Monday 10 August 2009

The Queen Mother: Pro-Miner

Margaret Thatcher once described the Queen as "the sort of person who votes for the SDP". No one could mistake Prince Charles for a Thatcherite. And now, via Neil Clark, Camilla Tominey quotes Kenneth Rose, who says of his long-standing friend:

There was no rapport with Thatcher. She would have thought that Thatcher’s economic measures were quite harsh. The Queen Mother’s Bowes-Lyon family had firm associations with County Durham so she knew quite a lot about the miners and didn’t like the miners to be criticised. I remember being at an event with the Queen Mother in the Eighties when a woman tried to curry favour with her saying something along the lines of ‘Aren’t these miners terrible’, but the Queen Mother bristled at the comment, and said she thought the miners were right. She said ‘We in Durham’ – she pronounced it Durr-um – ‘think they are rather patriotic’.

Kate Middleton's quite near ancestors were miners at a Bowes-Lyon pit.

2 comments:

  1. Margaret Thatcher once described the Queen as "the sort of person who votes for the SDP".

    I have tried to find a source for this. The only person making this claim on the Internet is David Lindsay.

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  2. There's more to life than the Internet. My source for this one is absolutely impeccable.

    Look out for a forthcoming television drama correctly depicting the Queen's disagreement with Thatcher over santions against South Africa. A post will appear here in due season.

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