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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think that the queen not visiting her DH in hospital...

97 replies

AlorMy · 25/12/2019 01:14

Is yet another indication that the royal family operate on strange (to the general public) emotional terms?

Would it not be standard that family would visit if you are unwell and in hospital?

And yet it appears that the Queen and family did not attend Prince Philip’s side.

OP posts:

Ragwort · 25/12/2019 01:19

Perhaps the Duke of Edinburgh didn’t want any visitors? Not everyone wants to be fussed over in hospital.

My mother (a few years younger than the Duke) was in hospital recently and told us not to visit. She was happy with books, magazines, chatting to other people and actually found it rather tedious having to deal with visitors .

I can understand it myself, I was in hospital for a week and you get into the routine of hospital life and it almost feels a lot of effort talking to people who then leave you and get on with their own life.

Nat6999 · 25/12/2019 01:19

They lead separate lives, she spends time at Windsor & BuckinghamPalace, he has a cottage in the grounds of Sandringham. It sounds awful but if she had to pick between her royal duty or her husband, royal duty would win every time.

Aquamarine1029 · 25/12/2019 01:20

My guess is that her not visiting is due to security concerns. The hospital is a vast working environment with loads of staff and other patients to take into consideration. Any where the Queen goes has to be tightly controlled, and her visiting would probably have caused a lot of hardship for everyone else involved. Just because she didn't visit doesn't mean she wasn't in contact with her husband.

Jajabinksfeetstink · 25/12/2019 01:21

But apparently it was because they didn’t want to disturb patients undergoing treatment there. If that is the reason I thought it was very considerate.

Original poster

AlorMy · 25/12/2019 01:24

Put yourself in the position of being hospitalised.

Wouldn’t you want your spouse to be with you?

OP posts:

Original poster

AlorMy · 25/12/2019 01:26

Sorry @Jajabinksfeetstink
But that is utter bollocks.
With the staff HRM has, there would definitely been ways to avoid the situation you suggest

OP posts:

FatherRabulaConundrum · 25/12/2019 01:27

If she'd visited him it would have gone from being a 'scheduled appointment nothing to see here move along' to 'HE'S ON THE WAY OUT!!!' in a nano-second.

RowenaMud · 25/12/2019 01:31

She could have visited him discreetly. The ‘firm’ can manage this for numerous frequent hospital appts during pregnancies. Of course she could have visited him without people knowing just as people don’t know how many holidays they take and where always are at any given time.

overnightangel · 25/12/2019 01:33

None of your damn business really is it

Jajabinksfeetstink · 25/12/2019 01:35

Ok @AlorMy . I’m only saying what was reported.

Wilmalovescake · 25/12/2019 01:37

I’ve always read he hates having visitors.

I’m half his age, with no public/press following, and I agree. Leave me alone with a book and let me sleep for a few days. I can’t think of anything worse than everyone traipsing in to make small talk.

Crafting1Queen · 25/12/2019 01:38

BahBloodyHumbug · 25/12/2019 01:38

It would have been a fucking nightmare if she publicly visited. Bad enough arranging a security detail for him.
That said, I bet they'd have quietly snuck her in through a back door anyway, if she had wanted to visit.

Pixxie7 · 25/12/2019 01:45

Perhaps she did but it was kept quit because of security.

ButterflyBook · 25/12/2019 01:53

Put yourself in the position of being hospitalised

If I or my husband were hospitalised, we might be in a ward with several others, and sharing doctors, nurses, consultants with several others. Our appetites might take a downturn at the offer of lukewarm mass produced (albeit possibly nourishing) food.

However, I think d of e probs has his own private room with his own private nurses and his own private consultant. And trust me, if he presses his buzzer there'll be a nurse at his side spit spot. He'll have a menu to choose his meals from which will be prepared separately and to order. And there will be a selection of wines to choose from. It's a different world. Different rules apply. Her maj knows he's fine and looked after. She's no spring chicken herself. Maybe she has the winter snottage and would not be welcome in a hospital or doesn't feel up to it. Or maybe, like me if I was hospitalised in luxury and had a busy spouse would say "don't bother fetching yourself and the protection entourage out in this weather. I've just had duck magret and a cheeky rioja - I'll be home Tuesday night. Ring me a cab though would you darling?"

