The Queen Mother (136 page)

Other charities with which she was long involved have already been mentioned – such as the Royal Foundation of St Katharine in Ratcliffe, another of the patronages in which she succeeded Queen Mary. Then there was Cumberland Lodge, in which she had invested so much hope for the spiritual improvement of graduates when the foundation was set up after the end of the war. Through the decades the College, while retaining its belief in Christian ethics, came to provide a relaxed but also challenging environment in which different groups of people could meet to look beyond their own disciplines to the wider issues affecting society.

Queen Elizabeth kept in close touch with the Lodge, its recurrent financial problems and its development. Since it was so close to Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, she often visited. At the time of her eightieth birthday the then Principal, Walter James, wrote that the work she had done for Cumberland Lodge ‘is, it is fair to say, the most striking contribution to university life made by a member of the Royal Family this century’.
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Her interest in Cumberland Lodge never flagged, and in 2001 she agreed to the naming of two new fellowships – the King George VI Fellowship and the Queen Elizabeth Fellowship – at the Lodge. Her involvement remained personal as well as institutional, and many who attended sessions at Cumberland Lodge found themselves invited to meet her at Royal Lodge. The preacher to Harvard University, Peter Gomes, attended one such occasion. ‘Tell me, Professor Gomes,’ she said, as he sat down beside her, ‘do you give them good news from the pulpit? I do so like good news on a Sunday.’
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(After her death
Professor Gomes preached at a memorial service held for her in Boston.)

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has pointed out, the monarchy’s links with the armed services go back to the days when the sovereign himself led his troops into battle. Those days are gone, but the sovereign is still the head of the armed forces, and successive monarchs have been careful to maintain the connection, visiting their forces, taking a close interest in military appointments and reforms, and sending their sons to serve in the army or navy.

An important element of this relationship is that of the honorary appointments, particularly in the army, which the monarch has either held in person or has delegated to other members of the Royal Family. These provide powerful personal links. An admired figurehead as colonel-in-chief or honorary colonel gives great encouragement to a regiment, boosting cohesion and morale; if the figurehead is royal, the effect is enhanced. Visits, parades, the presentation of colours, messages of congratulation or encouragement and an active interest in the affairs of the regiment, all help foster the vital sense of the regiment as a family, and its inherent pride in itself.

Female members of the Royal Family are almost always sought for such tasks, and Queen Elizabeth was particularly well qualified. The daughter and sister of army officers, she had seen her brothers go off to war and experienced the anxiety and loss this can bring to families; she had also got to know and like ordinary soldiers in the convalescent hospital at Glamis, and had seen the effects of war on them. She was imbued with the spirit of service in which she had been brought up and saw the military ethos as an absolutely essential part of what it meant to be British.

It is hardly surprising, therefore, that she took a close and persistent interest in all the regiments of which she became colonel-in-chief or honorary colonel. She did whatever was expected of her – visits, messages, presentation of colours or guidons,
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receiving commanding officers on change-over. But her individual style showed itself in such thoughtful gestures as sending Canadian violets to a Canadian regiment which found itself in Britain and facing war for the first time, in 1941,
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or encouraging commanding officers to write to her with news of the regiments. She assiduously read and commented on their letters and even regimental annual reports. There was a pattern: she was invariably in favour of whatever gave regiments and other units their individuality and sense of identity, whether uniforms, badges, rank titles or – most especially – territorial connections. She deplored the loss of these through the reductions and mergers which happened increasingly in her later years as one government after another cut down on British military spending. She maintained that the old county names were very valuable in recruiting and that uncertainty created by successive strategic reviews was terrible for morale. As for the sacrifice of regimental bands, that was ‘a real disaster … such a stupid way to economise’.
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The first regiment of which she was appointed colonel-in-chief was the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI); this was in 1927, and she visited them at their depot at Pontefract in 1928. That year she approved the affiliation of KOYLI with the Saskatoon Light Infantry (to which she presented colours during the Canadian tour of 1939) and a further link with the 51st Battalion of Australian Infantry. She kept in touch with the regiment by holding periodic at-homes for officers.

