The Queen Mother (120 page)

83.
Queen Elizabeth patting her horse, Devon Loch, for good luck before the Mildmay Memorial Cup at Sandown Races in January 1956.

84.
With the jockey Dick Francis at Windsor Races in January 1969.

85.
Backstage at the Royal Ballet with Margot Fonteyn, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon.

86.
Progressing through the Melbourne suburbs, Australia 1958.

87.
The Queen Mother in Rotorua, New Zealand, talking to Maori women after a performance of their Poi dance, May 1966.

88.
On tour in Canada in 1967.

89.
With the Duchess of Kent at the needlecraft stall at Sandringham Women’s Institute Flower Show, 1978.

90.
Celebrating St Patrick’s Day with the Irish Guards at Windsor Barracks, 17 March 1980.

91.
A birthday lunch in the gardens of Clarence House, 1984. Left to right: Lt. Col. Sir John Miller (Crown Equerry), Ruth, Lady Fermoy (lady in waiting), the Prince of Wales, Queen Elizabeth, Lord Maclean (Lord Chamberlain).

92.
With the chefs of the Hôtel de la Réserve in Albi, May 1989.

93.
A farewell lunch at the Château de Saran with the Comte de Chandon, after touring the cellars at Möet & Chandon while on holiday in France in 1983.

94.
Queen Elizabeth at the pageant to celebrate her hundredth birthday.

Q
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LIZABETH
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sense of loss was beyond description. She and the King had lived so much as one, their love had been so deep, that the sudden separation was a physical as well as a spiritual shock. Grief engulfed her.

She had given the Duke of York what he had always longed for, a happy family life. As his wife, she had dedicated herself to him. She had enabled him to transform himself from an unconfident young man into an active and effective working member of the Royal Family. She had given him confidence and social grace. She had helped him control his temper and his debilitating stammer. After the horror of the abdication she above all had given him the courage to carry the unwanted burden of kingship. In the war she had been his equal partner in sustaining the people of Britain throughout the six long years of suffering. Afterwards she had supported and calmed him through the difficult, austere years of social change. And then she had devoted herself to his care in his extended series of illnesses. The King always talked of his family as ‘We Four’. But, within ‘We Four’, ‘We Two’ were the closest of all.

Those nearest to Queen Elizabeth saw more clearly than the world at large that it was a relationship of mutual dependence. It has become a commonplace to say that, without her, the King could never have become ‘the great and gallant King he proved to be’, as a friend in later life observed. ‘But perhaps what is not so widely known is the fact of her great reliance on him, on his wisdom, his integrity, his courage … How deeply she must have missed him and what courage it took for her to continue, alone, the work they had done so magnificently together.’
¹
From a charming, vivacious, aristocratic but unsophisticated girl, she became a much loved queen. It was as ‘the
King and the Queen’ that they had become the symbols of British defiance and victory during the war. Now she was alone.