Toronto and attended the 126th running of the Queen's Plate Stakes at the Woodbine racetrack. She dined, as she liked to do, with the Ontario Jockey Club, and went to a garden party for her Canadian regiments next day. She made an unscheduled visit to the CN Tower, at that time the highest in the world, insisting that the morning's rain and mist had cleared sufficiently for the view to be worth while. Rather to the consternation of her tour staff, who were worried about the effect on her of the high-speed lifts, she made for the fastest lift and was ensconced at the top with a drink before the rest of the party arrived.* Next day, flying to Edmonton, she paused for a Provincial reception and luncheon at Regina before the unexpected detour to Cold Lake.

Restored by a good night's sleep at Soaring, the elegant modern home of Mr and Mrs Sandy McTaggart, the Queen Mother resumed her delayed programme in Edmonton. On Thursday 18 July she opened the Forum, where, amongst others, she met delegates from Argentina and farmers from Zimbabwe the former Southern Rhodesia whom she remembered from a visit there. After lunch and a warmly welcomed speech, she returned to the show and spent two hours viewing the cattle and talking to almost all of the exhibiting farmers.

BACK HOME Queen Elizabeth spent her eighty-fifth birthday at Sandringham. The crowd at the church for Matins was so large that the service was relayed to those who could not get inside. That evening she enjoyed a concert by the Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and a high-spirited dinner party which included the Queen, Princess Margaret and the Prince of Wales. After dinner she danced with Sir Frederick Ashton to music played by the Russian maestro. The Prince of Wales wrote to her afterwards of his delight 'in you and Freddie dancing that demented scarf dance to the accompaniment of Rostropovich's equally demented mazurka'.22 Next day in London she was greeted by large crowds outside Clarence House and on 6 August she was treated to a birthday present by British Airways a two-hour flight in Concorde up to Scotland and back. Now she could say that, having started her life in the horse age, she was a supersonic traveller.

She returned to the Castle of Mey by a more mundane flight the following day and summer in Scotland followed its usual pattern guests, fis.h.i.+ng, stalking, shooting, picnics, Racing Demon and favourite videos in the evenings.

Through the 1980s her health remained remarkably good. She still swore by her herbal and homeopathic medicines and powders. Her biggest problem remained the lesions on her legs; and she suffered further occasional obstructions in her throat. In August 1986, she choked at dinner one night at Mey and refused all help until Britannia arrived the next day, when she reluctantly accepted a visit from the s.h.i.+p's doctor. She was in considerable discomfort but said there was no need to make a fuss. Finally, she agreed to be flown by helicopter to hospital in Aberdeen where she was X-rayed and kept in overnight. The lady in waiting's diary recorded that 'the doctors were amazed by her resilience, and att.i.tude to what had been a very unpleasant, painful episode.'23 Prince Charles wrote to tell her how relieved he was that she was all right and asked her to be more careful with fish dishes in future.24 The rest of the holiday at Mey pa.s.sed without incident and then, as usual, she went south to Balmoral and Birkhall.

Three weeks later, on 9 September 1986, she gave a remarkable demonstration of her continuing stamina. She flew from Birkhall by helicopter to Glasgow, where she opened the Pollok Leisure Centre, a 3 million development in a deprived area of the city. This included a lunch (to which she had to climb two flights of stairs) and a visit to the new gallery housing the magnificent Burrell Collection of works of art. Then it was immediately off to Govan s.h.i.+pbuilders, where she launched the MV Norsea, a 40 million P&O cruise ferry and the largest pa.s.senger-carrying s.h.i.+p built in Britain since 1969. When the ceremony was over she met members of the workforce and patients from the Princess Louise Scottish Hospital. She then drove to the Crest Hotel for a reception, meeting more people, before flying back to Birkhall for dinner and an evening of Racing Demon.

In October she stepped on 'a dead but vicious piece of wood'25 while walking in Scotland. It seemed at first to be a mere graze but on her return to London her doctor advised that she avoid standing advice which she cheerfully ignored. By 7 November the leg had become inflamed. She insisted on carrying out her usual Remembrance Day engagements. But she had to go into hospital again for five days and, to her regret, cancelled one of her favourite excursions lunch with Charles and Kitty Farrell.

THE LOVE AFFAIR between Queen Elizabeth and Canada persisted throughout the 1980s. In 1986 Martin Gilliat's desk overflowed with requests for a major trip in 1987, including visits to four provinces with dozens of projected events. Gently he batted many of these back, suggesting that she might limit her visit to Montreal, in order to take part in the 125th anniversary celebrations of her regiment, the Black Watch of Canada. Reluctantly, the Canadian hosts agreed to a shortened version of the trip and she left London on 4 June 1987, landing in Montreal that afternoon.