1forAll74 · 25/12/2019 01:57

Its the way they do things,as in being royal. Philip is very old fashioned and stoical, the Queen has certain long standing traditions,and she would know only too well, if her husband was at deaths door,which he wasn't. So she always will carry on doing what she does each year at Christmas, with some family members at Sandringham.

Everyone will be in touch , if any unfortunate situations arose, but otherwise, they will carry on as normal.

The Queen will obviously be upset about her husband, but traditionally,the royals don't show how they feel in public. She will be very aware,that both herself,and her husband. are getting on a bit,so to speak, and will carry on regardless.

PyongyangKipperbang · 25/12/2019 02:09

The only person my grandfather wanted visiting him in hospital was me. He had a wife, three daughters and six grandaughters.

Why me? I would bring him his paper (The Guardian which he actually read and not the Fail which my aunt bought and he binned :o ), had a chat and left within half an hour. Just as I wished people would when I was in!

They have been together so long that if either of them had felt a visit necessary then it would have happened. They didnt, they are ok with it, so why the hell do you care?!

PyongyangKipperbang · 25/12/2019 02:10

i should say that my grandfather wanted to see my grandmother but didnt want her visiting as she had dementia and it would have upset her.

StellaRockafella · 25/12/2019 02:40

I et the impression he was in there for rest and recuperation from an ongoing illness, so nothing serious which would warrant visitors. Plus as others have said, he might just enjoy the peace and quiet of no visitors. No other members of the Royal family visited, did they? Or any else for that matter. I think that speaks volumes. I imagine the Queen visiting would have sparked rumours he was terminally ill/about to die. Also, don't Royals usually die at home?

Family member of mine was admitted to that hospital, so know it well. It's tiny and incredibly private, and no shared wards, just individual rooms which makes one think they're on a ship(!). I can't recall ever bumping into or seeing any other patients or visitors while there apart from Vanessa Feltz who I shared a lift with once. It's the kind of place that the Queen could have slipped into unnoticed (had she been driven there in an unmarked car).

Mummyoflittledragon · 25/12/2019 02:47

It’s been said she worships the ground he walks on. It’s my understanding the queen has sacrificed her happiness to be with him for her royal duties. She has a very strong sense of duty. Don’t presume to know how he feels and don’t presume just because you’d want something, so would he. He’s a very old man. With age comes acceptance of what we cannot change and this will include illness and death. He lives alone these days to give him peace to enjoy his retirement and rest his ailing body. Visiting him in hospital is not something they deem necessary. If they have come to this arrangement, who are you to judge?!

steff13 · 25/12/2019 02:53

Are you sure she didn't? A PP suggested she could have visited him discreetly, maybe she did.

TooManyPaws · 25/12/2019 02:56

Apparently the only family family member the Queen has ever visited in hospital was Sophie Wessex when Lady Louise was born and they both nearly died. She didn't visit her mother in hospital either.

longwayoff · 25/12/2019 03:12

Ohhhhh. Don't be absurd. None of our business.

Greyhound22 · 25/12/2019 03:26

Hmm no.

I don't have to imagine being hospitalised as I have been 3 times this year. I didn't need my spouse with me 24/7 - he popped up maybe every other night for an hour as he had work and DS to deal with. Last time I was on a ward and quite frankly those who had to have their dopey husband sitting by them all day pissed me off no end. I don't really like having visitors all the time and last time I was in made it clear that I didn't want certain ones.

The Queen can't exactly 'pop' in without causing chaos for that hospital. It's also a good sign that he's happy enough in their on his own.

Dita73 · 25/12/2019 03:32

He wouldn’t want her to. The stiff upper lip type would want “no fuss”. Just how they are

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