Sunday 15th May (edited)

Tim kindly took me out yesterday for a massage because of a long standing problem I have with pain in the muscles at the base of my skulI, but apart from that I haven't been out and about, mainly because of my banged up foot which is now better, but I have been very absorbed in a biography of Queen Mary, which English people will know, but I don't expect American readers to, was the highly respected grandmother of our Queen.

She was the daughter of the impoverished Duke of Teck (from somewhere in the middle of Transylvania) who truly 'landed on her feet' as we say, when she married King George the V.

Moving on - and reading about the Abdication Crisis in Queen Mary's biography, I was struck, as I’d never quite been before, at the sheer naivete of Edward VIII who actually believed he could marry a divorced woman, with two living husbands, and reign as King and Queen.   As the author pointed out, every 6th form school kid knew better than that.

The fact of the matter was that neither Edward VIII nor George VI wanted to be king - the Middle Ages, when kings bagged the throne, were a thing of the past.  But George VI and Queen Elizabeth did a wonderful job leading the nation through World War II.

Digressing a moment - I'd heard that Queen Elizabeth was partial to a drink (she was always nodding and swaying).    When I worked at the Nuffield Hospital the head radiologist recounted a story of when she'd worked at a London hospital and the Queen was coming to visit, so they thought they should offer her some afternoon tea and asked a member of her staff what kind of tea she drank.  He said he had no idea, he had only ever seen her drinking gin and dubonnet (which accounts of course for the nodding and swaying).

I was digressing for a moment but harking back to the Abdication of Edward VIII - George VI allowed his brother the title of HRH Duke of Windsor, but although Wallis Simpson could be Duchess of Windsor, he would not confer the HRH title on her, which was what she most wanted; what she was all about, and which embittered the Duke of Windsor more than anything.  Americans were told - or allowed to think - she was ‘Her Royal Highness’, and the Duke of Windsor in their home and private lives told everyone she was, but the British people always knew better.  

I’ve always found - but didn’t read it in this book - the phrase “he gave up the Throne for the woman he loved” particularly irritating.  I always think “oh give me strength!!  this is our history we’re talking about, not some trashy, third rate novel.