This would-be clever comment by the worst kind of journalistic 'liberal' (a misappropriation if ever there was one) is doing the rounds at the moment among the British twitterati: “The American head of state grew up with a mother on food stamps. The British head of state grew up with a mother on postage stamps.”
Actually, it was her father, King George VI on the postage stamps, but the real point to be made is that a few years later, the Queen's parents stayed in London surrounded by falling bombs because they felt it was their sacred duty to remain with their people. Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) said this after Buckingham Palace was attacked by Hitler's airforce: 'I'm glad we have been bombed. Now I can look the East End in the face'
They weren't celebrities or politicians, their lives governed by personal ambition: they had a job to do, and the continuing example over sixty years of their daughter deserves better than this kind of adolescent sneering.
Allegedly said by the Queen Consort when she was urged to flee with the children away out of London:
ReplyDelete"The children will not leave without their mother. Their mother will not leave without the King. The King will not leave."
So instead, they issued her with firearms and taught her to shoot.
I'm not so much a monarchist as I am an anti-republican, but those who estimate as nothing the service given to the country by at least the present and previous generations of the Royal Family, are at best ignorant of the facts, or at worst disingenuous. The Royal Family are by no means perfect, but perfection isn't required.
And my favourite anecdote from the Queen Mother: when being escorted, by Noel Coward, down the grand staircase of Buckingham Palace, she noticed him appreciatively eyeing up the guardsmen who were standing to attention on each step. Without moving her lips, she advised him "I wouldn't if I were you Noel. They count them out, and they count them back in again."