Woman of the century reaches her own

I apologise in advance to readers for the fact that this column is not related to Australian political events.
I’m writing this after arriving back from almost two months in the Mother Country where the undoubted highlight of my visit was attending several events to celebrate the 100th birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother.
As a frequent visitor to the UK, mostly accompanying Australian Prime or Foreign Ministers, I was fortunate to meet the Queen Mother on many occasions.
Over the years we have become, dare I say it, friends.
In fact I always send her birthday and Christmas cards and her Assistant Under-Equerry always replies and passes on her kind thoughts in return.
So, when the chance came to fly to London to see her on an occasion as special as her 100th birthday, I naturally jumped at the chance.
Without wanting to sound immodest, I have come to know a great deal about this magnificent woman and the celebrations of which I was fortunate to be a part offered a chance to reflect on her mighty contribution to her own country and the citizens who are still proud to have been part of its far flung Empire.
Before recounting my most recent meeting with the Queen Mother, I offer a little bit of history from my own researches as well as from my conversations with the world’s favourite Royal.
The Queen Mother was born Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon on 4th August 1900.
She was immensely proud of her father, Lord Glamis - later the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne – and his achievements.
According to the Queen Mother, one of her father’s greatest achievements was inventing the now standard pose of all landed gentry - standing with legs apart, back to the fire with thumbs in his waistcoat fob pockets, or one thumb if smoking a pipe.
The much-copied pose, was first unveiled in May 1887 at a ball held especially for the occasion at the Bowes-Lyon family’s country house, St Paul’s Waldenbury in Hertfordshire. It soon caught on.
A later attempt by Lord Glamis to patent the pose and collect royalties for its use was unsuccessful.
To this day, the Queen Mother is bitter about that and blames the then left-leaning government.
As a child, she was educated at the family home, Glamis Castle in Scotland. Her father – a progressive man by the standards of other British nobles – was only too aware of the damage such a solitary education could inflict on a young girl.
Therefore at the beginning of every school year, he bought 14 other children from nearby villages to act as young Elizabeth’s classmates.
At year’s end, he would host a grand party for all the children before they were traded or sometimes on-sold to other aristocrats who had themselves begun to see the merits of such an enlightened approach to their own children’s home education.
When the as yet unnumbered World War started Glamis Castle was turned into a hospital.
Lord Glamis – again with an eye to his daughter’s sensitivities – ordered the maimed and dying quartered in the stables.
Lady Elizabeth spent many hours visiting and comforting the “patients” her father had bought.
She once told me it was during this period she perfected what she described as her defence mechanism – a kindly smile, gentle tilt of the head, a short fixed gaze into the subject’s eyes, and a short remark usually of just two or three words.
These traits, she explained, were her way of dealing with people who bored her or on whom she felt spending any length of time in real conversation was a waste of time. It allowed her, she confessed, to get away from someone quickly while still giving the impression the other person had had a meaningful encounter with her.
Throughout her childhood and early adult years, the Bowes-Lyon family were often visited by the then King George V and Queen Mary.
From her childhood days Lady Elizabeth and her sisters had been friendly with the children of the monarchs, including her future husband, Albert the Duke of York.
Bertie – as she told me she affectionately called him – was a shy man with a pronounced stutter.
In January 1923 she and Prince Albert announced their engagement. The Prince finished announcing it just in time for the wedding three months later in Westminster Abbey.
She once described that time in her life as idyllic.
In the years that followed, they had two daughters, Princess Elizabeth, born in 1926 and Princess Margaret, born in 1930. They traveled extensively – including a six-month world tour in 1927 during which they officially opened Australia’s new Parliament House in Canberra. They represented the King and Queen at such important annual events as St Emily’s Regurgitation, Mauthe Dog Day and the Scalding of the Beggars. The Duchess even wrote a children’s book, Chopper the Budgie – now a collector’s item.
But all that was to change suddenly.
King George V died in January 1936. Prince Albert’s brother, Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, assumed the thrown as King Edward VIII.
But the new King’s affair with American divorcee, Wallis Simpson, and the British Establishment’s refusal – quite rightly in my view – to sanction a marriage between the two resulted in his abdication in December the same year.
The Duke and Duchess were proclaimed King – he took the name George VI - and Queen Elizabeth and their coronation took place in May 1937.
The new King and Queen had assumed roles they never sought. The new King, in particular, was devastated at the sudden weight of responsibility that had fallen on his shoulders through – what he rightly believed to be – his own brother’s immaturity and irresponsibility.
The new Queen knew her shy and stammering husband was fearful of the task ahead.
Wallis Simpson bore the brunt of the new Queen’s displeasure which she never attempted to hide.
In private moments she still refers inexplicably to Mrs Simpson as “the Brooklyn Tunnel”, even though she hailed from Baltimore.
But I digress.
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were soon admired as the very essence of modern royalty and inspired the entire Empire, especially during the Second World War.
Some years ago I got the Queen Mother talking about those days, largely to no avail.
She pretended to know little or nothing of the terror and hardships endured by all in Britain at the time, although she did admit to being bombed every night.
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth reigned until 1952 when the King, sadly, died of lung cancer - a condition his doctors blamed on excessive smoking over most of his life, but which the Queen Mother to this day blames on Wallis Simpson.
Since that time she has, quite rightly, grown to become the most admired royal in the world.
She has always inspired love and affection in the hearts of all who know her – humble admirers such as me - or even those who know just a little of her life.
So it was with great eagerness that I stood for 14 hours outside the gates of Buckingham Palace a few weeks ago just to catch a glimpse of her on the balcony when she appeared to greet thousands of her loyal subjects.
That mere glimpse would have been enough for me, but little did I know I would come face to face with her again as she emerged from the palace to indulge in one of her now famous royal walkabouts.
Suddenly there she was not three feet from me.
I felt her eyes land upon me and the faint but growing recognition in her eyes as I said: “Your Majesty, it’s me, Rufus.”
Then it happened.
A kindly smile, a gentle tilt of the head, a steady gaze into my eyes and then, before she moved on, the words I’ll remember forever: “Fancy that.”

Rufus Badinage MBE, now retired, is one of Australia’s leading
experts on politics and public administration having worked as a
senior bureaucrat for various state and federal governments.