LADY COLIN CAMPBELL ON HER BESTSELLER: 'THE UNTOLD LIFE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH; THE QUEEN MOTHER / CaribbeanBELLE Magazine PETER JARRETTE

LADY COLIN CAMPBELL 

                            ON HER  BESTSELLER: 

'THE UNTOLD LIFE OF QUEEN ELIZABETH; THE QUEEN MOTHER' 

CaribbeanBELLE Magazine

PETER JARRETTE

BELLE readers met Lady Colin Campbell, the best selling international author, last year in an exclusive BELLE interview at her London home.  Now in Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee year explodes the book about Britain’s late, most senior royal, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.  Lady Colin Campbell’s latest work has eyes wide and tongues wagging around the world with revelations of the real life and times of this long-lived royal steeped in modern history. 

BELLE and Peter Jarrette re-visit the famous Jamaican born Lady Colin Campbell, herself a royal and international high-society figure for an exclusive Q&A for the Caribbean on her recently released international tome on this much admired royal. THE QUEEN MOTHER is available worldwide and details for stockists are at www.dynastypress.co.uk

Available at all good booksellers and online worldwide

BELLE: How has the build up to The Queen Mother (TQM) kept you engaged since you graced the pages of BELLE late last year and how long has the work involved to bring this blockbuster to the world’s eyes taken you?

Lady CC: TQM has taken me one year to prepare, beginning to end.  However, the main part of my research...the juicy bits have been known to me for years. The important elements of TQM have been known to me for much of my life by the sheer virtue of the people I have known, the people I still know and the people I have been related to.  These will be the bits not accessible to the public at large or most writers and journalists. The year has been dedicated to fleshing out TQM’s story, researching her important ‘dates’, a perfunctory search that has required much time and diligence but these details are the nuts and bolts that must be very sound in fact. This citing of dates and places in the life and times of a subject are naturally the muscle, bones and flesh of the telling of a story of this calibre and of an historical figure such as TQM.  The research can be arduous but it must all stand-up and be accurate. TQM enjoyed a long life, nearly 102 eventful years and I set about to detail not only her life and settings but also the lives of those around her and how her story impacted on others. I have written about her before in my 1993 book Royal Marriages less comprehensively but still that gave me a further starting advantage as I had previous research to draw on. 

BELLE: How did you come to write TQM, what inspired you to enlighten the world about this intriguing figure from the British royal family?

Lady CC: It was suggested to me that I tell the story since I knew the real story and I had the courage to do so. It occurred to me that if I passed without writing this work on TQM her true story would disappear. This is the story that other people TQM and I knew in common were privy to as well and from these circles were a number of individuals who, again, encouraged my move forward with the truth. As we knew of the fictional Diana before the world learned of the factual Diana there is the fictional Queen Mother. Before I wrote 1992’s The Real Diana the truth about The Princess of Wales was only hinted at by other writers. In the case of TQM it occurred to me that unless I began to write her true story nothing would be written to such depth on her, or it was not very likely to be.  As I am getting on in years so are the people who are closest to the true story and in fact even TQM’s grandchildren are no longer youngsters!  You know, writers like Hugo Vickers knew a whole lot more than they finally wrote on this formidable woman’s real life story. So many other writers who have embarked on delivering the real-life facts behind the fiction of royals in the end only hint at the truth.  The story of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother now is an historical subject and though she will always have relevance, the likelihood of a younger writer coming along in 10 or 20 years to write on her real life in depth is remote at best and so I felt it was now or never. It would be a shame to let a fabulous historical figure, such as she was, disappear couched in fantasy when her reality is much more interesting.

 At home with Georgie: Image Tristan Galinski

BELLE: You are a well placed figure within the world of publishing, media, royal European society and high society in many countries. With many friends on both sides of palace doors did this assist greatly in the building of TQM or did you work exclusively to stories you were already privy to and research material?

Lady CC: I absolutely could not have written this without the personal and professional knowledge I had access to. As I said I knew the facts as a result of the families I knew and the world I live in. I knew of close associates of the Windsor’s since my school days. My family and I were also close friends too to the respected hotelier and founder of Jamaica’s Round Hill, John Pringle who functioned for a time as aide de camp to the Duke of Windsor in the Bahamas.  Obviously my step mother-in-law Margret Duchess of Argyll was friends many years back with TQM. The Duchess of Argyll was also friendly with The Duke and Duchess of Windsor...it is supposed that she may have had an affair with The Duke of Kent.

