Why the Queen refuses to stay at home

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34130, 17 April 1976, Page 11

Why the Queen refuses to stay at home

<»I1,LI AN FRANKS, of Features International. writes the first in a special three-part series to mark the Queen’s fiftieth birthday on April 21.

In the past the Queen has been content to spend much of her time at home alone while the rest of her family went out. Now things are changing . . • With her children growing up. she is determined to make a life of her own. As a result, her private life—including incognito trips to cinemas, theatres and restaurants—is fuller than at any time since she came to the throne.

No-one took any notice of the slightiymuddy Rover 2000 saloon inching its way through the crowded t raffic of London’s West End one afternoon last rear.

It turned into a narrow road behind a Leicester Square cinema, paused long enough for two women and a man to get out, and then drove briskly away.

The Queen, a lady-in-waiting, and her personal detective, met by the manager at the back entrance. were escorted to balcony seats in the halffull cinema and settled down to enjoy "The Return of the Pink Panther.”

A few years ago such an off-duty jaunt would have been unheard of. Today, however, as her fiftieth birthday approaches. the Queen is copying other members of the Royal Family and enjoying incognito trips to places which she has never previously visited throughout her reign.

Until recently, for instance. she had never

eaten in a public restaurant. Now she takes small supper parties to- private rooms at several notable West End eating places. She has made unheralded visits to art galleries.

The fact is that after a lifetime of selfless service. the Queen has decided that her fiftieth birthday will mark the beginning of an era when

she will start to please herself.

When she recently failed to appear at a lavish social event, her mother appearing instead, a Buckingham Palace spokesman commented: "You will just have to accept the idea that the Queen may in future not be doing some of the things which in the past she has always done.” What this means, according to close personal friends, is that she will no longer do what has become an integral part of her life: sit at home, often alone, when the rest of the family- are out.

With a husband involved in more than 200 charitable and social organisations, a daughter married, and sons in the Navy and away at school, the Queen was finding that she was spending up to four nights a week on her own.

A friend who has known the Queen for more than 30 years told me: "She was often alone in that huge house, Buckingham Palace, with no one to talk to and she had a meal on a tray in front of the television. It could be very lonely.”

Now things are changing. The Queen, a shy person in private life, has realised what millions of other mums have discovered when children grow up: you’ve got to make a life of your own. And this she is doing. Her highly private life, known to few outside the immediate Royal circle, is fuller than for years.

She takes "week-ends off,” alone ‘or with her husband, at least once a month and visits personal friends like Lord and Lady Rupert Nev ill or Lord and Lady- Porchester.

She has developed an appetite for private entertaining — small dinner parties for family friends.

For these occasions, which sometimes end with a visit to a theatre or cinema, the Royal chef, Ronald Aubrey cooks simple, essentially English food — perhaps roast lamb or whatever fish is in season. There are more frequent visits down the Mall to Clarence House, home of the Queen Mother; there’s also a direct private phone which doesn’t go through the Buckingham Palace switchboard.

The Queen enjoys family- games like scrabble and is an avid crossword puzzle fan; and she is an astute bridge and chess player.

But it is the country life which appeals to her most and she is never happier than when, in headscarf and flat shoes, she is walking in the country with a labrador and perhaps a couple of corgis, by her side. Riding, too. has been a favourite relaxation since childhood.

Not surprisingly, she prefers to relax in private and has for years maintained several highlysecret cottages — one at Balmoral, which she shares with the Queen Mother, another on land

belonging to her mother at the Castle of Spey, and a third at Windsor. There's also the remote Wood Farm at Sandringham. Only really- close friends are invited to these hideaways. The atmospsere is totally informal and Prince Philip — he claims he’s the best coo’-, in the family — often prepares the meals.

The Queeen is acutely aware that she will never, however much she tries, be able to share many- of the things that the rest of us take for granted. For instance she has never used a public telephone, written a cheque or hired a taxi.

Even so, the extent and freedom of the Queen's private life has increased enormously as she approached 50 — and every detail of it. is included in the Queen’s private diaries, meticulously-kept volumes in which, since the day she was crowned in June, 1953, she has recorded her personal thoughts on the pleasures and difficulties of her job. Apparently, the most minor incidents are reported in the diaries; and certain items are cross-in-dexed in the huge photograph albums that successive Royal families have kept ever since photography was invented.

As a record of a monarch’s secret life, they will be fascinating and revealing — whicjt is presumably why the Queen has already decreed that they can’t be made public until at least the year 2050.