This was a visit with political importance. Queen Elizabeth was the first member of the Royal Family to return to French-speaking Quebec since the deterioration in relations between anglophone and francophone Canada in the 1960s there had been riots when the Queen went to Quebec in 1964, and in 1967 President de Gaulle had made his inflammatory 'Vive le Quebec libre' speech in Montreal. The Queen had been to Montreal for Expo in 1967 and for the 1974 Olympics, but only to these events she had not ventured outside the grounds on to Quebec territory on either occasion. In a real sense, therefore, Queen Elizabeth was 'testing the waters' for the Queen; she even went to the spot where de Gaulle had spoken, and drew small but friendly crowds.

In Montreal, Queen Elizabeth stayed in a charming private house, but she found the food surprisingly unpleasant. Her staff discovered why the chef had a health inspector standing beside him, ' "monitoring" every gesture, causing him to wash his hands in iodine about forty times a day & insisting on all meat being done to a frazzle'. Not only that after the Queen Mother had eaten, any food left on her plate was taken for a.n.a.lysis. She complained in fairly strong terms and the culinary censors.h.i.+p was relaxed.26 On her first full day she made two long speeches, each of them partly in French, and her lady in waiting thought she must be tired. Not so she considered her twenty-minute afternoon rest period far too long. Next morning she was dismayed to find she had a completely free morning so a visit to the Musee des Beaux Arts was hurriedly arranged, to see a Leonardo da Vinci exhibition. She apparently impressed her guides by her questions and by speaking French throughout the visit.

That afternoon she went to Molson Stadium to see Trooping the Colour by the Black Watch. Colonel Victor Chartier, at that time the commanding officer, later recalled her impressive knowledge of the regiment's history. Talking to one veteran, she said, 'You weren't always with the Black Watch, were you?' She had seen the Italy Medal on his chest and she knew the Black Watch had not served there. She was right: the soldier had transferred temporarily to the Signallers, with whom he had been in Italy.27 After a regimental dinner at the Reine Elizabeth Hotel she pa.s.sed a room where French Canadian high-school students were having a graduation party to noisy discotheque music. To the alarm of her flagging Household she asked to go in. The students recognized her at once and gathered around cheering, 'Vive la Reine.' She emerged a few minutes later, dancing.28 Before she left the city on 8 June the Queen Mother thanked all ten of her motorcycle escorts in French, and posed for photographs with them.29 Her reception in Montreal had broken the ice in Quebec. When the Queen visited the city in October, she was given a friendly welcome.30 No one doubted that Queen Elizabeth's earlier venture had helped to ease the Queen's way.

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S last trip to Canada took place shortly before her eighty-ninth birthday. It was part of a crowded summer: she had inaugurated two new oilfields Tern and Eider at Aberdeen, made a private visit to the Languedoc in France and celebrated the tenth anniversary of becoming lord warden of the Cinque Ports with a visit to Dover in Britannia. At the end of the ceremonies she sailed in the royal yacht for France, disembarked at Caen and drove to Bayeux, where she unveiled a memorial window in the Cathedral and laid a wreath at the 50th (Northumbria) Division Memorial, commemorating the D-Day landings. In June she visited Oxford to mark the University's development programme, went to Tyne Tees Television in Newcastle and visited Hadrian's Wall to open a National Trust hostel. On 16 June she gave a reception at Clarence House for members of the French Resistance and the RAF Escaping Society and made a visit to RAF Scampton to see the RAF Central Flying School.

Then on 5 July she boarded a Canadian Armed Forces Boeing 707 to Ottawa. This trip had originally been envisaged to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the historic tour she had made with the King just before the outbreak of war. On arrival in Ottawa, in fierce heat, she was driven through the city in the open Buick that she and the King had used in 1939, for an official welcome on Parliament Hill. At tea with the Governor General afterwards she cut a birthday cake with the same knife she had used to cut a cake fifty years before. The ride back to the airport, in a modern car with a low seat and a small window, was less pleasant. Frances Campbell-Preston, who had been her lady in waiting on all her Canadian visits since 1967, recorded 'Poor Queen Elizabeth has to sit very bolt upright & wave frantically. Window sealed as car bullet proof and air conditioned. It's extremely tiring for her.'31 They flew that evening to Toronto where, fortunately, she had been lent the comfortable home of Galen and Hilary Weston, friends of the Royal Family who were frequent guests at Royal Lodge.*

Next day, after a gargantuan civic luncheon, she had a long, humid afternoon inspecting a combined guard of honour of her two regiments, the Toronto Scottish and the Black Watch of Canada. She talked at length to the soldiers and as a result she was quite a long time in the heat without shade or water.32 In London, Ontario, the following day, after another long hot lunch and an enjoyable meeting with veterans, it was on to Sir Frederick S. Banting Square to unveil a statue of the man who had discovered insulin in 1922 and thus saved the lives of millions of diabetics thereafter. She lit an 'eternal flame' to his memory.