 In the book there is a picture of a gathering on the royal balcony at Buckingham Palace with my relative Princess Louise, long dead, who was one of the earlier Duchesses of Argyll. She was the sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and her husband, Albert, Prince consort.  She was not at all fond of the young Elizabeth and her strong views against Elizabeth were well known, discussed and remembered by the Argyll Clan.  Again...this is family information that not many writers can impart with such provenance.  Now, the Reverend Phillip Hart of the Kingston Jamaica Parish was a very close friend to my family in Jamaica and he too proved to be a great source of information.  He was friendly with Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone who, in 1950, became the First Chancellor of the University of The West Indies. She wintered in Jamaica. She was candid in her friendship with the Reverend Hart and she spoke openly and at depth and length of the senior royals and none of it was in the confessional. So you see...the Reverend Hart, when visiting my family, would simply tell us! Thinking back to those days I never thought that these intimate stories would end up in a bio. These were insights to lives and events that, like in the case of Diana Princess of Wales, just dropped into my lap!      

BELLE: What were some of the most engaging qualities of TQM?

Lady CC: Having met her first hand I found her to be so many things...TQM was utterly charming, magnificent, charismatic and truly extraordinary! She shone like a beacon and not because she was the TQM. The woman herself was magnetic. I am not alone in saying that the secret of her success as TQM, why she became such a revered figure was that she, as a Bowes Lyon personified the exquisite Bowes Lyon manners. She was well-bred and her charm and superb manners appeared to be natural. I have never encountered manners in any walk of life or nationality that can or ever will match her own.  Elizabeth, the Queen Mother loved people and in turn she loved to be loved by people. She loved her exulted role as Queen Mother to her nation and the Commonwealth. She was consistent in it and at it and functioned with pure enjoyment. She could turn the otherwise dull into the spectacular. TQM wanted to be entertained and to be entertaining and easily displayed her ability to entertain with her quick wit and extremely sharp intelligence. She loved jokes and laughter and didn’t stand on too much ceremony but she did like people to be respectful in how they interacted with her. She was also very kind to workers, attendants and staff. She had personality in abundance and set out to be that marvellous personality and always behaved as such.      

BELLE: ...and some of her more formidable traits?

Lady CC: Nobody could tell her ‘no’.  She would never be hurried.  Everything with her was as if in slow-motion.  I’m in mind of a famous episode in WWII where when TQM was being ushered with her family from Windsor Castle during an air raid she moved at her own pace as bombs rained down in the vicinity. That refusal to be rushed even when danger loomed was a sign of tremendous passive aggression, an indomitability of will, a trait displayed throughout the whole of her life. She was unforgiving...extremely so and she was decisive. She set about implementing whatever agenda she felt was in her, the monarchy’s or the country’s best interests. She had a very potent personality and was extremely dynamic and forceful...everybody who dealt with her has commented as such. She brooked no opposition and never took no for an answer. TQM demanded her wishes always be fulfilled and was extremely assertive to an extraordinary degree. She was a concealed carapace of candy floss. In fact the famed fashion photographer Cecil Beaton remarked that she was a “marshmallow forged in steel...” The aristocrat Stephen Tennant declared that “she was the opposite of everything she was...where she was soft and sweet, she was hard as nails.”

A quote of hers appears in my book... “I believe in the steel hand and velvet glove approach. All a woman needs is a strong will...and a smile.”

TQM had a personality made for success and she set out to achieve this with her own mother’s help with a glorious platform to function from and with help too from friends she found even more glory. Very little she achieved was accidental. She had true self belief and with that she always, always believed she was on the side of good and right.

BELLE: In your opinion what are some of the most misunderstood things about the life and time of TQM?     

 Lady CC: That she was a victim of fate who had a great destiny foisted upon her. That she was a sweet old lady who was a prisoner of circumstance. Why, she even said herself, “I’m not as nice as people think I am.” People don’t realise to what extent she was the architect of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s destruction.

BELLE: What then, ultimately was TQM’s negative influence on the more modern royals from her daughters to today’s younger set of high profile royals?

