Balcony scenes are about love affairs. The appearance of
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, on the Buckingham
Palace balcony, flanked by 27 members of her dynasty,
sealed a kiss between the British public and a love of their
own history.
No British balcony has ever before hosted a royal
centenarian. Yesterday’s centre-stage star, a diminutive
figure in shimmering pale blue, was born before that balcony
was built, at about the same time her tribute song Happy
Birthday was composed, and long before most of her
audience of 40,000 had seen the light of day.
History will never be entirely bunk so long as one of its
characters, born when Victoria was still alive, is there to be
seen in the flesh. But the crowd, loyal, warm and
tremendously enthusiastic, was not large enough for police
to activate their back-up plan of opening the entire Mall to a
longer procession.
When the Queen Mother last stepped through that first-floor
window in 1995, we were celebrating the 50th anniversary
of the end of the war, and a quarter of million people
swarmed for a glimpse, almost as many as had been there to
see her, her husband and Mr Churchill in 1945.
Yesterday’s crowd, if smaller, got a better dynastic bargain.
From the French window at 12.31, with the sun obligingly
strong and warm, there appeared first the Queen Mother
two sticks in her left hand to leave the right free for waving.
Immediately behind her came her two daughters, the Queen
in lilac and Princess Margaret in brown.
The crowd cheered the three women. All waved back. The
Duke of Edinburgh hovered in the background, a somewhat
spare man on a woman’s day. In a second wave came her
grand-children, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, the
Princess Royal and the Earl of Wessex accompanied by, for
those who had them, their spouses and offspring. Princes
William and Harry emerged with Princesses Beatrice and
Eugenie, the Countess of Wessex and Commodore Tim
Laurence.
Next through the window, emerged Princess Margaret’s
children Lord Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, with their
spouses, and the Princess Royal’s children Peter and Zara
Phillips.
There were more to come. The Duke and Duchesses of Kent
and Gloucester, Prince and Princess Michael of Kent,
Princess Alexandra and Sir Angus Ogilvy completed a rare
line-up of the grandchildren of King George V. After not
much more than five minutes, the party disappeared inside
for a rare group photograph in the Grand Hall. This was
followed by lunch in the Bow Room, where they were joined
by some of King George V’s great-grandchildren: the
Michaels’ children Lord Frederick and Lady Gabriella Windsor,
and the Kents’ daughter Lady Helen with her husband Tim
Taylor.
For all her weight of years the Queen Mother is at heart a
showgirl who knows how to work a crowd. At the start of
the day she emerged from Clarence House, two sticks at the
ready and the Prince of Wales as her escort, to
acknowledge the crowd and receive one of her most
important visitors of the day. Tony Nicholls, the Queen’s
postman, drove up in his gleaming red Royal Mail van and
handed her one of 12 congratulatory messages sent by her
daughter to centenarians yesterday. She received it
graciously, and made play of not being able to open it,
handing it to her equerry.
Captain William de Rouet knew what was expected. He
instantly unsheathed his ceremonial sword, wielded it as a
letter opener, and slit open the envelope. Even Hollywood
queens are rarely up to such clever tricks.
The message inside was personalised, in her daughter’s
handwriting: “On your 100th birthday, all the family join with
me in sending you our love and best wishes for this special
day — Lilibet.”
The procession moved off, the Queen Mother accompanied
by the Prince in an open carriage decked with flowers in her
racing colours of light blue and gold. They were preceded by
three mounted policemen, 56 mounted troopers and six guns
of the King’s Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, and a travelling
escort of the Household Cavalry.
At the rear, preceded by the band of the Irish Guards on
their way to the daily Changing of the Guard, Postman
Nicholls drove his van back to Buckingham Palace and parked
it in the forecourt, possibly waiting to deliver the royal gas
bill or junk mail.
The pace of the carriage procession was lively, the Queen
Mother waving constantly to the crowds on both sides and
clearly relishing every minute.
As she swung into the Buckingham Palace gates the Guards’
band played Happy Birthday. The crowd was stirred to three
cheers and their rendition of the song, interrupted by the
Royal Horse Artillery, now stationed in Green Park, firing the
first echoing volleys of a 41-gun salute. Then, police opened
the crowd barriers, and a tidal wave of people surged down
the Mall, for the balcony scene.
Once the balcony appearance was over, the Queen Mother
was safely ensconced within, surrounded by her dynasty,
and undoubtedly quaffing a glass of the bubbly that appears
to be part of the recipe for a long and fulfilled life, and
should always be drunk at the high points of love affairs.
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