Edward the new Duke of Edinburgh

[SnottyLottie]

www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2023/03/10/king-charles-prince-edward-royal-family-title-duke-edinburgh/

In order to honour Edward’s 59th birthday

I have 50 first cousins. I cannot name half of them. I know for certain that five of them have died, (far too young in all cases). of these five, I know the names of only four of them, and knew only two of them.

If I have never met them, I consider them to be distant relatives.

I believe someone said the Queen was a teenager when her cousins were institutionalized. I suspect she might never have met them. It is possible that the family kept them hidden even before they were institutionalized.

I do think it was a horribly sad life they lived.

There are newspapers you know. I am sure the Queen was briefed on what was being written about the RF, even in 1987.

I just picked two articles from that sort of time. There were plenty more.

Oh FFS - who has said the public didn't know before 2014?! Nobody!

The deliberate twisting of posts on here is really tedious.

Yes but it's the ROYALS who go to the Buck House lunch thing at Christmas. Princess Margaret's children, others who I am not sure how they fit in, like Lady Helen Taylor, Duke and Duchess of Kent, Prince Michael of Kent etc etc. Not the Bowes-Lyon side.

But anyway this is all pointless as it's fairly clear that some posters are never going to accept anything other than the Royals being cruel and heartless.

They also completely don’t get that not all family members are close or involved in each other’s lives either.

In this case, the link to the Queen mother and QEII was the father of Nerissa and Katherine, who was their brother/uncle. He had actually died in 1930, more than ten years before his daughters were institutionalised. Who knows how often the Queen Mother saw her widowed sister in law after that date?

I responded to Woman's post of 15.59 which reading it back, I don't understand.

I am not deliberately twisting anything.

The public knew of these two sisters in 1987, I linked newspaper articles from that time to prove so.
Which means the RF will have known. Unless they are so far removed from what goes on that they just stuck their head in the sand.

I cannot believe the Queen wasn't briefed daily back then, with press cuttings and media about the Monarchy.
So... if we can assume that... (because if that didn't happen, it's awful), I think we can also assume that she knew about her first cousins and what was being said about the whole situation.

Maybe she checked on them, made phone calls. Maybe she didn't. We can only go by what we know... hospital staff said no one visited them. And there was no headstone until there was a public outcry about that. And no one from the RF attended their funerals.

Apart from that, we know nothing.

And we don't even know that "hospital staff said no one visited them" as another poster has said "very few" people visited.

Doesn't stop posters leaping to their own conclusions though.

There are more than one member of staff saying no one visited. But you go for the more positive spin if it helps you.

Nurses were interviewed for a documentary and said no one visited. I am not sure they would go on record and lie.

A general manager for the East Surrey Health Authority told the Associated Press in 1987: "Both sisters had regular visits from their families up until the early 1960s when one of their closest relatives died… Since then, they have had few visitors.“

But the manager would?

You go for the negative spin if it helps you…

We do know the sisters collected Royal Family memorabilia and said they hoped one day someone from the family would visit. It is terribly sad that no one ever did.

So no one visited for decades?

That is not a positive spin you are putting on this

I’ve received a pretty nasty PM referencing this thread so I’m bailing out. Life is too short for that kind of bullshit.

Not by anyone posting on the thread thy I can see, just to be clear

Its been reported. If anyone else gets the same please also report.

I responded to Woman's post of 15.59 which reading it back, I don't understand.

In 1987, it was revealed in the press that Nerissa and Katherine Bowes-Lyon had spent their adult lives in an institution. Burke’s Peerage had listed them as having died in 1940 and 1961 respectively. In fact, Nerissa had died just a year earlier and Katherine was still alive.

No one is disputing that, or trying to suggest the Queen didn’t know when the rest of us did. What she could or should have done afterwards is a matter of opinion.

However, several posters seem to think The Queen, having been told they were dead, should have questioned this and gone digging for more information.

No one, NO ONE, is saying she somehow didn’t know after it came out in the press.

Understand now?

It’s doesn’t say no one visited for decades…

I'm sorry to hear that and I mean it.

No one should receive anything like that and yes I will report if that happens.

Have a good rest of Saturday

Come on England!

Okay lets get this clear. Its fine to be patron of Mencap and turn up at events as a guest of honour. And fine to totally ignore your own two first cousins institutionalised for decades because of a learning disability.
Cognitive dissonance does not even begin to cover it.

No need to be snippy!

I am talking post 1987. When the press got hold of it.

One sister lived another 27 years.

Yes, but what’s your point about post-1987?

I wouldn't go out of my way to visit my half-brother, if I discovered he was in an institution. We have hardly any relationship, we've met a few times. I don't feel I have any responsibility for him.

One of my oldest friends has a disabled child who is unlikely to ever live independently. We see them regularly, and when she goes into whatever form of supported living, at whatever age, I will certainly visit and stay in touch.

So no, I don't judge QE2 for not springing into action for two cousins that were first referred to as dead, but then turned out to be alive and apparently receiving adequate care.

The 200 members of extended family mentioned above were people she had a relationship with, the cousins she knew growing up (and their children and grandchildren, who she had known all their lives) plus her own children and grandchildren.

I would hope that in this day and age children with disabilities would grow up as full members of a family, and have those on-going relationships. Sadly, in the past, often they were removed from families and institutionalised.

No one visited

So according to Wiki, these two women had SIBLINGS who were alive well after they were institutionalised.

Anne Ferelith Fenella Bowes-Lyon (4 December 1917 – 26 September 1980)
Diana Cinderella Mildred Bowes-Lyon (14 December 1923 – 20 May 1986)

Anne had two children, including Patrick Lichfield the photographer - nephew of Nerissa/Katherine. Diana had a daughter too. So for whatever reason the two sisters weren't visiting, but the Queen should have been?

And yes - I see that the siblings died before the 1987 article which led the public know about the sisters.

It's wrong to judge when you have like 1% of the facts.

Not only did their father have a double barrelled name (Bowes-Lyon), their mother had a quadruple barrelled name - I didn't know they existed (Hepburn-Stuart-Forbes-Trefusis) 😂