The farmer’s daughter who dressed the Queen–and said she was getting spoiled
... as revealed in the latest compelling extract from ROBERT HARDMAN’S fly-on-the-wall book about our globe-trotting monarch
IN A riveting new book, the Mail’s royal writer ROBERT HARDMAN tells the behind-thescenes story of the Queen’s role on the world stage. Yesterday, he recalled how Her Majesty fitted a bra on a shirtless equerry during a trip on Britannia. Today, in the third part of our serialisation, he reveals in staggering detail what happens when the royal household goes on tour, including the influence on Her Majesty of her former nanny and confidante, Bobo.
THe round-the-world Coronation tour that began in 1953 was the most ambitious royal expedition of all time. It would take the Queen more than 40,000 miles, most of them by sea. Along the way, she would shake 13,213 hands and acknowledge 6,770 curtseys (the bows were not recorded).
She would make 157 speeches herself and endure 276 by other people.
Little wonder that royal tempers occasionally reached snapping point, as they did after five weeks in Australia.
While the Queen and the Duke of edinburgh spent a weekend recuperating at a govern to ment chalet on the shores of the O’Shannassy Reservoir, they forgot that a camera crew was waiting outside to film them viewing local wildlife.
As the door opened, the cameras started rolling, whereupon the Duke came charging out of the door, followed by a flying pair of tennis shoes, a tennis racket and a very angry Queen, shouting for him to return.
Moments after the couple had retreated indoors, the Queen’s press secretary appeared and the crew surrendered their film without even being asked. ‘I’m sorry for that little interlude,’ the Queen told them when she reappeared, ‘but, as you know, it happens in every marriage. Now, what would you like me to do?’
Australia appeared to be in the grip of royalist hysteria. Hence the crowd that gathered outside the Hotel Gollan in Lismore, following a brief royal ‘refreshment’ stop.
They were queuing up for a piece of unused royal toilet paper — one sheet per person — in much the same way that medieval pilgrims might once have queued to acquire a fragment of the Cross or a saintly nail clipping.
During the Queen’s 25-minute stopover in the tiny town of Lithgow — which experienced the only traffic jam in its history — she walked along a length of red, white and blue carpet created by the staff of a local wool factory. What do with the carpet? Afterwards, it was decided that the fairest solution was to cut it into tiny pieces, so that everyone had a souvenir.
‘The adulation was extraordinary,’ the Duke of edinburgh said later. Neither he nor the Queen would see anything quite like it again. That tour laid the foundations for one of many royal records set by elizabeth II.
Since then, not only has her reign exceeded the duration of all others before it but she is the most welltravelled monarch in history.
The records show that the Queen has visited at least 126 nations and territories, many of them several times. As the Queen herself has made clear often enough, she would not have achieved all that she has without Prince Philip, the world’s best-known and longestserving supporting act.
Always walking a pace or two behind his wife, he would keep the rest of the entourage alert even if he was not always convinced about their reason for being there.
‘He would bring a virile dimension to a tour. His temper could keep things cracking along quite nicely,’ recalls a former member of the Royal Household.
‘When the Duke went travelling on his own, it would just be him and a policeman and his Private Secretary. So on these tours, he’d come in and see all these dressers and footmen and so on and he’d say: “What are all these people doing here?” And if anything went wrong, he’d say: “Who organised this bloody shambles?”’
He could also lighten the mood in a crisis.
Ahead of the Normandy veterans’ parade on the sandy beach at Arromanches in 1994, an incoming tide was already cutting things fine when the royal party were informed that President Mitterrand was running an hour late. ‘Who does he bloody think he is?’ roared the Duke. ‘ King
Canute?’ The parade stuck to the original timings. The Duke has always been a key influence in helping the Queen write the speeches she has made both at home and abroad. Constitutionally, of course, he can have no say in their substance.
But the Queen greatly values his views. Sir Robert Woodard, captain of the Royal Yacht Britannia, recalls a typical rest day on board when they would work as a team from their studies on either side of the Upper Deck — her brightly decorated sitting room on the starboard side, and his teak-panelled study to port.
