The Queen Mother (144 page)

George Bell’s successor at Canisbay Church, the Rev. Alex Muir, found the Queen Mother interested in church affairs and always keen to discuss the hymns and the sermons. He thought that she had ‘a very strong and genuine faith, which I’m sure has been a great support to her. She loves to worship God.’
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Muir had a guitar which he not only played in the pulpit but brought to dinner at the Castle. The Queen Mother encouraged her guests to sing along with his hymns and songs, which included a Glasgow street favourite (here Martin Leslie’s wife Catriona, who knew the song, was the only one to join in), ‘Ye Cannae Shove Yer Grannie aff a Bus’.
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Britannia
’s visit was a high point every summer. The Queen would start her annual holiday aboard, sailing around the Western Isles and then around the north coast of Scotland before disembarking finally at Aberdeen. This was one of the most cherished breaks of the year for both the monarch and her family.

The yacht anchored off Scrabster, the nearest port to Mey, and the family came ashore and motored over to the castle. There Queen Elizabeth laid on a splendid lunch, with
Oeufs Drumkilbo
usually on the menu. Then the Queen would often lead a party down to the beach to clean up rubbish and make a bonfire. Sometimes there was croquet on the lawn. After tea the yacht party returned to Scrabster. Then in the early evening the local coastguards would bring to the Castle all the time-expired maroons and flares from the north of Scotland which
they would let off as the yacht steamed past on its way to Aberdeen.
Britannia
and her escorting frigate would reply with fireworks while the Mey party lined the Great Wall of Mey and waved dog towels, tea towels and handkerchiefs.

It became a habit for the Queen and her mother to exchange doggerel over ship-to-shore radio, via the Coast Guard. One year came these words from the yacht, to be sung to the tune of ‘O Worship the King’:

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A
T THE END
of her summer holiday at Mey, Queen Elizabeth would travel 180 miles south to her other Scottish home, Birkhall, hidden in the trees of the Balmoral estate and lulled by the waters of the River Muick rushing beside it. Here she spent several weeks every year in spring and in early autumn. It is an attractive house, a typical Scottish lodge built of stone, harled and painted white. The front door faces east, is approached by stone steps and has a canopy above it supported by tree trunks painted ‘Balmoral grey’.

In the mid-1950s the Queen paid to have the house extended for her mother; a corrugated-iron-roofed extension was torn down and in its place was built a drawing room and a wing of bedrooms – single rooms for bachelors on the ground floor and doubles above. A round tower containing a staircase connected the old and new wings. Arthur Penn played a large part in redesigning and redecorating the house at that time. After it had been completed, it was realized that no provision had been made for a downstairs gentlemen’s lavatory. Penn helped devise such a closet space under the tower staircase and Queen Elizabeth performed an opening ceremony in which the lavatory was filled with flowers from the garden and she declared it open by pulling the chain and saying ‘I name this “Arthur’s Seat”.’
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The house is on raised ground, surrounded to the north by trees. The grass terrace on
the south side sweeps down to a typical Scottish garden, with rows of vegetables between gravel paths and flower borders.

Birkhall had its own particular smell which, to those who visited often, had its own poignancy. It was the aroma of juniper twigs burned on the fire, mingled with the scents of roses and sweet peas which filled the house in the early autumn. There was the smell of smoking lavender too, from the incense burner which William Tallon would swing as he walked down the corridors to summon the guests for dinner. The house breathed warmth, life and laughter, according to one frequent guest.
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Features of Birkhall’s earlier days remained: the tartan carpets, and the extraordinary collection of Spy and Ape cartoons of famous Victorians and Edwardians, left to the house by a former occupant and courtier, Sir Dighton Probyn VC.
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They lined the main corridor and the stairs, providing guests with endless subjects of conversation. Queen Elizabeth added her own works of art – many of her Seago paintings were hung in the drawing room and dining room, and Kathleen Scott’s sensitive sculpture of King George VI stood near the entrance to the drawing room. In the dining room, bronze figures of Highlanders running, tossing the caber, putting the shot and throwing the hammer stood on the sideboard and sometimes on the dining table. The walls were lined with Queen Elizabeth’s collection of eight grandfather clocks – an echo of her youth, for the dining room at Glamis was also full of clocks. She enjoyed pointing out to guests their different characters. The cacophony when they chimed – which was seldom precisely together – interrupted conversation to comical effect.

