[quote AloneInTheRoom]@HowToBringABlushToTheSnow I used to have a neighbour who loathed the Queen Mother, he maintained she spent the war years expecting her staff to eat within the law as far as rations etc went, but didn't expect to obey the law herself. And a different person (didn't know my neighbour) always said she was a modern-day Marie Antoinette in a "let them eat cake" sort of way.[/quote]
Off topic but I’m interested in your comments about the Q Mother, can you tell us why you think this? I kind of always thought there was something off with her which is why I’m particularly interested in your comment.
I have read a few biographies about her (well - one was hagiography), but even the one in her favour dropped little snippets that implied that she wasn't a very nice person - was bad-tempered, greedy, self-serving, and very, very spiteful. She bore a grudge for decades (as we saw regarding Wallis Simpson) and would do her best to get her own back for any slight, real or imagined. She was also very mean - she would often "admire" something in someone's home, and would then expect to be given it as a gift.
As Snow has said - she expected other people to obey rules she didn't see herself, was notoriously mean, and drank like fish. I can only imagine that she lived so long because she was pickled in gin!
I read (more than one source) that one of the reasons she resented Wallis Simpson so much was that she had had designs on the Prince of Wales herself, but he wan't interested in her (he preferred his flings with married women, and he liked a different "type" to her). She gave up on him and married his younger brother and was infuriated when Wallis nabbed him.
So of course, she blamed the abdication and the stress of the throne for causing the King's cancer - nothing to do with the chain-smoking at all! He had several smoking related diseases, including chronic bronchitis, and had narrowly avoided amputation of a leg and a number of fingers due to hardened arteries.