One of my many duties as royal correspondent during the Queen Mother’s lifetime was to make regular late-night phone calls to enquire about her health.
The reason was that on many occasions, usually around 10pm, my editorial desk at The Sun would call me because, as they said: ‘We’ve had an anonymous call from a soft-spoken woman to tell us that the Queen Mother has died!’
Even though I told them it was highly unlikely there would be any official announcement late at night, they insisted I call.
The answer was always the same: “No, His Majesty is well and very much alive.”
But I didn’t expect to get a phone call from his office on one occasion, the day after I made one of my “death” calls.
The voice – ironically it was a woman with a soft voice, but one I recognized as that of an attendant of the Queen Mother – said: “Her Majesty wants you to know that she is feeling very well and has no plans to leave this world in the near future. So you can have a free night!”
The Queen Mother with William Tallon, her butler, in 1982. He earned the nickname ‘Backstairs Billy’
During World War II, Adolf Hitler said the Queen Mother was the most dangerous woman in Europe. Above: The royal couple speak to war-weary Britons in 1945
When a bomb fell and exploded at Buckingham Palace, the Queen Mother declared: “I can now look the East End in the eye.” Above: Queen Elizabeth and King George survey the damage at Buckingham Palace with Prime Minister Winston Churchill after a bombing raid, September 1940
The King and Queen were seen visiting patients at a bomb-damaged hospital in 1940.
The Queen Mother looks at her “beloved Bertie” during her visit to the Lord Roberts Memorial Centre in Inverness in 1948
And at a press reception during a trip to Canada, the Queen Mother caused the assembled journalists and photographers to choke on their drinks when she said with a smile: “Ah, gentlemen, have you come to gather more material for my obituary?”
During her lifetime, she was famous for her clever quips, keen observations, and style of preparing a dry martini-like dish, as well as for being a member of the Royal Family.
She was also known for her fondness for refreshing drinks, usually a gin and Dubonnet or three.
Her love of alcohol led one stableman to describe her not exactly as an alcoholic, but as “a devoted drinker.”
Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon was born into a Victorian world 124 years ago, on August 4, 1900, the same year the British first tasted Coca-Cola.
Queen Victoria was still, almost, on the throne, so her life is a story of Britain throughout the 20th century.
She married into the Royal Family and was happy to be a duchess, but her fortunes would change thanks to her wayward brother-in-law, King Edward VIII.
When he abdicated the throne so he could marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, Elizabeth’s lover Bertie nervously became King George VI.
During World War II, Adolf Hitler described the Queen Mother as the most dangerous woman in Britain, due to the moral boost she gave to the British by refusing to take her two daughters to Canada.
And when a bomb fell and exploded at Buckingham Palace, he declared: “I can now look the East End in the eye.”
Make no mistake, this was a woman who held the power behind the throne.
She turned a stuttering George VI into a self-confident king who led his people through the trauma of a world war.
In other words, she was a tough woman. The high society photographer Cecil Beaton once described her as “a marshmallow made on a welding machine.”
Despite her stoicism in the face of adversity, the Queen Mother was also famous for her witty one-liners.
Her humor is said to have kept her going until her death at the age of 101 in March 2002.
Once, at a dinner at Hillsborough Castle, he responded to the loyalist toast by inviting everyone to raise their glasses not only to “the people of Northern Ireland” but to each of the six counties, one after the other.
At the end, guests were stumbling on their feet, while an old general staggered to vomit into the umbrella stand in the hall. The Queen Mother remained lucid throughout the event.
The remains of Hallsville School (known as Agate Street Infants), in east London, after it was attacked during a German air raid that killed 75 people
Fifty years later, in 1990, the Queen Mother visited the same school in the East End.
The Queen Mother maintained her commitment to the East End, visiting whenever she could. One of her most famous visits was to the Queen’s Head pub in Flamborough Street, Limehouse, in 1987. Aged 87 at the time, she stopped at the pub owned by Young and Co and poured, and then drank, a pint of their special bitter ale.
Alcohol figured prominently in her life, leading one equerry to describe her not exactly as an alcoholic, but as “a devoted drinker”. Above: The Queen Mother enjoys a drink as she takes part in the traditional “Wayfairers Dole” at St Cross Hospital in Winchester, 1986
The Queen Mother celebrating her 95th birthday with her butler William ‘Backstairs Billy’ Tallon, her grandson Prince Charles and her great-grandsons Prince Harry and Prince William, the former Prince of Wales with Prince Harry and Prince William, 1995
After trying for a while to call one of his employees because he wanted something to drink, he went downstairs to find his lackey, William “Backstairs Billy” Tallon, rowing with his colleague and on-off boyfriend, Reg Wilcock.
When he saw them, he asked abruptly, in a very non-politically correct manner: “Would any of you old queens mind getting this old queen something to drink?”
She was once explaining her fondness for helicopters and said: “The helicopter has made a bigger difference to my life than to that of any queen since dear Anne Boleyn.”
She was a close friend of the playwright and artist Noel Coward and had invited him to lunch at Buckingham Palace.
He accompanied her while she inspected the Guard.
The Queen Mother looked at Noel and caught his gaze lingering on a handsome young soldier.
The Queen Mother leaned towards him and said, “I wouldn’t do it if I were you, Noel… they count them before they go back in.”
Towards the end of her life, she lunched with Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster, who the Queen Mother said was a very good pianist.
“All afternoon we played the piano and sang old music hall songs,” he said.
When her valet came to pick her up late in the afternoon, he found the couple belting out Lonnie Donegan’s My Old Man’s A Dustman. “I think they’d put something in my drink,” she later said.