On Sat.u.r.day 8 July there was yet another long luncheon in Toronto, this time with the officers of her regiments, then a tiring walkabout among the soldiers and some impromptu sightseeing. That evening, after a reception for her regiments and an enjoyable dinner with the Ontario Jockey Club, she met all the Club Trustees, two by two, over liqueurs and coffee. With the final pair, David Willmot and Bob Anderson, a young Aberdeen Angus cattle breeder, she talked and talked about her favourite cattle as she plied them with Drambuie. She told them of an alarming experience she had once had in a landau on an English racecourse; the coachman lost control of the team of horses and they ran on and on for three circuits. What did she do? Willmot asked. She just gave the spectators a royal wave each time she went past the stands, she replied.33 Queen Elizabeth's last Canadian engagement, appropriately, was at the races attending the 130th running of the Queen's Plate Stakes at the Woodbine racetrack that afternoon. The next day the royal party flew back to London. 'The tour had been punis.h.i.+ng for HM at moments,' Dame Frances recorded; 'but she is so loved and venerated in Canada that it was impossible not to be buoyed up by the enthusiasm of so many nice people.'34 Canadian officials and politicians asked for yet another visit in the early 1990s. The Queen was consulted and came to the reluctant decision that eighty-nine was old enough for such adventures. Thus the long and happy saga of Queen Elizabeth's trips to Canada came to an end in her ninth decade.35 *

IN 1990, LUNCHEONS, dinners, garden parties and other events were held all over the kingdom in honour of Queen Elizabeth's ninetieth birthday. Among them were celebrations organized by the Lord Mayor of London, by the Black Watch in Northern Ireland, by the Queen and Prince Philip at Holyrood. The tributes were substantial it is probable that most of those who took part did not expect her to complete another decade.

The highlight came on 27 June 1990 when, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and Princess Margaret, she rode in a carriage to Horse Guards Parade, for a procession of tableaux in her honour. This was organized by Major Michael Parker, of the Queen's Own Hussars (one of her regiments), who had been planning military and royal events for many years. This time the display included many of the hundreds of organizations military, medical, social, cultural, animal that she patronized.36 Queen Elizabeth inspected the parade while Princess Margaret and the Prince of Wales watched together from a window overlooking Horse Guards Parade. The Queen was away on an official trip to Iceland and Princess Margaret wrote to tell her sister of the event, saying that their mother was 'looking very her in blue, while the choir, orchestra & ma.s.sed bands played & sang "I was Glad" so of course Charles and I were sobbing'.37 The Princess gave the Queen a spirited description of the soldiers and the civilians marching gamely on behind.

Outstanding amongst the nurses, Guides, Distressed Gentlefolk, Vacani school of dancing, NSPCC etc were all the mayors & maces of the Cinque Ports, Middle Temple judges in their wigs, the Nat Trust (houses, gardens, the Coast) all dressed up & dancing past, followed by two huge bulls in trailers, one Highland, the other Aberdeen Angus looking incredibly stately, the Argonaut & Special Cargo, ridden, and Desert Orchid [racehorses] being led, dear old Sefton, the survivor of the horrible bomb in the Park,* Shetlands, many dogs trotting along very well and wait for it, could it be yes it is it's the Poultry Club! And 4 little hens were trundled past in cages!

Then there was 'a glorious noise' from the ma.s.sed bands, a march-past by the King's Troop, and a fly-past by a Lancaster, a Hurricane, a Spitfire and the Red Arrows; all in all 'it was stupendous and I wish you had been there.'38 After the parade, when she arrived home at Clarence House Queen Elizabeth was pleased to see her racing manager Michael Oswald holding up a sign to tell her that the Queen's horse Starlet had won a race by eight lengths. So the day ended especially well. Later she said that one of its joys had been to see the Sandringham Women's Inst.i.tute marching by. 'The sight of Mrs Beamis, Mrs Emmerson, Mrs Candy, Mrs Hall, Mrs Rispin and Mrs Whittaker stepping out bravely to the rousing tune of Blaydon Races was a great sight.'39 The celebrations continued. Queen Elizabeth gave audiences and received gifts and loyal birthday addresses from both Houses of Parliament at Clarence House. She embarked in the royal yacht at Portsmouth on 30 July and reviewed at least a thousand small yachts and boats which came out to greet her in the Solent. On 1 August Britannia sailed up the Thames, through Tower Bridge and into the Pool of London. That afternoon, Queen Elizabeth drove around parts of the East End. She was touched that she was still greeted with intense affection half a century after she and the King had comforted people under German attack there. After a reception, a family dinner on board and fireworks, she slept in Britannia, returning to Clarence House the next day. That night Prince Charles gave a concert in her honour at Buckingham Palace.

