The Queen Mother (154 page)

Queen Elizabeth was appalled by the news. Shortly afterwards the Queen, with Princess Margaret and her children, came to join her at Polveir. ‘Everyone horrified – deeply distressed,’ her lady in waiting recorded in the diary.
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Prince Charles was told the news in Iceland; he was overcome by the loss of the man he described that night in his journal as ‘a combination of grandfather, great-uncle, father, brother and friend’.
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He flew back to Scotland to grieve with his family.

On 4 September the Queen Mother, together with the Queen, Princess Margaret and the Prince of Wales, took the train to London together for Lord Mountbatten’s funeral in Westminster Abbey next day. It was a grand and stirring event; Mountbatten had meticulously planned every moment himself.

A few days later she gave tea at Birkhall to the new Conservative Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Mrs Thatcher had recently returned from the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in Lusaka, which had threatened to end with a disastrous breakdown between Britain and black African states over the Rhodesian issue. In fact it ended in success – the Lusaka Accord set up a new constitutional conference in London to resolve the future of Rhodesia.

The views of the two women on this occasion are not recorded, but both were believed to have sympathy for the white minority settlers. In a prompt thank-you letter, Mrs Thatcher wrote that it had been a great pleasure to talk to the Queen Mother about Rhodesia; she reported that the first day of the constitutional conference ‘went all right – thanks to our British calm and refusal to be put out by the posturing of the “Patriotic” Front’.
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But the views of the Front were largely accepted; in fairly short order, the conference agreed the end of white-settler rule, a new constitution, free elections and the creation
of a new independent state, to be named Zimbabwe, under an elected black majority government.

At their Birkhall tea Queen Elizabeth had given the Prime Minister a silver brooch, which Mrs Thatcher told her she would always treasure.
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The two women also shared a belief in the greatness of Britain and the important role that the monarchy played in the cohesion of British society. Margaret Thatcher was resolved to reduce the role of government in both the public and private sectors, and her government was the first since 1945 seriously to question state provision of services. This meant that the importance of voluntarism, which the monarchy had always championed, was now being recognized once more in government.
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Queen Elizabeth had a habit, much enjoyed by her friends, of raising or lowering her glass in dinner-table toasts. For those of whom she disapproved, such as some socialist politicians, ‘The Dear Old Liberal Democrat Mixup Party’ (as she referred to the merged Liberal and Social Democrat Parties) and the Forestry Commission (which she blamed for planting too many ugly conifers on pristine Scottish moors), she would propose a toast of ‘Down with …’, while lowering her glass out of sight below the table. For those she favoured the toast was more traditional, with the glass held up. ‘Up with de Gaulle’ was one. For Mrs Thatcher, the glass was always high.

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I
N THE YEAR
of Queen Elizabeth’s eightieth birthday an important new building and an important new relation came into her life.

The year began badly, at least as far as her horses were concerned; in fact they had been a ‘disaster’ recently. The problem with jumpers, she used to say, was that one always had to wait a long time to discover how good they would really be ‘& one’s hopes are always high’.
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So disappointment would be all the greater. As she told the Queen in a thank-you letter after her usual New Year’s stay at Sandringham, Upton Grey had swollen hind legs, Rhyme Royal had a cough and was very stiff, Special Cargo (one of her best horses) was better but not ready to run, Cranbourne had run well, but got stuck in the mud, Queen’s College kept falling about – all in all she was despondent.
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Later she wrote to the retired trainer, Cecil Boyd-Rochfort, that she had had a bad season – ‘Nothing but legs and backs etc, so must hope that next season they will be more
healthy! It is very difficult to find a decent horse at a decent price nowadays.’
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Throughout this period her own legs were continuing to give her pain. Ischaemic damage, sometimes caused by the paws of affectionate corgis, was one of the principal and most painful ailments from which she suffered. In London she saw the royal physician, Sir Richard Bayliss, before going to Royal Lodge with Princess Margaret and Elizabeth Elphinstone. She remained there until after the annual service in memory of the King, in the Royal Chapel on 6 February.

