The late Queen Mother was always an enigma to me, she would appear regularly on balconies and platforms with her family, all dressed up like extras from “Oh what a lovely war” and then vanish again until the next state occasion, not a bad life though, three squares a day and a substantial roof over your head, if it’s good enough for the inmates of ‘Barlinnie’ and ‘The Scrubs’ then it’s certainly good enough for the Royal Matriarch. It was probably a wee bit more expensive to pay for her than an inmate of the ‘Bar L’ but, think of the life time’s service she gave, cutting ribbons, attending Ascot, waving at crowds etc. What made her such a mystery to me was that even now I can’t remember ever hearing her speak and being the inquisitive fellow that I am I have often thought about that and still do.
An old friend of mine who has sadly now passed on told me a story about her which was told to him by a friend and it dated from his time on National Service. He was stationed at some castle where the Queen Mum was in residence and in pleasant weather she would sit outside reading or having a ‘swallie’ with friends. Soldiers regularly passed by where she was seated and were obliged to salute as they passed. Some soldiers on seeing that she was sitting with her back to them or engrossed in a book would pass without saluting, not a great sin you would think but, unknown to them she had a strategically placed mirror which allowed her to note those who didn’t salute and they were duly dragged over the coals when she reported them, what jolly good fun eh? Another mystery about this gracious lady was her wealth or lack of it, I remember reading on her demise among all the sycophantic grovelling in the press that she had died £6M in debt! How in the “name of the wee man” did she manage that?
A recent news story however has perhaps discovered why she was so reticent, possibly she was muzzled, censored, made to button her lip as it were. The BBC presenter Edward Stourton, himself from a ‘silver spoon’ background has described her as “a ghastly old bigot” and guilty of harbouring the prejudices which have caused conflicts in Europe in the past.
In an interview with Stourton she described our close European Allies as “huns, wops & dagos” he went on to say, ”I thought that what she had said was nasty and ugly” Oh dear dear me, when I wrote about the royal family before and the prejudice which is part of their lives I was attacked for it, perhaps the Queen Mum is just an example of what a dissolute artificial life, with no grasp of reality can lead to.
I do know this, my own grandmother was part of my life for Approx. 30 years and I never once heard her use such language, I never once heard her disparage anyone because of their colour, race or creed, is it any wonder her royal family have turned out the way they have, despite the wealth and the fame I am glad that the Queen Mum was not my grandmother, the one I had was just fine.
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26 comments:
'A friend told me a story told him by someone else' and 'Ed Stourton thinks the QM is a nasty bigot' and Mad Sad Kelly takes it as written in stone because it agrees with his preconceived prejudices.
Personally I don't give a flying fig if she did say Huns etc. I often say much the same, but in her case,it comes under the heading of different times, different ethos.
Additionally, the Dear Lady had seen the Hun ravage Europe in two world wars and lost relatives in both of them,so a wee touch of animosity is understandable.
Back under your stone Kelly.
Using hearsay to confirm your anti-royal prejudices, whatever next Councillor.
Oh well, stupid is as stupid does.
(Macnasty) 15/11/08
“Additionally, the Dear Lady had seen the Hun ravage Europe in two world wars and lost relatives in both of them”
So did my grandmother but she managed to show some dignity, it’s down to breeding I suppose.
“Back under your stone Kelly”
Like a true idiot you never seem to tire of getting beat up over this, rather than being under a stone I hide from no one, I am easy to find and I like it that way, it makes it easy to deal with cowards who hide behind anonymity and talk tough, like ? go on have have a guess.
(DanielDravot) 08:47
You can either trust someone or not trust them, or, like a grovelling serf you can accept the line that says Royalty = goodness, honesty, courage and the ability to leap tall buildings at a single bound.
“stupid is as stupid does” - Absolutely.
Good for a lad to be proud of his Granny.
Unlikely that the pride was reciprocated
Cllr Terry Kelly said...
(Macnasty) 20:13
I KNOW IT’S RATHER OBVIOUS BUT SO ARE YOU. This is the version that you choose to support, nothing more.
Friday, November 14, 2008 8:27:00 PM
Dear Terry,
How true, how very true
You have reached a new low here Councillor, using dead people who are unable to defend themselves, to promote your anti-royal bile.
Shame on you.
My great aunt came from a working-class family from the Wirral, worked as a nurse in foreign climes and later worked at the large ICI plant in the industrial black hole called Runcorn. None of the biographical detail changes the fact that she was as racist as you like, and wasn't afraid of vocalising her dislike of people with 'a touch of the tarbrush about them', as she liked to say.
In short, she was a nasty old goat, but she definitely didn't have a "dissolute, artificial life". Perhaps racial prejudice isn't a class thing? Alf Garnett's relationship to the means of production was pretty intimate, after all...