Lady CC: Well, this is a very interesting question but I must go back to her adult beginnings somewhat to better illustrate the nature of her reach and influence.  As a young woman Elizabeth was actively and deliberately old fashioned. This was one of the things that militated in her favour with her father-in-law, King George V.  The King had an antipathy towards anything modern. This bent for the old fashioned suited Elizabeth in many other ways. She did not have the looks, figure or stature that was the mode of the time...that of the roaring 20’s belle. She was too short, squat and plump, not sleek and chic so she held that affinity for the old fashioned styles, ways and carriage. Had her brother-in-law, King Edward VIII (The Duke of Windsor) remained on the throne everything would have been different. He was a true modernizer. Where The Duke of Windsor craved and encouraged all that was new, his brother Bertie and TQM represented old style and order and they both had an active glance backwards which was seen by their supporters as a great advantage politically and socially. Therefore their daughters, our current Queen, Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret were deliberately uneducated as TQM thought an education for girls was not good. You see she was brought up in a stifled way too and deliberately set out to replicate her own short comings. She may have been a great wit and naturally intelligent but she herself was no academic. So Queen Mary, Elizabeth II’s and Princess Margaret’s grandmother and their Governess Marion ‘Crawfie’ Crawford joined forces along with The Archbishop of Canterbury to ensure the two princesses were assured some concrete education. In fact you know, Margaret never forgave her mother this neglect.  The girls at that time had no education but superb social skills but this was deemed to be a looming problem if Elizabeth II was to be Queen. Both girls were naturally intelligent and craved education to augment their relevance as humans and princesses. Once Lilibet (Elizabeth II’s nickname) grew up she opted for Phillip against TQM’s wishes as she knew she needed a husband who himself would be formidable enough to stand up to TQM and afford Elizabeth II some separation from what she herself found to be the all encompassing, strangling element of TQM’s far reaching and sometimes unwelcome influence. This was one of Phillip’s virtues.  He was an overt man with a strong character who, in short, protected her from her mother. Margaret and TQM were not an entirely happy mix and Margaret flew the coup as soon as she could...to put it mildly!

Colin Glenconner (3rd Lord Glenconner and owner of the island of Mustique) wanted to marry Margaret but he could not abide TQM.  He held throughout his life, his firm conviction that TQM ‘ruined’ Margaret’s life. TQM was never, never supportive of Margaret.

Of her grandchildren she adored Prince Charles and Margaret would often remark “Of course she does, because he will one day be King.”

TQM set out again quite deliberately to undermine affairs and this time it was to undermine Queen Elizabeth II’s and Phillip’s relationship with their son and heir to the throne, Prince Charles as a boy, so that she would be able to influence the direct future of the monarchy.  She would continue to wield power through her grandson as she did through her husband Bertie (King George VI) who didn’t draw breath without consulting her. Even the King’s ministers and secretaries commented that “There are two Monarchs on the throne...George VI and Elizabeth.”  The King was known to always say to his private secretaries “Leave the papers here (on his desk) and I will sleep on it.” He meant he’d present them to his wife for her consideration. Winston Churchill, who had respect for TQM’s political acumen, famously changed his two person weekly Prime Ministerial meeting with the King to include her. Two became three!

The Duke of Windsor was driven to remark “My brother is a nincompoop whose wife has him wrapped around her little finger.”

 TQM was cordial to her other grandchildren, Princess Anne and the princes Andrew and Edward. She was a good grandmother but not an engaged one to them. In later years with her great grandchildren she was like an affectionate dog lover patting a dog. There was no engagement of substance...I imagine there was too big a gap in the generations.

BELLE: TQM was famously known for being economic with her voice and views publicly but was there a time in history where she may have been more forthright over palace politics in relation to her Prime Ministers and world affairs?

Lady CC: TQM was very right wing. She however was careful to preserve the fiction that she was not anywhere as involved as she was politically. When George VI died she went to great lengths to get Churchill to revamp the role of Dowager Queen, which had been of reduced significance compared to that of Queen Consort which she had enjoyed since coming to the throne at the age of 36. She reigned alongside George VI for only 16 years until his death aged 56, TQM was aged 51. She wanted more say and a more powerful role than had hitherto been ever been known in the history of the monarchy. By the time she had been through ‘nobbling’ Churchill Queen Elizabeth II found herself with two consorts, her husband Prince Phillip and her mother, TQM.  For the rest of her life TQM now enjoyed a significantly more enhanced role as a public figure far beyond anything that had ever been known in the annals of the monarchy.        

 IMAGES: MELISSA BUCHANAN

BELLE: As a wife how would TQM have summed up her marriage?

Lady CC: Her husband, Bertie, George VI thought her the most wonderful woman on earth because she was such a strong, forceful and inaccessible figure.  Both her husband and his brother The Duke of Windsor wanted strong, dominant, intense, witty and ultimately inaccessible women to replicate their mother, Queen Mary, who loved them but was distant.  They wanted great homemakers who were highly domestic unlike royal women of those days. Both of these women, Queen Mary and her daughter-in-law TQM, kept their men at an arms-length, whose devotion they ended up appreciating. However neither woman would have married those men if they weren’t the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York respectively. They married them purely for advancement. They functioned within their marriages at a certain level of disdain for their husbands.  This remains an interesting phenomenon played-out still in penthouses, chateaus, castles and in many properly middle class marriages around the world!

BELLE: As a leading light of society how do you think TQM balanced more frivolous aspects of a women’s life like fashion with her moral and societal obligations?   

