The book is full of interesting snippets of information, such as how the dress designer Norman Hartnell made the Queen Mother a special air-raid gown and a velvet gas-mask case and JP Morgan sent her a food parcel from America in 1942. A surprising footnote tells us that she told Sir Isaiah Berlin that "wholly fearless men are often boring", instancing various Victoria Cross holders, including General Freyberg. One wonders if she felt that about Guy Gibson, to whom she presented the VC after the Dambusters Raid in 1943, while the King was in Malta. One fearless man who undoubtedly interested her was Charles de Gaulle, "something of a favourite with her". Of course she admired his courage during the war, but she particularly liked his magisterial "Non" of January 1963, which kept Britain out of the Common Market.
So what of the broadcaster Ed Stourton's recent claim that the Queen Mother was "a ghastly old bigot"? It is true that during her visit to Toulouse in 1989 she said that she would like to meet Jean-Marie Le Pen, who was holding a rally there at the time. She was probably joking, however, and enjoying the consternation she knew her request would cause the British Embassy in Paris. Anyhow, Shawcross goes on to state, "Although conservative in her own views, she was worried by the tendency he represented."
Generally, she exercised the sound, unobtrusive judgment one would expect of a consort in a constitutional monarchy. It was she who, in addition to Queen Mary, prevented the name of the royal family being changed from Windsor to Mountbatten in 1952. As Harold Macmillan noted, "Of course, she favours the name of Windsor and all the emphasis on the truly British and native character of the Royal Family." She hated Prince Charles being educated at Gordonstoun — "he might as well be at school abroad", she said, and it would be "an alien world" where he would be "terribly alone & cut off" — but Prince Philip's views prevailed.
Who can now doubt that the Queen Mother was right to prefer Eton, where Prince Charles would have been closer to friends, family and civilisation?
The Queen Mother was not going to allow her tragically early widowhood to affect her material comforts and in 1953 she told the Queen that she felt she ought to maintain "a certain standard, such as large motor cars and special trains, and all the things that are expected of the mother of the sovereign". There will be few readers of this fine book who will not wholeheartedly agree.
