My post from Friday, April 28, 2023 discussed Queen Elizabeth II’s family history and her way of handling politics and protocol.

That post mentioned her address to the nation about the coronavirus pandemic on Sunday evening, April 5, 2020.

Although London’s streets were largely deserted because of the UK’s national lockdown, the address appeared at Piccadilly Circus. At just 523 words, it was a remarkably effective balm for the nation:

I also mentioned that, a short while after the Queen’s broadcast aired on television, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had to be taken to St Thomas’ Hospital with coronavirus. He remained there the rest of that week, alarmingly close to death.

By the time the annual Falkland Islands’ penguins march would have taken place on the Queen’s birthday, April 21, Boris was recuperating at Chequers and his partner Carrie was about to give birth to their son Wilfred.

Unfortunately, the penguins march had to be called off that year, but this is a past video of what it looks like:

Political leaders

Because of the Queen’s ultimate discretion, especially in politics, we do not know much of what she really thought of world leaders, but a few stories arose after her death in September 2022.

The Queen and her Prime Ministers

On Tuesday, April 7, 2020, the Queen sent a message to Boris’s then-partner Carrie Symonds, later the third Mrs Johnson, with get well wishes for the then-Prime Minister:

Here is Sky News’s coverage about the message. Note that the Royal correspondent is at home in her kitchen:

In 2022, after the Queen’s death, a Royal historian commenting on GB News said that she had a particular fondness for Labour’s Harold Wilson and that she thought that Tony Blair (also Labour) was just a bit too ambitious for her liking. Wilson always had an anecdote or observation that made her chuckle.

That was about the most information we could glean about the head of state who reigned over 16 PMs. They met weekly in person until the pandemic put an end to that, when a telephone call had to suffice.

In addition, every September, the Queen extended an invitation to her Prime Ministers and their wives to stay for a few days at Balmoral. This was true even for Boris’s then-partner Carrie Symonds, as The Sun reported on August 18, 2019:

CARRIE Symonds is expected to meet the Queen at her Balmoral estate — where they will enjoy an informal barbecue.

Eco-campaigner Carrie will accompany her boyfriend PM Boris Johnson to the Scottish castle during the monarch’s summer holiday.

The Queen traditionally invites Prime Ministers and their spouses to stay with her during early September.

And a source revealed Carrie was “expected to go” to Scotland next month, where she and Boris are also likely to have a formal dinner.

In previous years, PMs and their spouses have been invited to walk across the Royal Deeside estate and have even watched the Queen do the washing up.

French presidents

The morning after the Queen died in September 2022, France’s talk radio channel RMC devoted two hours to discussing the British monarch and her 70-year reign.

The subject of French presidents arose. One of the expert panellists said that the Queen liked the socialist François Mitterand the best. She was sceptical of Charles de Gaulle and was relieved when Georges Pompidou entered the Elysée. The French president she really disliked was Jacques Chirac. Allegedly, she did not like his innuendos or the way he would sidle up to her. He got too physically close to her on more than one occasion, the expert said.

Nelson Mandela a firm favourite

It seems that South Africa’s Nelson Mandela was the Queen’s favourite leader, according to Royal historians appearing on GB News. The two apparently had a mutual arrangement whereby they rang each other up at any time of day or night.

Musical tastes

It has been said that the Queen enjoyed popular music more than a classical opus.

She was no doubt fond of Dame Vera Lynn’s hit singles during the Second World War.

On July 28, 2016, the Queen gave the iconic singer, then 99 and still recording, another honour. The Telegraph reported:

Dame Vera Lynn, the Forces’ sweetheart, has received her latest honour from the Queen in an investiture ceremony held at her village home.

The 99-year-old, whose songs brought hope during the darkest days of the Second World War, was made a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

She could not make it to Buckingham Palace and received the accolade – for nearly eight decades of service to entertainment and charity – at an investiture ceremony at her home in Ditchling, near Brighton, on Wednesday.

Dame Vera, who turns 100 next March, said she was “truly delighted” to be made a Companion of Honour …

Led by Peter Field, the Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex, family friend Carola Godman Irvine, who is the county’s deputy lord lieutenant, read the citation which saluted Dame Vera for being “the voice of hope” during the Second World War …

Her hits included We’ll Meet Again, I’ll Be Seeing You, Wishing and If Only I Had Wings. In 1941, she was handed her own regular radio programme, Sincerely Yours, giving her a peak-time evening audience …

In 2002, she founded cerebral palsy charity the Dame Vera Lynn Children’s Charity, based in Billingshurst, West Sussex, which provides support and education for affected families.

She is involved with many other charities throughout the UK and beyond. She has received accolades throughout her life, including an OBE in 1969, a DBE in 1975, and in 1978 she was given the Freedom of the City of London.

In 2019, a tenor who performed for her said that the Queen enjoyed musicals. The Express reported:

US-based tenor Andrew McNeil made the revelations after he was asked to perform for Her Majesty at an intimate dinner. He was invited by the US ambassador Robert Johnson to sing and instantly asked Buckingham Palace for some hints as to what the Queen likes. The event was attended by around 20 people and in one of his songs Mr McNeil sang a duet with Kathryn Jenkins.