One great sadness in the early part of 1980 was the death of Lady Doris Vyner. They had been intimate friends for more than sixty years and Lady Doris was the last real link to Queen Elizabeth’s youth. Queen Elizabeth arranged a memorial service for her in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace, after which she gave a lunch at Clarence House for the family.
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In May she travelled north as usual for her fishing fortnight, although this year she stayed at Craigowan, in the grounds of Balmoral Castle, as the Queen was having a new kitchen built at Birkhall as her birthday present to her mother. The Queen and Princess Margaret were well aware that their mother’s homes all became a little tired as the decades passed, because she hated to spend money on furnishings, redecoration or even maintenance. From her sixties onwards she would say, ‘I won’t be around much longer. It’s not worth it. Guests enjoyed shabby lino in the bathrooms, frayed curtains and damaged lampshades in the bedrooms. Sometimes when she was away her daughters would have chairs re-covered in identical material so that she would not notice anything had changed. When the Queen gave her mother a new carpet for the drawing room at the Castle of Mey it had to be indistinguishable from the one it replaced.

Queen Elizabeth’s house parties in Scotland were more prolonged and more spontaneous than the musical weekends at Royal Lodge. As time went by, Birkhall seemed increasingly like another world, totally separated from modern Britain. Some visitors found it quite magical, almost like walking through the wardrobe door into Narnia. The same guests returned year after year; as a rule only death ended their annual invitations. Among the early regulars were John and Magdalen Eldon, good friends over many decades, he a remarkable naturalist, she a great beauty and one of the few female members of Queen Elizabeth’s Windsor Wets club; the Sutherlands, the Linlithgows and
Billy Fellowes, the retired agent from Sandringham, and his wife Jane; they were the parents of the Queen’s Private Secretary in the 1990s, Robert Fellowes. Dick Wilkins, her ebullient and witty stockjobber friend, was often invited though he was not a great sportsman. He would go fishing with a ghillie and tended to sit on the bank until the ghillie caught something, whereupon he would seize the rod and, if lucky, reel the creature in. His account of his triumph at dinner would be splendid.

For her eightieth birthday her friends and members of her Household had decided to combine the pleasures of moor and stream and eating alfresco; they clubbed together to build her a log cabin at Polveir. On the morning of Saturday 17 May the presentation ceremony took place.

The beauty and excitement of the spring day was sadly dashed by a telephone call. Queen Elizabeth’s beloved niece, Elizabeth Elphinstone, had died of a heart attack during the night. The news was broken to Queen Elizabeth by her nephew, Fergie Strathmore, who with his wife Mary was to have driven Elizabeth to Birkhall. According to Mary Strathmore, There was a long pause on the line after Fergie told her. Then Queen Elizabeth said, We have to go ahead. We can’t let everyone else down.’
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It was a terrible shock – Elizabeth Elphinstone had been a bridesmaid at her aunt’s wedding to the Duke of York and the two women had always been close; the difference in their ages was only eleven years and they were more like sisters than aunt and niece. Her sudden death cast a dark shadow over an otherwise lovely day, particularly for the Queen Mother. But Queen Elizabeth refused to allow her own sadness to diminish the pleasure of others. She was driven the short distance from Birkhall through the dappled Caledonian pines along the river to Polveir and was happily surprised to find there such a large gathering of friends from far and wide.
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She was presented with the key to the cabin in a box wrapped in birthday paper and tied with a large bow. Entering for the first time, she found it fully furnished with a long table and chairs all ready for lunch. She admired the chimneypiece, which had been built with local stone by
two craftsmen as their last job before retirement. A long and lively lunch ensued, though Elizabeth Elphinstone was missed throughout that day, and beyond.