With the reorganization of the infantry in 1967, it was decided that KOYLI should be amalgamated with the Somerset and Cornwall Light Infantry, the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry and the Durham Light Infantry to form the Light Infantry. The Queen Mother accepted the appointment of colonel-in-chief of the new regiment in 1968, with Princess Alexandra, who had been colonel-in-chief of the Durham Light Infantry, as her deputy. She was as conscientious as always in following the regiment’s affairs, visiting them, presenting colours, reading and annotating their annual reports.

She nevertheless kept up a special link with ‘her’ former regiment, KOYLI. In June 1997 she attended a luncheon at Claridge’s given by the Officers’ Club to mark the seventieth anniversary of her becoming their colonel-in-chief. This was followed by another such lunch in June 2000, her last KOYLI engagement.

Of all the regiments with which she was involved, one of the most important to her was, as we have already seen, the Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), in whose ranks three of her brothers had served and one, Fergus, had been killed in 1915; her nephews Timothy Bowes Lyon (Patrick’s second son) and John Elphinstone served in the
regiment in the Second World War. The Queen was appointed colonel-in-chief just four days after the Coronation in May 1937, and later that year she became patron of the Black Watch Association as well. In December 1937 the senior officers of the regiment presented her with a regimental brooch which she wore on all Black Watch occasions.

She followed the regiment’s fortunes closely during the war, and successive colonels of the regiment wrote to keep her informed. She was, as we have seen, distressed by news of the capture of almost the entire 1st Battalion during the Dunkirk evacuation in June 1940, but she recognized the need to remain positive and sent an encouraging message to the Colonel of the regiment, welcoming the proposal to re-form the 1st Battalion.
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In November 1941 the Queen addressed the 6th Battalion, which was about to leave for North Africa, at Danesbury Stables in Stock-bridge. She congratulated the men on their ‘splendid bearing’. She trusted that ‘it may not be long before you return safely to your dear ones at home, with your task accomplished, and duty nobly done.’
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In his letter of thanks General Wauchope, who had succeeded General Cameron as colonel, wrote: ‘It may interest Her Majesty that the two phrases they most appreciated were: that she hoped that they might soon return to their families & homes
after
they had accomplished their task: that when they were abroad, she would often wear the Black Watch brooch, and whenever she did she would think of the 6th Battalion.’
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In February 1944 she visited three battalions in one day at camps in Buckinghamshire – the 1st, 5th and 7th, all of which had been in action in North Africa and had contributed to victory at El Alamein. The three battalions were soon to be among the forces taking part in the Normandy landings.

Her concern for the Black Watch continued throughout the postwar years – particularly when cutbacks were imposed. Again and again, she visited units in Berlin, in Northern Ireland, in Scotland – taking salutes, lunching with the officers and taking part in cherished ceremonies. On the sixtieth anniversary of her appointment as colonel-in-chief, in September 1997, she made a forty-minute helicopter journey from Birkhall to visit the 1st Battalion at Fort George in Inverness-shire. Her last engagement with the regiment was her attendance at the 3rd (Volunteer) Battalion Drumhead Service and luncheon afterwards
at Glamis Castle on 20 September 1998. Now ninety-eight herself, she made the one-and-a-half-hour drive from Birkhall to Glamis; in the afternoon the old colours which she had presented in 1975 were ceremonially escorted off the parade ground, to be laid up in Glamis Castle.
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Her attention often had a remarkable effect on regiments. In July 1937, as recently appointed colonel-in-chief of the Queen’s Bays, the Queen visited them at Aldershot, just two months after the Coronation. The commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel E. D. Fanshawe, wrote, ‘Ever since Her Majesty’s appointment as Colonel an entire change has taken place. Now, after her visit on Saturday, I have no fear for the future. She has done more good than it is possible to imagine.’
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During the war the Queen’s Bays served with distinction with the Eighth Army in Egypt against Rommel.

