Now we can look the East End in the face.

A great aunt of mine, long gone now, was a nanny to a landed family and took her charges to Buck House for birthdays, apparently there was a lot of gossip amongst the nannies about QEQM and the way staff were treated. Who knows such a long time later, attitudes were so different from now.

My father was always most uncomplimentary about the Queen Mother, but, being young, I never thought to ask him why. Another of those questions you wished you’d asked and didn’t.

Think she has to take the blame for not letting him marry Camilla in the first place.

SiobhanSharpe

I’ve also heard less than favourable things about the late QM -that she was a crashing snob for one and was far from the ‘sweet old lady’ image.
Her parents dangled her front of George VI (before he was king) and she was not that keen on him, he wasn’t too bright and had a bad stammer. (And she was keener on the more glamorous brother Edward, who became king and then abdicated.) However, she was persuaded.

She never wanted to be Queen, just privileged, so set her cap at the "spare".

Squiffy, I think glinting eyes are considered as eyes of steel.

‘An iron fist in a velvet glove’ is one description of the QM.

Yes, looked all sweetness and light, but underneath a shrewd, astute, calculating woman, who was most definitely the power behind her husband’s throne.

And probably her daughter’s too, for a good few years.

What book is it Floradora9? I don't think the Mass Observation records are particularly negative about the role of the King and Queen in wartime.
My mother and baby sister were bombed out of their home in Croydon in one of the first air raids of 1940. They were evactuated to a cottage 5 miles from Biggin Hill and witnessed the Battle of Britain overhead.

I grew up in the East End, never heard a bad word against the Royal Family. However, those who lived through the war may have a different story.

Willsden got bombed (North London) my Mum’s Uncle was killed.

Isn't it odd how, now the Blitz is long gone, there is a kind of competitiveness about who suffered the worst? It wasn't just the East End that got it. I was born in North London just after WW2 and the whole area was sprinkled with bomb sites. The blast from a doodlebug outside our house brought the hall ceiling plaster down on Mum's head (a direct hit would probably have killed her). My ma-in-law in Birmingham was shot at by a German plane while out walking to the shops with my b-i-l in his pram. Yet we weren't anywhere close to the prime bombing targets. In the 1950s, in spite of the we-could-take-it-and-we-did attitude, it was clear even to a child just how badly affected the survivors were. Many cities suffered horribly, as did some rural areas where German planes jettisoned their leftover bombs on the way home. I can understand how the East Enders (especially those near the docks) would have scoffed at the Royals pretending they were all in the same boat.

There are always uncharitable stories about those who for one or other reason are in the public eye. I honestly do not think any of us can really judge if, or how many of these tales are true and which are rumours.

We all have celebrities we like, and others we cannot abide - uncharitable but true.

Usually, these likes and dislikes are based on either the view taken of them in whichever source of News we read, or on our family and friends' views.

So really we should agree to differ on this sort of thing.

M0nica

I had to look at my calendar and check the date. I thought it might be the Glorious 12th (August) when the shooting season begins, but obviously I got the seasons wrong. You shoot H and M during the silly season and the QM, when the evenings start drawing in.

😁
What about the King and Camilla? Is it open season on them yet?
I like Camilla and can imagine having a glass of wine and a chat with her, but am not all that keen on him tbh he seems an easily irritated type.

Squiffy

My DM used to say that the QM’s eyes weren’t twinkling, they were glinting! 😆 No idea what she based that on!

It’s what I heard over the years, the QM was a hard woman and not the sweet pleasant type at all.

paddyanne the Scottish aristocracy chose to be born in London because that was where all the good Scottish doctors were, the rest stayed and practised medicine in their native country.

It’s the old story of the haves and have nots, a bitter pill when you’re hungry, homeless and 4 of your 9 children have died before their first birthday. I watched the rerun of Barbara Windsor on Who do you think you are last night, ohhhh the poverty is heartbreaking. My daddy’s family were brought up in a convent and were inches away from the work house 🥲

I had to look at my calendar and check the date. I thought it might be the Glorious 12th (August) when the shooting season begins, but obviously I got the seasons wrong. You shoot H and M during the silly season and the QM, when the evenings start drawing in.

My London family were so patriotic and so pro monarchy it made me sick ! They could do no wrong as far as they were concerned. Grandma was from the East End originally.

Always disliked the QM, heard too many unpleasant things about her. Of course none of us will ever know the real truth about this gossip but I choose to believe.

My father loathed QEQM and said that Lady Di was a cut of the same jib - hard as nails, unkind and/or thoughtless of the general populace…

Craig Brown’s book on Princess Margaret is brilliant on all this. Manages to be illuminating, honest about their ‘behaviours’ yet still affectionate. And very funny!

and all they themselves had suffered was some damage to a wall

Buckingham Palace was bombed 16 times during the war. The palace itself was struck.
It’s easy for us to criticise the intentions of a royal visit to the East End during the Blitz.
Obviously it was intended to raise morale and wearing furs and finery was what they did. Nowadays they are not so hidebound by protocol and failure to ‘read the room’ can have disastrous consequences.
I’m sure the QM was no Angel and could be spiteful and self serving but she was loved by many, especially the King and a lot of those who served her.

I too, have heard that the Queen Mother could be a wicked soul. I don’t think she was the “sweet” granny type, but I have no doubt she lived all of her family.

I also truly believe she was very angry that her daughter became Queen at such a young age. I too read she had to be virtually dragged out of Buckingham Palace. 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

Whingey I m with you on that one. I always felt she knew just what she was doing and I didn’t see her as the innocent she was portrayed as.
However that’s off topic, Queen mother I didn’t rate either wasn’t she a bit of a drinker. However I m not a royalist so guess I wouldnt

She wasn,t Scottish despite the claim.Not o ly was she born in London but BOTH her parents were too.
Most “Scottish” aristocrats were English born amd educated ,Scottish estates usually were a gift from kings for deeds against Scotland .
A parcel of rogues as Burns called them.
There isn’t much love for any of them in my part of the world.

Did they?
That was a move and a half.