Why the Queen Mum couldn’t bear to hear the National Anthem on TV
. . . and how George V left her black and blue, as revealed in the latest uproariously indiscreet diaries of society writer Kenneth Rose
FEW people knew as many of the great and good as Fleet Street diarist Kenneth Rose. But he saved his juiciest stories for his private journals — about to be published for the first time. In our first extract on Saturday, he told how the Duke of Windsor, the former king, blamed Jews for dragging Britain into World War II. Today, Rose reveals the intimate secrets of the Queen Mother . . . DECEMBER 30, 1954
DIne at the Beefsteak with Harold nicolson [author and diplomat, married to novelist and gardener Vita Sackville-West]. Full of most excellent stories.
When Queen Mother came to lunch at Sissinghurst in Kent, H & Vita went to great trouble — gold and silver plate, wines, liqueurs, flowers, etc. Queen Mother later told Tommy Lascelles [former private secretary to herself and George VI] that she had enjoyed it all very much
‘What I particularly liked was that the nicolsons had gone to no special trouble for me — it was just like a cottage meal!’
MAY 17, 1956
SMALL dinner party in my flat. Martin Gilliat [private secretary to the Queen Mother] has some amusing gossip — how she hates being asked to take a decision and will dig in her toes the more she is pressed; how perfectly poised she always is at public occasions; how she spends many of her evenings watching television; and how she would love to live in Marlborough House.
FEBRUARY 2, 1958
SAW Martin Gilliat at Clarence House, on the eve of a six-week Commonwealth tour with the Queen Mother.
He showed me a most interesting document he had prepared for her. It was divided into two columns.
One showed the engagements to be done in each town on the tour. By the side of this, in the second column, were shown the engagements she did 31 years ago in the same towns when Duchess of York.
It explains why the famous ‘royal memory’ is so often admired.
JANUARY 12, 1961
DIne at Pratt’s [gentlemen’s club] and have much talk with Ralph Anstruther, who recently became Treasurer to the Queen Mother. He says that the Royal Family simply do not think of themselves as ordinary people nor imagine why their private lives can possibly be of interest to the public.
APRIL 16, 1962
In THe evening, Martin Gilliat in for a drink. He talks of the Queen Mother’s solitary evenings at Clarence House, where she hardly ever has guests in the evening or goes out to dine. She eats alone and watches TV. One of the things though she does like is gossiping about racing with friends such as [racehorse trainer] Peter Cazalet.
APRIL 8, 1963
AT KeMPTOn Park races recently, the Queen Mother was not pleased when a television was put on in the box to see a football match.
Then the TV started to play the national Anthem. ‘Oh do turn it off,’ said the Queen Mother. ‘It is so embarrassing unless one is there — like hearing the Lord’s Prayer when playing canasta.’
JULY 21, 1963
I HeAR that when Oliver Dawnay [the Queen Mother’s former private secretary] was in the Royal Household, the Queen Mother suggested he should have a grace-and-favour house in Windsor Great Park.
Dawnay and his wife went to see it. It was a huge barracks of a place, so they came back and told the Queen Mother they did not think it would be quite suitable.
‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I knew it would be too small.’
OCTOBER 26, 1963
TOMMY LASCeLLeS says the Queen Mother is terribly Tory in her views. So was her husband when Duke of York.
He would not have J.R. Clynes, Labour Home Secretary, in the house when Princess Margaret was about to be born at Glamis, as custom then dictated.
When Clynes came over officially for the birth, the Duke is reputed to have said: ‘Give him a glass of wine in the housekeeper’s room.’
FEBRUARY 3, 1964
JAMeS POPe- HenneSSY [a biographer] tells me that the other day he had the Queen Mother to tea. She was enjoying herself so much that she lingered, and he managed to get rid of her only five minutes before the Windsors [the Duke of Windsor’s abdication in 1936 forced her husband to become King George VI] arrived for drinks.
That indeed would have been an encounter.
APRIL 11, 1964
POPe-HenneSSY tells me a story which came to him from the Queen Mother.
When the King died in his sleep in 1952, she broke the news to little Prince Charles. She explained that when the valet had taken in the King’s tea that morning, he had found the King dead.
