After the death of her husband in the 195o’s, the 1960’s brought great excitement and also significant loss for The Queen Mother.
She began the decade with a wedding and another grandchild. On 6 May 1960, Princess Margaret married Antony Amstrong-Jones. The wedding was the first to be broadcast on television with over 20 million viewers. Following the wedding, her third grandchild, Prince Andrew, was born on 19 February .
The Queen Mother suffered from the deaths of two of her siblings in 1961. May, her sister passed away in February and her brother, David later in September. She would see her fourth grandchild, Viscount Linley born in November.
If there ever was anyone to acknowledge the need to blend the lifestyle of the Monarchy with the modern day it was the Queen Mother. On June 7th, 1962, she took her first commercial flight upon TCA alongside other passengers from London to Montreal. Setting a precedent for members of the Royal Family to come.
A passionate and keen race enthusiast, the 1960s were at a high for her sport. Between 1964-1965, her horses won a total of 27 races. The Queen Mother was known to brave weather of any type to cheer on her horses.
The Queen Mother’s once robust health began to deteriorate as the decade went on. 1964 brought the first of many surgeries, in February her appendix was removed at King Edward VII Hospital in Marylebone, central London. She missed the birth of Prince Edward in March as she was recovering in the Caribbean aboard the HMS Britannia. The surprise operation resulted in the Queen Mother requiring to cancel her Canadian, Australian and New Zealand tours.
After extensive recuperating The Queen Mother travelled to the West Indies in 1965. Then making up for her cancelled tours after her operation she visited Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Hawaii in 1966. By December that year she underwent another operation once again at King Edward VII Hospital.
At the time it was rumoured that she was fitted with a colostomy bag, this belief was discredited with the release of her 2009 official biography. The Queen Mother in fact underwent surgery to remove a tumour in her colon. This time she recovered quickly and overcame the disease. Her dedication to the Commonwealth was again demonstrated with a tour of Canada in 1967.
The Queen Mother always was able to diffuse a situation with grace and elegance. Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov (writer, actor and journalist) described this charm while observing her during a student demonstration at the University of Dundee in 1968. The Queen Mother was Chancellor of the University from 1966-77.
“As we arrived in a solemn procession the students pelted us with toilet rolls. They kept hold of one end, like streamers at a ball, and threw the other end. The Queen Mother stopped and picked these up as though somebody had misplaced them. [Returning them to the students she said,] ‘Was this yours? Oh, could you take it?’ And it was her sang-froid and her absolute refusal to be shocked by this, which immediately silenced all the students. She knew instinctively what to do on those occasions. She doesn’t rise to being heckled at all; she just pretends it must be an oversight on the part of the people doing it. The way she reacted not only showed her presence of mind but was so charming and so disarming, even to the most rabid element, that she brought peace to troubled waters.”
Despite her ailing health, that charm always shone through, the Queen Mother was always on her toes. Her favourite song “Thank U Very Much” by Scaffold was a 60’s hit. She would sing the song after dinner, reciting her rendition of the last line “Thank U very much for our gracious Queen” gazing upon her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II.
That charisma and strength carried her into the 1970s and beyond, despite all that life threw her way.
photo credit: Rt Hon Gerry Reynolds MP & EQ II & QM via photopin (license)
