BEREAVED QUEEN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22346, 18 February 1936, Page 14

BEREAVED QUEEN

BBAYEBY IN SOEEOW MODEL OF FORTITUDE PRIME MINISTER'S PRAISE [from our ojvn correspondent] Dy Air Mail LONDON, Jan. 25 Intimate friends of Queen Mary express the most profound admiration of the courage she displayed during the days of hope and despair. As the King's condition grew worse, Queen Mary never left his side. At times she held his hand, and it was to her, while conscious, that he spoke his last words in a whisper.

" Her fortitude," said one who has had opportunities of seeing Her Majesty, "has been such as few women could have shown in the nearing presence of death. Though in most need of comfort, she has found strength to comfort others."

When Lord Dawson of Peun silently indicated that tho heart of Britain's most beloved King had ceased to beat, the Queen loaned over and kissed her husband's brow. Then she turned to her son—the new King—and mother and son exchanged an affectionate embrace. Immediately the death was announced the Queen herself spoke over the telephone to members of the Royal Family who were not at Sandringham, including tho Queen of Norway, the Duchess of York and the Duko of Gloucester. Remembering always that she was a Queen, she carried out to the minutest detail all that was expected of her. Brave-hearted also, though sorely stricken, is the Princess Royal. Early next morning she attended* tho communion service conducted by tho Archbishop of Canterbury in Sandringham Church. The Empire's Sympathy Mr. Baldwin, in his broadcast speech, made the following touching remarks: — " Every heart in the Empire is sore for Queen Mary this night. In a married life so perfect,.so happy as theirs was, there has to come that inevitable day when ono is taken and the other :s left, and one of the two has to continue the pilgrimage to the end alone. " Thero are millions of hands which, if iiev could reach the Queen, would bo stretched out to her, and tears of sympathy would be shed with her. It must be some comfort to her, though we cannot tell her that, to know of that feeling. " Sho must know it through tho events of that wonderful Jubilee summer, but may not this be a comfort to her as it has been a comfort to others that after all the one who is left is really carrying the cross for the ono who has gone before. Constant Wifely Care "If sho were not suffering to-day he would be, and she is bearing what might have been his sorrow for him. With a King knowing how lonely the high places of the world are, knowing that lie has no ono but his wife with whom he may have really intimate converse, I tremble to think what it might have been for him had he been alone in his awful task with no voico by him to cheer, to comfort and to encourage. We are thankful indeed to feel that, even in her sorrow, Queen Mary is spared to the people who love her." Everyone knew that the Queen watched King George very closely ever since his severe illness, and she was always anxious to prevent him becoming fatigued at functions of State. During the few weeks that the King was resting quietly at Sandringham last .Tune after the Jubilee celebrations, tho Queen carried on all the social obligations, whether from Buckingham Palace or from Windsor Castle. All through Ascot week she attended the races and entertained large house parties at the Castle. Magnificently regal, yet so human, Queen Mary always commands admiration.

"GOOD WORKING MAN" JOURNALIST'S ESTIMATE BUSINESSLIKE ROUTINE [from our own correspondent] By Air Mail LONDON, Jan. 25 Many personal impressions of King George by peoplo who came into personal contact with him have found their way into the press. A prominent journalist, Mr. A. J. Cummings, who accompanied King George and Queen Mary in their industrial tour of the North a few months before the war, believes that it was the first time either of them had got into direct contact with the work-ing-class people of Britain. They talked with scores of men and women in the factories and went insido tho cottages and tenement dwellings of working families.

He writes: —"What I liked about them then was the simplicity of their manner and the understanding way in which they spoke to tho people, without condescension, yet without pretending to be anything but what they wero. . . King' George himself could probably have lived quite happily and without discomfort in a small suburban villa. . . King George was a good King, a good Englishman, and a good 'mixer' and, in the most generous sense of the word, a good working man." A former Court official mentions that King George was tho first British monarch who behaved exactly like a business man. He had an office with a roll-top desk, and he would go every morning into this and transact all the details of State business with tho most methodical care, In the summer he used an office which was specially built in the grounds of Buckingham Palace. Ho had a telephone and typewriters, and ho surrounded himself with men of precision and exactitude. Ho never missed an appointment. In fact, he trained his four sons in their earliest years in habits of punctuality, and it one of them was even a minute late at some public function he would bo heard administering a rebuke. Previous monachs have been flattered. King George had no use for flattery, and never indulged in it himself. Ho liked plain-speaking, and was himself a plain-spoken man to the point of bluntness. That is one reason why he inspired confidence in all straightforward peopjo who camo in contact with him. . ,