Lady CC: In her generation, what we see as ‘frivolous’, was seen then as fundamental. TQM used clothes to enhance her position with her old fashion stance and styling. Remember, she could not embody the easy chic of the times with her build and height. Actually, very interestingly during WWII she made sure that every female member of the royal family was forced to wear army uniforms. She however chose not to. A very clever ploy you must admit, to keep her elegance. There were some extreme beauties of their time, chic women like Lady Mountbatten , Princess Marina and the Duchess of Kent, who were renowned fashion forward style firebrands that were most put out, angered really, by this uniform enforcement.  Like her nemesis, Wallis Simpson, TQM loved a party. In the Victorian age for most women there was nothing but family, social life and charity...the women in high strata tinkled at things as opposed to working. That was their platform.  They didn’t have to balance anything...they had to sparkle and be good, worthy hostesses. TQM turned her work into pleasure in her married life and throughout her long, long widowhood.

BELLE: What sort of woman would TQM represent herself like today in the current social times?

Lady CC: A Queen...a great star! She had great self image. You could see that she was enacting the role of ‘wonderful’. She was the same to the end and she would be the same today. The essence of her being was an interaction between desire and realization...potency!  Considering she was born in the time of horse and buggy and lived to see the landing on the moon and the internet while remaining steadfastly old fashioned is ironic. She had the ability to make things work for her. She would be the sort of person a psychologist would love their patient to end up being...assertive, open and bending situations to her advantage.

BELLE: Have you met with any resistance from the royal family, figureheads or royal aides therein to the telling of the true story of the TQM’s life and times?     

Lady CC: No. The royal family knew it was in the making. The photo of my relative, The Duchess of Argyll on the royal balcony was given to me specifically for the book by the Palace. People misunderstand the royal family. The book is a truthful and fair presentation. Even royal personages who are revered and respected are human and all my biographies examine them in their entirety, I am writing about everything, even the less flattering bits. To be panegyric is not possible about anybody. I know my onions.  I am always fair, not sensationalist and causing no damage...just writing.   

BELLE: ...and the possibility of TQM’s and her brother David Bowes Lyon’s being born to a French kitchen servant?

Lady CC:  The circumstances of Elizabeth's birth have for a long time been the subject of conjecture and as a responsible biographer I felt it was my duty to examine them in as dispassionate and incisive a way as possible. I have no axe to grind one way or the other and could not care less whether Elizabeth was born to Cecilia Strathmore or Marguerite Rodiere.  Nor do I think it should matter to anyone who gave birth to her.  She was a much-wanted and much-loved child, and there is absolutely nothing wrong if her parents resorted to an early form of surrogacy to bring her into this world.  In the book I take pains to examine all the facts in a balanced and sensible manner and to make the point that the way to clear up the mysteries is to have DNA testing.  The fact that the newspapers have taken a less considered view and put words into my mouth does not mean that I have said what they state, though one cannot decry their reportage, as they have had to convey a complex predicament in a few sentences while I had a whole chapter at my disposal.  Those who wish to know the facts can read the book.  

LADY COLIN CAMPBELL & PETER JARRETTE  

IMAGES: MELISSA BUCHANAN 

BELLE: Does it concern you that some palace aides suggest that the book and its revelations have caused Queen Elizabeth II some concerns of her own? 

Lady CC: Buckingham Palace are fully aware of my reputation for writing truthful and penetrating biographies and willingly provided photographic co-operation, as anyone looking at the credits in the book can see.  It is hardly likely that they would have been co-operating on the one hand, if they thought that the contents of the book would upset the Queen.  There is little doubt in my mind that Her Majesty knew her mother rather better than most of us, and that nothing anyone could say would actually catch her unawares. 

BELLE: Have you had the chance to see Madonna’s WE and how do you feel TQM was depicted in it?

Lady CC: I saw the movie WE and thought that Madonna's depiction of Elizabeth was by and large accurate though I was severely discomfited by some of the sequences with the Duke and Duchess.

BELLE: We asked your publishers about their role in this internationally explosive book and one of their Directors did have a moment to comment: “Nothing I can say is of much relevance to anyone – we are just the publisher, letting our author tell her story as she wishes and we have no particular stance or axe to grind against the monarchy or anyone else for that matter.”  BELLE would like to thank you for your time with us again and to finally ask...what will we be reading from you next time?

Lady CC: A very modern book on contemporary etiquette






Archived Interview

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PETER JARRETTE IS AN ARTIST AND INTERNATIONALLY PUBLISHED AUTHOR OF SEVERAL FICTION, NON-FICTION AND MEMOIR ADULT TITLES AND CHILDREN'S BOOKS. HE IS A COLUMNIST AND CELEBRITY INTERVIEWER.