Official biography queen mother sports

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It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face. Though the King and Queen spent the working day at Buckingham Palace, partly for security and family reasons they stayed at night at Windsor Castle about 20 miles 32 km west of central London with their daughters. The palace had lost much of its staff to the army , and most of the rooms were shut.

After the resignation of Chamberlain, the King asked Winston Churchill to form a government. Although the King was initially suspicious of Churchill's character and motives, in due course the royal couple came to respect and admire him. Elizabeth's political views were rarely disclosed, [ 81 ] but a letter she wrote in described Attlee's "high hopes of a socialist heaven on earth" as fading and presumably describes those who voted for him as "poor people, so many half-educated and bemused.

I do love them. During the royal tour of South Africa , Elizabeth's serene public behaviour was broken, exceptionally, when she rose from the royal car to strike an admirer with her umbrella because she had mistaken his enthusiasm for hostility. In March , he had a successful operation to improve the circulation in his right leg. In September, he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

However, after a meeting with Prime Minister Winston Churchill, she broke her retirement and resumed her public duties. In July , she undertook her first overseas visit since the funeral when she visited the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland with Princess Margaret. Elizabeth oversaw the restoration of the remote Castle of Mey , on the north coast of Scotland, which she used to "get away from everything" [ 99 ] for three weeks in August and ten days in October each year.

Although contrary to rumour she never placed bets, she did have the racing commentaries piped direct to her London residence, Clarence House , so she could follow the races. In February , Elizabeth had an emergency appendectomy, which led to the postponement of a planned tour of Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji until Contrary to rumours which subsequently spread, she did not have a colostomy.

Her bouts with cancer were never made public during her lifetime. During her widowhood, Elizabeth continued to travel extensively, including on over forty official visits overseas. The British ambassador and his wife, Anthony and Sheila Parsons, noted how the Iranians were bemused by her habit of speaking to everyone regardless of status or importance, and hoped the Shah's entourage would learn from the visit to pay more attention to ordinary people.

In , Elizabeth was rushed to hospital when a fish bone became stuck in her throat, and had an operation to remove it. Being a keen angler , she calmly joked afterwards, "The salmon have got their own back. In , Elizabeth was criticised when it emerged that two of her nieces, Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon , had been committed to a psychiatric hospital in Redhill, Surrey , in because they had severe learning disabilities.

Elizabeth said that the news of their institutionalisation came as a surprise to her. In her later years, Elizabeth became known for her longevity. Her 90th birthday—4 August —was celebrated by a parade on 27 June that involved many of the organisations of which she was a patron. Her quick admonition of "That's mine! On 1 August , Elizabeth had a blood transfusion for anaemia after suffering from mild heat exhaustion, though she was well enough to make her traditional appearance outside Clarence House three days later to celebrate her st birthday.

In December , aged , Elizabeth fractured her pelvis in a fall. Even so, she insisted on standing for the national anthem during the memorial service for her husband on 6 February the following year. On 13 February , Elizabeth fell and cut her arm in her sitting room at Sandringham House; an ambulance and doctor were called, and the wound was dressed.

Nevertheless, she flew to Windsor by helicopter, and so that no photographs of her in a wheelchair which she hated being seen in could be taken—she insisted that she be shielded from the press [ ] —she travelled to the service in a people carrier with blacked-out windows, [ ] [ ] which had been previously used by Margaret. On 5 March , Elizabeth attended the luncheon of the annual lawn party of the Eton Beagles and watched the Cheltenham Races on television; however, her health began to deteriorate precipitously during her last weeks, after she retreated to Royal Lodge for the final time.

Her surviving daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, was by her side. She was the longest-living member of the British royal family at the time of her death. Her surviving sister-in-law, Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester , [ ] exceeded that, dying at the age of on 29 October Elizabeth grew camellias in each of her gardens, and before her flag-draped coffin was taken from Windsor to lie in state at Westminster Hall , an arrangement of camellias from her own gardens was placed on top.

On the day of Elizabeth's funeral, 9 April, the governor general of Canada , Adrienne Clarkson , issued a proclamation asking Canadians to honour Elizabeth's memory that day. In London, more than a million people filled the area outside Westminster Abbey and along the mile 37 km route from central London to Elizabeth's final resting place in the King George VI Memorial Chapel beside her husband and younger daughter in St George's Chapel.

Known for her personal and public charm, [ 18 ] Elizabeth was one of the most popular members of the royal family , [ ] and helped to stabilise the popularity of the monarchy as a whole. Elizabeth's critics included Kitty Kelley , who falsely alleged that she did not abide by the rationing regulations during the Second World War. They're all like us.

In his official biography, William Shawcross portrays Elizabeth as a person whose indomitable optimism, zest for life, good manners, mischievous sense of humour, and interest in people and subjects of all kinds contributed to her exceptional popularity and to her longevity. Sir Hugh Casson said Elizabeth was like "a wave breaking on a rock, because although she is sweet and pretty and charming, she also has a basic streak of toughness and tenacity.

As we arrived in a solemn procession the students pelted us with toilet rolls. They kept hold of one end, like streamers at a ball, and threw the other end. The Queen Mother stopped and picked these up as though somebody had misplaced them. Oh, could you take it? She knows instinctively what to do on those occasions. She doesn't rise to being heckled at all; she just pretends it must be an oversight on the part of the people doing it.

Official biography queen mother sports

The way she reacted not only showed her presence of mind, but was so charming and so disarming, even to the most rabid element, that she brought peace to troubled waters. Elizabeth was well known for her dry witticisms. On hearing that Edwina Mountbatten was buried at sea, she said: "Dear Edwina, she always liked to make a splash. After being advised by a Conservative minister in the s not to employ homosexuals, Elizabeth observed that without them, "we'd have to go self-service".

Elizabeth's habits were parodied by the satirical s television programme Spitting Image. She launched the ship on 27 September in Clydebank , Scotland. Supposedly, the liner started to slide into the water before Elizabeth could officially launch her, and acting sharply, she managed to smash a bottle of Australian red over the liner's bow just before it slid out of reach.

In March , Elizabeth's eclectic musical taste was revealed when details of her small record collection kept at the Castle of Mey were made public. Her records included ska , local folk, Scottish reels and the musicals Oklahoma! Elizabeth's coat of arms was the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom in either the English or the Scottish version impaled with the canting arms of her father, the Earl of Strathmore ; the latter being: 1st and 4th quarters , Argent , a lion rampant Azure , armed and langued Gules , within a double tressure flory-counter-flory of the second Lyon ; 2nd and 3rd quarters, Ermine , three bows stringed paleways proper Bowes.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. Queen of the United Kingdom from to Not to be confused with Elizabeth II. Portrait by Richard Stone , George VI. The Queen Mother's funeral carriage. The coffin was draped with her personal standard , shown below.

Titles, honours and arms. Thomas Lyon-Bowes, Lord Glamis 4. Charlotte Grimstead 2. Oswald Smith 5. Frances Smith