(Anonymous) 16/11/08
Prince Charles and the rest of the Royal free loaders were proud of their Granny weren’t they? Is that because they share her bigoted views I wonder.
(Macnasty) 16/11/08
Even people like you are entitled to their opinions.
(Templeton Peck) 09:11
Don’t talk such sanctimonious bull dung. Do your knees ever get sore with all that crawling ?
(Nick) 13:21
I don’t recall saying that racism was a class thing, I agree on that.
As for your great aunt, you can pick your friends etc. you have my sympathy.
Kelly said: ..."as if using injured and dead veterans of wars isn’t bad enough you now want to exploit the serving military, just how low can you get ?"
Your hypocrisy is there for all to see. You castigate those who criticise the government's lack of funding for the military with comments such as the one quoted above, and accuse them of lies. Yet you are quite happy to use hearsay about a dead woman to pour bile on the royals.
Lying and hypocrisy, it's what Labour does best.
"I don’t recall saying that racism was a class thing..."
Of course not. We all know how much you hate the Jews.
(Templeton Peck) 08:13
“you are quite happy to use hearsay”
Here’s something to put the royals and those who use the lack of funding of the military as an excuse to attack the Govt.into perspective, and it’s not hearsay.
Prince William and Prince Harry are quite happy to swan around in military helicopters at a cost of £86,000 so they can attend stag nights and show off to their girl friends, what does that say about them and their attitude to military equipment, I call it arrogant and damned unpatriotic, what do you think ?
(Daniel Dravot) 08:15
I try very hard not to hate anyone but, I don’t always succeed.
I never consider a person’s race, creed or colour when dealing with them, it is however a handy crutch for some people when they can’t find an argument, like you for instance.
In case you need reminding, I do have serious issues with Israel, not Jews.
Councillor, you have resorted to Gordon Brown's tactic of providing a non-answer.
Criticise William and Harry all you like, at least they are alive to defend themselves.
(Templeton Peck) 15:52
So, we must not criticise anyone who is dead? That’s an awful lot of villains off the hook then right?
“tactic of providing a non-answer”
I will make allowances for you as you are clearly not up to this, I asked you for your opinion on the Royal Parasite Princes, using expensive military equipment as toys while people are complaining about a shortage of equipment for real soldiers.
You don’t seem to have answered, perhaps you forgot.
Terry
William behaved like a pillock and I suspect HM and Phil told him so.
Now then, agreement over, a Labour peer wants the Church of England to be 'disestablished.'
The peer in question is Lord Desai, who hails from the sub-continent and is an atheist.
What's his game then?
"You don’t seem to have answered, perhaps you forgot"
Refer to my previous post...you may criticise them all you like, they are alive to defend themselves. Unlike the Queen Mother who is no longer of this earth and unable to verify or deny your hearsay evidence.
macnasty.
"Now then, agreement over"
Agreement not over, if the 'chuckle brothers' had not been Royal buffoons they would have been in big trouble, that's why I maintain that the military needs an enema, to get rid of these wasters and join the 21 St. century.
Lord Desai ? A modern democracy should be secular, no one should wield power without a proper mandate, he is dead right.
Your reference to his origins are once again racist, I have warned you before about this. You are on a yellow card.
templeton peck.
If you insist in allowing your sycophancy to stop you from putting forward any kind of argument then I can't really see any point in this.
Is there no dead figure that you would denounce?
Councillor
William borrows a helicopter, you borrow a Council Biro and a few paper clips.
You are both guilty of misuse of other peoples property, the only difference is one of degree.
And at least HRH brought the bloody helicopter back, bet you can't say the same about the Biro and the paper clips.
Bloody hell! Do you mean it's unethical the say mean things about Hitler and the Nazis cos they're dead.
Can I not even slag off Stalin for being a totalitarian old goat?
What about Henry VIII? Or Oliver Comwell? What about Idi Amin surely I can take a pop at him?
Dead or alive a life lived in public is there to be picked over. The Queen Mum could have got out any time she liked. She didn't and I presume she realised the downside of that was that for every loyal subject there was one who loathed her. Unless of course you're telling me she was really thick.
I miss the old Terrywatch this lot are a joke.
(Anonymous) 19/11/08
A brilliant analysis, I never thought about that.
A person of such perception should definitely not be sheltering behind anonymity, you country needs you, come on !
(Tam) 20/11/08
I don’t suppose we will ever know if she was really thick, that goes for the rest of them come to think of it, mind you they all went to good universities right ?
If you miss Terrywatch you are a strange person, it was a low point even by the standards of the right wing scum who were involved in it.
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