Prince Charles listened gravely to the news, then enquired: ‘Who drank the tea?’
DECEMBER 17, 1967
WHen Konrad Adenauer [German Chancellor, 1949- 1963] came to england on an official visit, he had tea at Clarence House, and the German ambassador Hans von Herwarth interpreted.
Herwarth had to interpret so hard, he tells me, that he had no time either to eat or drink. So the Queen Mother, noticing this, popped a biscuit into his mouth with her own fingers.
JULY 21, 1976
STAYInG at Boughton House [in northamptonshire] for a party. The Queen Mother is among the guests. I tell her that I am writing a book about King George V, at which she shows much interest, even enthusiasm.
‘The King was always sweet to me,’ she tells me. ‘But he simply could not bring himself to praise his children. The Duke of Gloucester once came to dine after being away for six months, but arrived a minute or two late. All that the King said to him was: “You’re late, as usual.” ’
MAY 6, 1977
TO CLARenCe HOuSe at 12.15 to talk to the Queen Mother. In the drawing room, good French furniture and masses of tulips. The Queen Mother simply dressed in a flowered blue frock with hardly any jewellery. As always, that wonderful smiling welcome.
I begin by asking about King George V’s discouraging attitude towards his children. The Queen
Mother rather plays down this side of the King’s character, emphasising that he was essentially a victorian parent, weighed down by a sense of duty: ‘even the slightest departure from custom would annoy him.
‘i remember a storm at breakfast once because the Prince of wales was wearing hunting boots with pink tops.
‘he was always angelically kind to me, but then i was never frightened of his gruff ways. he had an obsession about punctuality, and if ever he had to wait for somebody he would stamp about furiously.
‘one reason why he got on so well with his Labour ministers was his early life at sea — weevily biscuits and all that sort of thing. it made it easy for him to understand how other people lived.’
At this point, i say: ‘his attitude towards the Labour Party was all the more remarkable in that he was a conservative in all other things — perhaps i should say a conservative with a small “c”.’
Queen Mother: ‘i think that most of us are! of course, the Labour ministers in those days were not the same as today — or even, between ourselves, as they were in the King’s day, my King that is. Zest for life: The Queen Mother enjoying a pint in 1987 They were not intellectuals.’ t ll t l ’ Th The Queen Mother’s summing up of King George v: ‘he stood for duty and integrity. Those things are born in one. That is why it was so resented when the Prince of wales took himself off [abdicated].’
As i take my leave, i hear her use the word ‘spiffing’. Did ever a woman in her eighth decade enjoy life so much!
MAY 12, 1977
i TALK with Martin Gilliat about the Queen Mother’s generous style of living, which she continues in the face of all difficulties, particularly expense and scarce servants.
Princess Margaret likes to propose herself to lunch quite often and then the Queen Mother feels she must have some amusing guests. But Princess Margaret often falls into long melancholy silences, which do not add to the success of a luncheon party.
As long as the Queen Mother is ali alive, e nobod nobody, not e even en that restless reformer Prince Philip, attempts to curb her financial exuberance.
JANUARY 12, 1978
i heAR the story of the Queen Mother watching on television the burial at sea of edwina Mountbatten and sa saying: ing ‘ of course, dear edwina always wanted to make a splash.’
JUNE 26, 1978
The Queen Mother tells me on General de Gaulle: ‘when he went back to France at the end of the war, he said that the King and i were w the only two people in england la who had been nice to him.’
FFEBRUARY 16, 1979
MARTin M GiLLiAT to dine. we discuss di the Jeremy Thorpe case [the [t former Liberal leader was about ab to go on trial for conspiracy to murder his friend norman Scott. he h was later acquitted].
Martin tells me that the Queen Mother never knows how Jeremy is s going to behave [when he dines at clarence house] and this makes he her uneasy.
MARCH 31, 1979
M MMARTin chARTeRiS [Provost of eton and the Queen’s former private secretary] tells me that h John Bratby once came to p paint the Queen Mother at c clarence house.
She said afterwards: ‘ he kept as asking some odd questions — ab about the size of the dry martinis an and about the footman coming in to put coal on the fire. you know, i do don’t believe he had ever been in an ordinary house before.’