Queen Elizabeth liked to go to Birkhall in May for the fishing and because it afforded her a complete re-run of spring. Long after the daffodils at Royal Lodge had withered, their northern cousins on the banks of the Dee were beginning to emerge from winter sleep. There was still snow on the slopes of Lochnagar, and the river teemed with life as the salmon forged upstream in search of spawning places. In a crevice on the rock face opposite the Polveir pool there was a dipper’s nest, and every year Queen Elizabeth took great pleasure in observing the movements of the parents and wondering how they were raising their young.
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At her Scottish homes, Queen Elizabeth often wore aged blue
tweed jackets and tartan skirts and a blue felt hat with a sprig of heather and a feather held in place by a badge containing a cairngorm stone. She called such clothes ‘old friends – you never get rid of old friends’. Everywhere she went she was accompanied by the latest in many generations of corgis.

She did not believe there was much purpose in having guests in the Highlands unless they took advantage of the great outdoors. After lavish traditional breakfasts, guests were supposed to be usefully employed either shooting on the hill, fishing or walking. She leased Corndavon moor from the Invercauld Estate next to Balmoral for many years, as the King had done.

A particular feature of her shoots was the tradition, followed from 1965 to 1974, of having student beaters from St Andrews and Aberdeen Universities. There was no shortage of applicants for a month on the moors. Michael Briggs, one of the students from St Andrews, recalled the sheer sense of fun she displayed. ‘One of her favourite little things was to glance across at Lochnagar and say, “Isn’t Lochnagar looking beautiful today?” And then she would bend down and say, “Isn’t Lochnagar beautiful, even upside down!” She would have us in stitches because you knew she was going to do it.’ At the end of the month, Queen Elizabeth always gave a cocktail party for the student beaters. ‘The last time, we all presented her with a crystal rose bowl. I had to give a little speech and one of her wonderful friends, Mr Dick Wilkins, came up to me afterwards and said, “I saw a tear in Her Majesty’s eye when you were speaking.” ’
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The Corndavon lease ran out in 1974 and she decided not to renew it. Instead she took individual days on the hill when she had a house party that was particularly dedicated to shooting. From now on the focus of many of her guests shifted to the river. Queen Elizabeth had fished most of her life, at first mainly for trout. Salmon fishing became a passion in the second half of her life. Her ghillie at Balmoral, Charlie Wright, said of her, ‘she was a good fisher, she had good casting and was excellent at playing a fish. She liked catching fish herself, but she was even happier if her guests did so.’
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Evening fishing was much favoured at Birkhall. Once Queen Elizabeth was out very late and came back in the dark carrying, in triumph, a twenty-pound salmon. ‘This is what kept me,’ she declared.
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She continued fishing in her favourite pools on the Dee until her early eighties.

Her other passion, which she indulged particularly at Birkhall, was
for eating outside. Picnics there, as at Mey, could take place in high winds and even snow. She had favourite picnic places, which included the old Schoolhouse by the Gairn and the lodge at Loch Callater which, though dank, had magnificent views. The fare was generous; good drinks, little sausages from Ballater, prawn croquettes,
Oeufs Drumkilbo
, asparagus – for starters. Then game or chicken pie, cold lamb cutlets, ham or cold beef, with baked potatoes wrapped in foil. In especially bad weather, picnics’ could be held in the porch or even in the drawing room. Queen Elizabeth liked the informality and the sense of adventure involved. Picnics, she also claimed, were easier on the staff. Perhaps some were.

Back at the house there was tea to be taken in the drawing room, which featured an old gramophone with long-playing records of such old favourites as the Crazy Gang, and an equally aged television set for watching videos (rarely if ever the news). Ruth Fermoy would play the piano and Queen Elizabeth sang the old favourites – ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ or ‘The Lambeth Walk’.

Often she played Racing Demon, with no holds barred. Frances Campbell-Preston wrote, ‘She enjoyed winning.’ She considered herself devilishly good at the game and she did usually win – not only because of her skill but also because other guests worried that they might be asked to catch the midnight train south if they won too often. Almost everyone understood that. The Duke of Atholl, another competitive card player, did not. When, at the end of one evening, it appeared he had not won, he asked that the scores be counted once more. The discomfited equerry did so; it then seemed that the Duke had indeed scored the most points. It was a pyrrhic victory. He was not asked again.
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As time went by, the evenings became quieter – fewer singsongs and games of cards, more videos, usually
Dad’s Army
or
Keeping Up Appearances; Fawlty Towers
was another favourite. But the hostess insisted on dancing Scottish reels with her guests until the very end of her life.

Guests at Birkhall felt they had been happily transported into a world without time or travail. One of them, Sir Pierson Dixon, wrote of ‘the charm and rhythm of life’ there, and thanked Queen Elizabeth for thrilling hours on the moors’, for lunches by the river, and for Lucullan dinners’, quizzes and games. He had been refreshed and enlightened by his experience, and although he was now far away, ‘in the mind’s eye Birkhall is close and brilliant.’
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