The new cabin quickly became a much loved spot. Queen Elizabeth sent dozens of thank-you letters to all those friends who had contributed to its cost. It had ‘settled in most happily between the river and the pine trees, and I have spent many blissful hours there, in fact I cannot think what we did before it arrived,’ she wrote.
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From now on she used it on holiday after holiday, year after year for the rest of her life. If only because it was warmer than the huts and old Victorian cottages often used for picnics, her guests appreciated it too, particularly if, with the passing of the years, they felt the cold on the moors or in the river more acutely. (Picnics at Mey, by contrast, remained draughty.)

Her equerry Ashe Windham recalled that after breakfast at Birkhall he would telephone Queen Elizabeth in her room and she would ask, ‘What is the fishing like today?’ Often he would reply, ‘Not so good, Ma’am, but it’s a lovely day for a picnic.’ ‘What a good idea,’ she would reply. ‘Let’s go down to the old Bull and Bush’
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– her name for the cabin. The staff from Birkhall would light the wood-burning stove and bring down lunch. For the Queen Mother this would often start with a gin and Dubonnet; she and the guests would sometimes cook little sausages from Ballater on the stove. A fish mousse and cold meats would follow and the picnic would often end with the jam-puff exercise. Guests were expected to slice off the top and fill the brittle pastry with cream before manoeuvring it into their mouths. Old hands would put a drop of cream in the bottom; newcomers tended to be more enthusiastic with their helpings and covered themselves with cream.

Until she was no longer able to do so, Queen Elizabeth, invariably dressed in her beloved blue kilt skirt, blue coat and blue hat, would walk part of the way back to Birkhall, supported latterly by two sticks. She insisted she needed them only for balance, which was sensible enough since she was so small and frail that it seemed the slightest gust could blow her over. Once home she would sit on one of the two seats built into the wall on either side of the porch talking to her guests as they arrived after ambling back from Polveir.

T
HE FORMAL
celebrations for her eightieth birthday in August gathered pace throughout the year. She was touched by the suggestion of the Dean of St Albans that a carving of her head be placed in the porch of the Abbey to commemorate her birthday.
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She was happy for the British Gladiolus Society to name a new seedling after her but asked that it be called Queen Mother rather than Queen Mum.
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The Zoological Society gave her 4,000 tickets for London Zoo and Whipsnade, which were distributed among thirty of her charities connected with children. The Queen gave a party at Windsor Castle, a joint celebration for Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke of Beaufort and her mother. Among the guests were some of Queen Elizabeth’s hosts and hostesses from France – she was pleased because the news ‘will whizz round France (or rather Paris!)’.
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Lady Fermoy and Sir Martin Gilliat took her to see Noël Coward’s
Private Lives
at the Duchess Theatre on 11 June. Two weeks later Dick Wilkins gave her a birthday dinner at the Savoy to which the Queen, Prince Philip and Princess Margaret also came. In July she attended two days of celebrations in Edinburgh, after which she returned to the south for a tour of the Cinque Ports based in
Britannia
.

The Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, now elderly and unwell, wrote a poem which he described as ‘late and tired Tennyson’; but as he told Martin Gilliat, ‘I wanted to make a personal tribute to a wonderful friend and a thanksgiving for the spreading oaks and hospitality of Royal Lodge and that ground floor bedroom and those church services with the family and the young thereof. In the fourteen-line poem, the Laureate began:

He was not sure whether the lines should be published, and indeed they did not do him justice, but he was pleased when Gilliat told him that Queen Elizabeth would like them released for her birthday.
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On 15 July her birthday was marked by a thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral. She drove with Prince Charles in an open carriage to the service and massive crowds cheered her along the route. It was a moment to reflect on the remarkable role she had played since the death of the King in personifying the continuity of monarchy. For almost thirty years she had devoted her personality and her energy to the support of her daughter, her country and the institutions she loved. In his tribute, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, spoke appositely: The Queen Mother has shown a human face. Royalty puts a human face on the operations of government.’ The Prince of Wales put it another way, writing to her afterwards, ‘You give so many people such extraordinary happiness, pleasure & sheer joy.’
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