AAPRIL 24, 1979
To T cLARence hoUSe at 2.30 for fo another talk with the Queen Mother. M Two corgis accompany her: he one friendly which licks my hand, h the other unpredictable, which w i am warned not to touch. we launch at once into our talk on King George v.
‘it is not true to say that he inm‘ T inspired fear in his children; it was more a sense of awe,’ she says. ‘The upbringing of children in th those days was very severe everywhere. w when my husband went to osborne [Royal naval college] as a naval cadet, it was real torture.
‘when the King was convalescing at Bognor [in 1929], he said he th thought David [later Duke of w windsor] would never take over fr from him. we were astonished, and ha hardly understood what he meant.’
This leads us on to some talk ab about the windsors. ‘i am afraid David never liked anything english, though he missed it all af afterwards [he moved to France af after the abdication],’ she says.
on the Duchess of windsor: ‘w ‘when i was last in Paris i tried to see her, but she was guarded by a dragon and i was told she saw nobody.’
i mention all the evidence i have found that the King felt both nervous and inadequate. She replies: ‘i suppose every Sovereign
feels nervous and inadequate: the task is so overwhelming.’
When she speaks of the King’s insistence on the correct clothes, even down to the last button, i say: ‘What a lot of time seems to have been spent in changing one’s clothes in those days. i have read that one even changed for tea at sandringham.’
the Queen Mother: ‘Well, we still do change for tea at sandringham!’
she loved her father-in-law’s jokes. But they had an unfortunate consequence. ‘ as he told his stories, he would bang you on the arm. By the end of a visit, it would be black and blue.’
By now it is about 1.30. We lunch at a round table in the small dining room. We have a hot creamy egg and cheese dish, chicken in a tomato sauce with mashed potatoes and courgettes; black cherries and an ice cream (i receive a surprised glance on declining the big silver jug of cream) and cheese. it is served by three men in livery.
the claret is in an enchanting jug, shaped like a bird, with the beak as its spout, ruby eyes and claw feet. the Queen Mother tells me she saw it in a catalogue.
We talk about politics. she makes no attempt to conceal her strong conservative sympathies.
On Margaret thatcher, she is whimsical, particularly about the troubles she has with her voice, but her remarks stop just short of disparagement.
she thinks ted Heath has behaved disgracefully in refusing to say a nice word about Mrs thatcher. ‘if only he had a wife to tell him how to do things in the right way.’ she adds: ‘ He never listens to what i am saying — i can see his eyes wandering. the only time i have ever seen him entirely at his ease was when conducting a children’s concert.’
she is upset about the revolution in persia [iran] which has removed the shah and led to the slaughter of his supporters. she will always be grateful, she adds, to have seen persepolis and shiraz before the shah’s regime collapsed.
then in more playful mood: ‘What if such a thing were to happen here . . . i suppose Dickie [Mountbatten] would be the first to be shot.’
On suez she says: ‘ the americans let us down. they usually do. it is the same in ireland. We can’t abandon the people in the North who are so loyal to us.’
When i say i have never accepted [former leader of the British Union of Fascists] Oswald Mosley’s claim not to have encouraged violence or anti- semitism, she taps the table and agrees with considerable vehemence: ‘He did, he did.’
What is the secret of this astonishing woman, who attracts more affection than any other living person in the kingdom? Who is on the verge of entering her 80th year yet displays boundless energy? Who is utterly un-intellectual, yet captivates those who are with her with a phrase and a smile?
First, genuine warmth and gaiety of spirit. second, an interest in all that goes on round her.
third, entire self-control: she is never taken unawares or embarrassed or in doubt. Fourth, i suspect, is a determination not to brood on the past, but rather to enjoy every present moment.
EXTRaCTED from Who’s In, Who’s out: The Journals of Kenneth Rose Volume 1, 1944-1979, edited by D.R. Thorpe, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson on November 1 at £30. Copyright © The Executors of the Estate of Kenneth Rose, lord Waldegrave and Marie-louise Spencer Hamilton 2018. Editorial matter © C.D.R. Thorpe. To buy this book for £24 (20 per cent off), call 0844 571 0640 or go to mailshop.co.uk/books. offer valid until November 6, 2018, P&P is free on orders over £15. Spend £30 on books and get free premium delivery.