‘ The Queen was writing her speech for the next day and she was padding to and from his study, giving him rewrites,’ says Woodard. ‘He gave her his final corrections for her to do. They worked together a lot.’
Though the Duke announced his retirement from public life in 2017, he continues to accompany the Queen to important events and remains central to the way she arranges her programme.
At the end of a busy morning, she has been known to say: ‘Now I must give Philip his lunch.’
Another person willing to offer unvarnished advice during the Queen’s travels was her dresser.
From her earliest years, Princess Elizabeth was devoted to Bobo MacDonald, the Scottish farmer’s daughter who was first her nanny and later grew to become her confidante. When the Princess went on her honeymoon, she also took her corgi, Susan, and Bobo with her. New royal staff would be warned: ‘ Don’t upset Miss MacDonald or you’ll ruin the Queen’s day.’
On board the Royal Yacht, where she was known as ‘The QE3’, Bobo had her own cabin, which would be locked and never used by anyone else if she was not on board.
The most senior members of the entourage and of the government would defer to Bobo, while also enlisting her help.
One former Private Secretary chuckles at the memory of a tricky moment ahead of a grand dinner in Canada.
‘The Queen said that she didn’t want to wear a tiara as it would mean having her hair done all over again. Unfortunately, the Canadians were expecting the full works,’ he recalls.
‘Someone said: “Talk to Bobo.” So, I did and I remember she said: “Och, my wee small girl’s getting spoiled!” That sorted it out.
‘And sure enough, the Queen came down to dinner looking a million dollars.’ For much of the reign, it would be Bobo who mapped out the day- dresses, ballgowns and jewellery for every step of every royal visit. No matter how illustrious the dress designer, if ‘Miss MacDonald’ did not like something — or someone — then
the outfit was doomed. On the first post-Coronation world tour, Bobo was responsible for more than 100 dresses, including the Coronation dress itself, which the Queen would wear three times.
In the air, Bobo’s domain was the royal ‘dressing room’, the largest compartment on the aircraft, sealed off from the rest of the plane behind a curtain.
Former Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett remembers the first time she and her husband Leo found themselves on a royal flight. ‘My husband was impressed by the speed with which the Queen changes outfit,’ she says.
‘There’s this place at the end of the plane and she disappears in to it and — zip-zip-zip — out she reappears in a completely different outfit for a different event.’
As for the aeroplanes on which those quick-changes were made, the Queen is the only G7 head of state without her own dedicated aircraft and has relied on the Royal Air Force or the charter market for most of her overseas trips, whether long or short.
FOR example, when the Queen and Duke set off to France on their 1972 state visit, they had the front quarter of the RAF VC10 Mk 1, with a C-shaped sofa on the starboard side and a four-seat dining table to port, plus a galley and bar and screened-off fold-out beds on either side of the aisle.
As well as reconfiguring the layout to give the Queen and the Duke some extra space, any chartered plane required two extra items: a full-length mirror and a medallion depicting St Christopher, the patron saint of travellers. The Queen has never been a great fan of air travel, particularly helicopters.
The monarch, who stole the show at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics by ‘jumping’ out of a helicopter with James Bond, much prefers fixedwing aviation.
This is despite the fact that two of her sons and two of her grandsons (Princes Charles, Andrew, William and Harry) all served as professional helicopter pilots.
At the time of her 2012 Diamond Jubilee, the Queen announced that she too would be taking things more slowly, at least when it comes to travel.
Leaving long-haul flights to other members of the family, she will be focusing on the diplomatic duties she has always carried out closer to home.
Over the years she has welcomed more world leaders to the UK than any of her predecessors, including many U.S. Presidents. There has always been a special bond between the Queen and the occupants of the White House although, as I will explain tomorrow, the relationship has had its share of dramas and mishaps.
AdApted from Queen Of the World by Robert Hardman (Century, £25). © Robert Hardman 2018. to order a copy for £20 (offer valid until September 20, 2018; p&p free), visit mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640.