Queen Mary's Life Story

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 5, Issue 1, 1 July 1926, Page 31

Queen Mary's Life Story

Six-Factory Qirl c As Royal "Biographer

"T X 7 hat a woman she is ! Why VV don't we know her better? We all ought to know more of the Queen." This exclamation by an exfactory girl, named Kathleen Woodward, leaning out of a window to watch a Royal ceremony at Temple Bar last summer, has led to Queen Mary giving her consent to the telling of her life-story as princess, mother, queen, and woman. Miss Woodward's thought was that the —easily the most popular woman in Britainis practically unknown to her people, as far as her intimate life is concerned. Acting upon the impulse, she wrote to the Court asking if Queen Mary would tell the story of her life to her people.

Scotland, and personal introductions to all who could assist her. She talked with those who knew the Queen in infancy, had been her intimate friends in girlhood, and attended her when the serious duties of State devolved upon her as Princess May, Duchess of York, Princess of Wales, and as Queen of England. She interviewed statesmen, diplomats, ladies-in-waiting, equerries and courtiers, old and new. At Windsor Castle, Balmoral and York Cottage she' talked also with housekeepers, dressers and serving men. Everywhere she collected material, known only to the few, which revealed the Queen as the woman she is. Facts, episodes and adventures

"We who are not privileged to know Her Majesty," she wrote, "are made aware, and most heartily believe, that the Queen is one of the most hard-worked women in her whole realm." "Is it therefore unnatural and presumptuous of us to wish to know how she works, in what she works, and know it in some definite and reliable form, not in fleeting glimpses or in vague rumours and intimations?" 'To the writer's joy. Queen Mary -*■ accepted the suggestion. Miss Woodward was given the entree to the Royal homes in England and

all marshalled, Miss Woodward wrote her story, which was read page by page, paragraph by paragraph, by both King George and Queen Mary. Formal consent to the publication of the work in book form has just been given. In the twelve years since she worked in a South London collar factory. Miss Woodward has worked her passage to South Africa as a stewardess, in London "hawked" sewing machines and photographs of theatrical and social beauties, been a cashier at the dignified Travellers' Club, and served as a Quartermaster-Sergeant in the W.A.A.C.s.