Sarah Bradford

A heart of gold — and steel

  • Elizabeth, The Queen Mother

    Hugo Vickers

    Hutchinson, pp. 503

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Small, with a heart-shaped face, striking blue eyes, dark hair, and an unquenchable joie de vivre, Elizabeth’s charm had bowled over a series of admirers before her marriage. In public life she had the same effect, conveying to crowds her joy at seeing them, to individuals her absolute interest in them. Instinctively she understood what people expected of a queen, interacting with crowds in almost the same way as Diana, Princess of Wales. She was a star with a natural gift for public relations and the projection of an image. Beyond that she had the confidence of a tough Scottish aristocrat and an inbred sense of duty. She protected and supported her shy, stuttering, nervous husband through the strain of the Abdication and the second world war. Many people thought he might not have been able to carry on without her. When he died she was devastated, perhaps not so much at losing him but, Vickers suggests, her position as queen which she had so relished. Within a comparatively short time she picked herself up and created her own role as Queen Mother, actively representing the monarchy and her country as no other widowed Queen Consort had done. Through the troubles that assailed the monarchy in the 1990s she remained a rock of stability: popular, unchanging, a seemingly indestructible symbol of continuity.

Vickers cleverly indicates the steel at the heart of the soufflé by contrasting contemporary quotes. Cecil Beaton swooned:

Catty Stephen Tennant was less enchanted:

She looked everything she was not: gentle, gullible, tenderness mixed with dispassionate serenity … Behind this veil she schemed and vacillated, hard as nails.

One observer described her as ‘a marshmallow made on a welding machine’. Dis- respectful wits nicknamed her ‘Grinners’ for her perpetual smile. Others referred to her laziness, love of luxury and greed. Diana Cooper said that she loved chocolate so much she even ate the Good Boy dog chocs. She was looked after by a household of 32 enjoying a Civil List income of £843,000 and the use of five large homes, Clarence House in London, Walmer Castle (as Warden of the Cinque Ports), Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, Birkhall on the Balmoral estate, and her own Castle of Mey in Caithness. Yet, seen by the nation as ‘one of us’, enjoying a tipple and a trip to the races, she largely escaped criticism. It comes as no surprise to learn that her favourite means of travel was by helicopter, skimming over the countryside as she skimmed over the surface of life.

She was, nonetheless, a good hater as illustrated by one of Vickers’ better anecdotes:

In later life the Queen Mother did not disguise her dislike of certain nationalities, notably the Germans [and the Japanese]. When Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan, son of Emperor Akihito, was staying for Ascot, she insisted that the Japanese sword of surrender be put on display in the Royal Library for his special interest. The Queen vetoed this, the Queen Mother countermanded the veto, but eventually the Queen won and the sword stayed in its cupboard. As the royal party processed into dinner, the Queen Mother said, ‘Come on everybody. Nip on! Nip on!’

The book reads like an official biography. Vickers has made good use of sources, both archival and private. He is at home in the courtier’s world and the circles which the Queen Mother inhabited and is aware of such little known aspects as the prickly relationship between her and Princess Margaret and her apparent lack of grief at her daughter’s death. He has written a detailed account (at times the minutiae are too minute) of a long and interesting life and that is a very considerable achievement in itself.

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