Throughout the war the Queen was sent reports and letters by the Colonel and by commanding officers, who told her of actions in which the regiment had been engaged and its successes and losses. In his reply to one such letter, Arthur Penn wrote in April 1942 that the Queen shared their sorrow at their losses and their anxiety over men missing in action and that ‘direct news is always extremely welcome.’
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The news was not always serious. ‘The Queen has learnt with interest’, Arthur Penn wrote to the commanding officer in 1943, ‘of the arrangements you are contemplating for Christmas and hopes that the pigs, which have made a fresh addition to the booty already credited to your Regiment, may provide a satisfactory substitute for the turkeys who have failed to put in the appearance which is generally considered the principal justification for their existence.’
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Thirteen years later, in 1957, Queen Elizabeth was informed of the decision to amalgamate the Queen’s Bays with the King’s Dragoon Guards. She was again dismayed and Martin Gilliat wrote to the Colonel saying, ‘I have had an opportunity of showing your letter to the Colonel-in-Chief, and I feel that no words of mine are needed to emphasise how sad Queen Elizabeth is that amalgamation should have been ordained for the Regiment.’
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It went ahead, however, and she paid a valedictory visit at Tidworth on 1 November 1958. The new regiment was named 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards and she inspected and addressed it on a number of occasions, both at home and overseas, throughout the decades to come. Her involvement was unfailing through the Gulf War in the early 1990s and up until the
year before her death. When the commanding officer sent her his annual report in January 2001 – a four-page document covering all aspects of regimental activities – she could barely see to read. But she clearly still cared and wrote on it, ‘How can a Regiment function with only 300 men?’
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That November she received the new commanding officer of the regiment for the last time.

The Royal Army Medical Corps came under her care after the death in 1942 of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, Queen Victoria’s third and longest-lived son. Succeeding him as colonel-in-chief, the Queen first visited the corps depot at Boyce Barracks, Crookham, in December 1943. To commemorate the Golden Jubilee of the corps in 1948, these barracks were renamed after her. Thereafter she kept in touch with the affairs of the RAMC through periodic reports, and regularly exchanged messages with them.

In 1947 she became colonel-in-chief of the 7th Queen’s Own Hussars. In 1958 they were compelled to merge with the 3rd King’s Own Hussars and she became colonel-in-chief of the newly formed regiment, called the Queen’s Own Hussars. She kept in constant touch with them too and sympathized with them over the continual cuts imposed upon them. On one of the regiment’s annual reports she wrote, ‘How well all these Regiments cope with such difficult modern circumstances.’
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With the Hussars she showed her concern particularly with regard to their horses. In 1974 when told that Crusader, their drum horse, was to be retired, she sought another for them. The Crown Equerry, Sir John Miller, who was in charge of the Royal Mews, found a suitable horse belonging to the St Cuthbert’s Co-operative Society in Edinburgh; the price was £300. The regiment accepted him with pleasure and named him Dettingen. When, in 1988, Dettingen had to be destroyed, she found a replacement with the Crown Equerry’s help. It was a great occasion when she presented the new drum horse, Peninsula, to the Colonel and commanding officer of the regiment in her own garden at Clarence House on 4 May 1988.

The regiment amalgamated with the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars in 1993 to become the Queen’s Royal Hussars (the Queen’s Own and Royal Irish), and, despite her sadness, Queen Elizabeth agreed once again to become colonel-in-chief. In June 1997, just a few weeks before her ninety-seventh birthday, she travelled in the royal train with the
Duke of Edinburgh, who was deputy colonel-in-chief, to present a new guidon to the regiment at Cambrai Barracks at Catterick in Yorkshire. She slept aboard the train and next day she and the Duke inspected the regiment in a Range Rover. The old guidons were marched off, the new one consecrated, and Queen Elizabeth made a short speech congratulating the regiment.
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After meeting past colonels and others, and lunching in the officers’ mess, she and the Duke flew back to London. Many of the officers and men marvelled at the stamina and will of their colonel-in-chief. It was not yet exhausted: in November 1999 she attended the regimental reception in St James’s Palace, and her last engagement with the regiment was to receive the commanding officers at Clarence House on 22 February 2001.