The day before her ninetieth birthday, 3 August, was the hottest day recorded since 1911; Queen Elizabeth said she remembered clearly the heat of that distant summer.40 On her birthday itself, she spent an hour in the sun collecting flowers from well-wishers. Lunch with her family was followed by a ballet gala at Covent Garden and then dinner with Ruth Fermoy at her flat a long day. Then she flew to Mey where she settled down to the pleasure of reading Ted Hughes's poetic tribute.

The 1990s were to be much harder.

AT THE END of 1991, as the Queen approached the fortieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, she used her Christmas broadcast to reflect upon the momentous changes that had taken place during her reign, and particularly upon the recent fall of communism in eastern Europe where the people had 'broken the mould of autocracy'.

The fall of communism had an impact within Britain too. For decade after decade established politicians and pedagogues had expressed far greater enthusiasm for the work of centralized state powers than for that of voluntary a.s.sociations. By the early 1990s the patronages of the Royal Family including Queen Elizabeth and those younger members whose marital difficulties the press remorselessly chronicled amounted to almost 3,500 organizations.

In her Christmas broadcast, the Queen said that she was 'constantly amazed by the generosity of donors and subscribers, great and small, who give so willingly and often towards the enjoyment of others. Without them ... voluntary organizations would not exist.' She believed that voluntary service was the bedrock of Britain's democratic way of life and she pledged to continue the royal tradition of public service she had inherited and her own personal commitment to the nation.

The Queen's steady determination was reinforced by that of her mother. Indeed, throughout her nineties, despite increasing frailty, Queen Elizabeth continued to work for the organizations to which she had pledged herself. At a time of life when most people do almost nothing she willed herself to carry on. Physically this became more and more of a struggle, but she knew and would consider no other way.

That March she undertook her usual, pleasant responsibility to the Irish Guards and flew to Berlin to present them with shamrock on St Patrick's Day. In May she undertook another task that was close to her heart, flying for the day to Valencay in central France to unveil a memorial to the F (France) Section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE).* She had always admired the courage of the secret agents of SOE charged by Churchill in 1940 to 'set Europe ablaze' behind enemy lines. The men and women of SOE were sometimes known as Churchill's Secret Army and she had become patron of their discreet a.s.sociation, the Special Forces Club, in London. On this occasion, the fiftieth anniversary of the first SOE agent being dropped into France in May 1941, Queen Elizabeth took her piper, Pipe Major King, with her and he played 'The Flowers of the Forest' at the memorial ceremony. During the rest of 1991 she carried out seventy-five other public engagements at home during the year, while attending as many race meetings as ever, entertaining and being entertained by her friends, and taking her usual holidays in Scotland.

On 30 October she lunched, with her daughters, at Ascot racecourse, to celebrate her 400th winner under National Hunt Rules, Nearco Bay. Several hundred people attended this happy occasion, including all the jockeys who had ridden for her. Several of her favourite horses were paraded. On 25 November she flew by helicopter to Portsmouth to visit the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal. As with the previous Ark Royal, which she had launched in 1950, she felt a great attachment to this s.h.i.+p. Indeed she looked upon both Ark Royal and HMS Resolution, the first Polaris submarine, which she had launched in 1966, very much as she did on her regiments as an extension of family for which she was responsible. She often visited both s.h.i.+ps over the years, particularly when they were in dock for recommissioning; she had also visited Ark Royal three times at sea, landing on deck by helicopter. Their captains kept in touch with her.

After the customary family holiday at Sandringham over Christmas and the New Year of 1992, which she described to the Queen as 'better than ten bottles of tonic or twenty bottles of Arnica',41 she acted as Counsellor of State during the Queen's absence in Australia. In March 1992, she attended the service and final parade of the Women's Royal Army Corps in Guildford: the WRAC was to be incorporated into the army. As so often when her regiments were disbanded, she was not only sad but felt strongly that it was a wrong decision that would be regretted in the future.42 At the end of April she spent two days in Scotland for public engagements; she then flew for a weekend to Spain to stay privately with the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Wellington, and then before the last of her private European visits, to Umbria, she went back to Birkhall for her annual two weeks' fis.h.i.+ng with friends.

Ted Hughes was again among the guests and at a picnic below Lochnagar, as they listened to the wind in the trees, they had a conversation typical of their friends.h.i.+p. She asked him if he thought that trees could communicate with each other. The exchange kept coming back to him and he wrote a poem about the picnic. Sending it to her, he told her that he thought the verses were 'rough and playful', but there was also a mystical quality to them.43 He wrote of her question: And what were the great pines whispering?

We would have liked to know.