the Queen Mother (the Official Biography) (2009) by Shawcross William

Author:Shawcross, William [William, Shawcross,]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-03-26T18:08:13+00:00

At one communal feeding centre, there was a moment, noted Woolton, at which 'a very dirty child' in its mother's arms grabbed at the Queen's pearls. A photographer ran around trying to get a picture but she had just moved away. Woolton, standing behind the Queen, murmured to her, 'Your Majesty, you've broken a press man's heart.' 'Without showing the slightest sign that she had heard,' Woolton recorded, 'she moved back into position for the baby again to play with her pearls, and so that the pressman could take his photograph. The incident was, in fact, the only thing recorded in the press!'136 Woolton appreciated the simplicity of both the King and Queen. 'They were so easy to talk to and to take round, and fell so readily into conversation with the people whom they were seeing, without any hesitation or affectation, or side. They were, in fact, very nice people, doing a very human job.'137*

That certainly was the impression they gave. After their trip to Bermondsey, the Chairman of the National Council of Girls' Clubs, Mrs Walter Elliot, wrote to the Queen's lady in waiting, 'Everyone in Bermondsey believed that Her Majesty came to see them because she had heard that there had been a direct hit on a shelter, and had wanted to help them. It is impossible to over-estimate what this visit has meant ... The people felt as if an angel had passed through their midst. This must have been said often before, but it was the literal truth.'138

From Chicago the Queen received a poem which began:

Be it said to your renown

That you wore your gayest gown

Your bravest smile, and stayed in Town

When London Bridge was burning down,

My fair lady.139

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