to be quite touched by Prince Charles's delight with his home movies?

[FiftyShadesOfBunting]

Its so lovely. And so relatively normal.

And bollox to the royal haterz.

[trixie123]

again though, its not just the 1950s, its the VERY well off in the 1950s who WOULD still have nannies, nurseries (in the sense of a suite of rooms where the children lives, not just slept) etc. Not "normal" exactly but typical of their social group. I don't really get why people seem to hate them so much for being born into a particular set up. They didn't trample over cute kittens and poor people to get there (although admittedly their ancestors about 900 years ago did ) They are VERY aware of their privilege and do work long hours. They may not have the same stresses and strains as the rest of us but that doesn;t mean they don't have any, or that they can't have genuine family affection and feeling. I thought it was quite sweet that the queen put the photo albums together - presumably thats her writing under each of them. As someone who has piles of printed out photos waiting to be dealt with, I am quite impressed by that!

[Rockpool]

We stumbled across that program and loved it.

Have always had a soft spot for Charles and Anne.He was obviously such a sensitive boy and Anne is quite like my dd. Loved the close ups of his face and the videos,bling aside they could have been of any family.

You forget how young the queen was and Charles and Anne when she became queen.

[Rockpool]

Off to buy more bunting and Pims too.

[PrincessFiorimonde]

I don't forget how young the queen was either when she became a mother or when she became a queen.

I do, however, think she is a very cold fish. I have seen at first hand how unable she is/was to respond to small children (not mine, or even related to me, btw) smiling at her and bouncing around with excitement.

She may be a product of her upbringing, but whatever she is, she is not a warm human being. In my opinion, of course.

I realise this is not a popular point of view.

I don't wish her ill (I don't wish anyone ill), but I frankly have no interest in her or in her dysfunctional family.

[noddyholder]

I cringed as he said Balmoral was frightfully good for recharging ones batteries. So inappropriate at the moment when some people have nowhere to live and those who do are scraping by. And I like him! Historically interesting but a lot of it was insensitive.

[Birdsgottafly]

I agree with keeping the royal family.

However i cannot ignore the treatment of the Bowes Lyons girls that had LD's enough to have the 'warm' opinion of them all that others are managing to, Katherine is still supposed to be alive.

That is without all of the other stuff over Diana and SF that was supposed to have happened, which there were probally two sides to.

[BrandyAlexander]

Times have changed and I think some posters are using modern day thinking to judge the Queen. I think one has to travel back in time to 1952 and remember the circumstances. She was 25 years old when she came to the throne in a man's world where Winston Churchill was PM. All of the men would have told her that it wasn't the done thing to take her children with her and that they would be fine. She, feeling the weight of responsibility and being quite young, would have listened to these -stupid- men and did as she was told. Nobody questioned whether this was the right thing for the Queen and her children, she was expected to put country first. Interestingly 30 years later from then, when Princess Diana was expected to do the same thing, she kicked up a huge fuss and they wrote her off as being emotional and unbalanced. Roll on 30 years from that situation, everyone would think there is something very wrong if Kate left her child behind for 5 months. Comparing those 3 scenarios shows how times have changed.

What i thought was touching about the programme is that it has always been clear that Charles had a very damaged upbringing and that he was determined to do things differently for his children. There have always been stories about his relationship with this parents, but i thought the programme showed that he has moved on from some of the bad things about his childhood and can now see things from his mothers perspective.

The other thing that came through for me, is also that I think the Queen is better with older children than perhaps younger ones. As a young monarch she probably did put country before children. Seeing the loving family she came from, that must have been hard to do. It came across on the ITV programme that she was a much better grandmother than parent, and William specifically said that as a youngster it was Queen first and grandmother second but it was now the other way round. People change. Their priorities change.

[BalloonSlayer]

"she seems like she was a lovely mum." I do like the Queen but there are plenty of accounts of her being very ahem "hands off" with her children. When Charles was separated from her for 6 months as a child, when she returned home she shook his hand.

I read an article last weekend which spoke of the Queen's bemusement at Diana looking after William herself because the nanny was away. She said "there are plenty of nursery maids for that sort of thing."

I think it was Maya Angelou who said something like mothers are either good mothers to small children or good mothers to adults, but rarely both. I do sometimes see mothers who fit that theory - the Queen appears to. I suspect her loving relationship with Charles might well have been forged since he became an adult, not during his childhood. His being so touched by the home movies may well be because he can see the evidence of love and affection which he cannot remember.

I actually like Charles a lot. I think he has been an arse in a lot of ways in the past but I feel he genuinely tries to change and to be a good person.

I do wonder sometimes if he will ever get to be King. I suspect the Queen will live to be well over 100 like her own Mother. I do feel sorry for him when I hear all the jokes and rumours about him being desperate to be King - no one wants their Mum to die!!

[HMQueenElizabeth]

I think novice has summed it all up very well!

[MissAnnersley]

As an ardent republican I was surprised by how moving I found the programme on the BBC.

Prince Charles and his family seemed more human. The emotions appeared genuine and I choked back a couple of tears.

However, it does not make me like the institution. Nobility of birth does not bestow nobility of character. I am sure we know people in ordinary circumstances who show courage, sacrifice and devotion towards their family or friends.

The fact that we are all so surprised that she seems able to experience the most ordinary of emotions, such as affection for her children (!), is a reflection of the character of the women herself.

I don't believe there is any great 'mystique', just a PR machine of great sophistication.

So will I be celebrating the jubilee? Certainly not.

I will, however, enjoy my long weekend.

[CuttedUpPear]

Can someone link to the show? I'd like to watch it next week (working full time from yesterday til tuesday night)

[MissAnnersley]

It's on BBC iplayer.

[CuttedUpPear]

What's it called?

[sue52]

I do wonder if HM's PR people are in for a big bonus this year.

[Annienonniemouse]

It seems to be repeated on Monday at 1.45pm.

[madmouse]

What a lovely post novice

[diddl]

I enjoyed it-thought it was lovely.

But it was really only a tiny snap shot, wasn´t it?

And there just wasn´t the media intrusion then-it was a different world.

I thought it was nice to see how much he obviously loves & respects his mum.

When he was watching the Coronation-couldn´t help thinking if he wonders if it´ll ever be him?

[RubyFakeNails]

I hope to never use the words 'touched by Prince Charles' in a sentence in my entire life.

But if thats what gets you going, good luck to you

[SoupDragon]

but I frankly have no interest in her or in her dysfunctional family.

So why on earth were you watching the programme? :o

[SauvignonBlanche]

I couldn't give a flying fuck.
I didn't see the programme but did see a couple of trailers of Charles attempting to be human misty-eyed.

[diddl]

Why is the Diamond Jubilee being celebrated now?

She became Queen in Feb 1952, Coronation June 1953?

So surely June 2012 is neither one nor the other?

[slartybartfast]

hmm, it is always june. though. must be a reason

[cory]

According to my MIL (who was born in the same year as the Queen), plenty of people in the 50s did judge the Queen, not so much for the trip but for the formal stiffness with which she greeted Charles on her return. It seems that hand-shake was much commented on at the time. Useful reminder that official footage doesn't speak for everyone in the 1950s.

Basically, I imagine social behaviour in any period is always on a spectrum, there are always different styles of parenting or married behaviour or whatever, and you have a choice as to where you place yourself on that spectrum.

If MIL is to be believed, the Queen was perceived by her contemporaries as being on the cold end of the spectrum in her own day.

(Unlike e.g. my late FIL who born before the First World War, but still a very hands-on, warm parent, so presumably far out on the warm end of the social spectrum of his day.)