According to People Magazine, Mr McNeil said: “We reached out to the palace for her musical tastes, and her Lady in Waiting informed us she loves show tunes.

“Especially show tunes from ‘Oklahoma’.”

During the event Mr McNeil performed an array of tracks including ‘Oh What a Beautiful Morning’ and ‘It Had to be You’.

However, I always wondered which group the Queen preferred: the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.

The November 2020 issue of the high society magazine Tatler might have the answer to that burning question.

An article about younger nobles pursuing careers in music, ‘Heir bands’ (p. 35), states (emphases mine):

Even the Queen has a good ear: ‘I want to see the Rolling Stones,’ she told Dirk Bogarde before Lord Christopher Thynne and Antonia Palmer’s 1968 wedding, when the rockers played to a room of blue-blooded fans at the St James’s Palace reception.

Television

Our first televisual monarch …

… was also known to relax at Balmoral watching some of the nation’s favourite programmes.

On July 23, 2019, The Express revealed her personal preferences:

THE Queen makes an annual request for recordings of her favourite TV shows that await her when she ventures to Balmoral every summer.

Her private secretary sends a list of shows to the Special Services department at the BBC and they arrange for DVDs to be be made of their own shows and those from other stations. A senior courier was told by the Queen that ITV drama The Bill was her favourite while it was on air. An aide told The Sun: “The Queen likes them in the form of separate discs, although of course it would be easier to transfer them digitally.

“You might call that old-fashioned, but that’s the way she prefers to do her viewing.”

In 2010, when The Bill was cancelled after 2,425 episodes in 26 years, the monarch was said to be disappointed.

Despite enjoying the police drama, she is reported to have said she was not a fan of “those episodes where policemen get hurt”.

Eastenders star Paul Nicholls claims he saw The Bill was a favourite: “I saw that list.

“Besides The Bill there was Keeping Up Appearances, Midsomer Murders, New Tricks, Last Of The Summer Wine and the complete Doctor Who.”

The list of programmes is not the only tradition in place at Balmoral.

Queen Victoria started the tradition of having a bagpiper play under the monarch’s window at 9am for 15 minutes every single morning.

Meanwhile, the current Queen began a tradition of inspecting the sandwiches given to guards according to another castle insider.

After her death, at least one Royal commentator said that the Queen’s favourite programme was the London-based nightly serial, Eastenders.

Racing

The Queen probably knew the most about racing than anyone in Britain or Ireland.

She was one of the world’s experts on bloodlines and breeding.

King Charles sold her race horses soon after her death.

So let’s remember the glory days of the Queen at the races at Cheltenham Festival, which takes place in mid-March:

Fortunately, the Queen passed her love of horses on to Princess Anne and her daughter, Zara Phillips:

After Prince Philip’s funeral in April 2021, the Queen wanted to be alone on her birthday, on the 21st of that month.

On April 19, The Mirror reported:

The Queen will mark her loneliest birthday – her first without husband Philip in seven decades – with video calls from family and a walk with her new puppies.

The monarch turns 95 on Wednesday, just four days after the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral, where the Queen was forced to sit alone and wear a face mask due to England’s coronavirus lockdown rules.

She and the rest of the Royal Family will still be in an official two-week period of mourning for her late husband of 73 years, who died aged 99 on April 9.

The Queen is expected to have a video call with great-grandchildren Prince George, seven, Princess Charlotte, five, and Prince Louis, two – on Wednesday, and the royals have agreed a rota to visit her ahead of her birthday, sources told the Mirror.

She was seen going out for a drive alone in a green Jaguar on Sunday, and she reportedly stopped at one of her favourite spots for a quiet moment of reflection 24 hours after the service.

And it is expected that she will mark her birthday in a similar way as she continues to grieve Philip in private and prepares to resume royal engagements following the official mourning period.

The nation was moved by the heartbreaking image of the monarch sitting alone and wearing a face mask as she gazed at her late husband’s coffin inside St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle on Saturday.

She will celebrate the first birthday of her reign without her husband just 12 days after the Duke of Edinburgh’s death.

Another report from The Mirror said that the Queen was not in the mood to get involved with Harry and Meghan’s melodrama:

The Queen isn’t in the mood to host a family summit to address the feud with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, a royal biographer claims.

Author Ingrid Seward said the monarch, who turns 95 this week, “hates confrontation” and her children have a tough time getting her to talk about “anything other than dogs or horses”.

This week, she will mark the first birthday of her reign without her late husband Prince Philip.

His funeral was the first time Harry, 36, had met up with his family since his and wife Meghan Markle’s explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey last month …

Ms Seward said any kind of family summit involving the Queen, at this stage at least, to address the Oprah interview and other issues at the heart of the rift would be unlikely.

She told the Times: “His (Harry’s) grandmother will not be in the mood for it. She hates confrontation.

“The children have much difficulty getting the Queen to discuss anything other than dogs or horses.

“I remember Fergie telling me it took three weeks for them to try and get her to discuss their divorce. She kept saying ‘Oh, I’ve got to take the dogs for a walk’.”

The day before her birthday in 2021, the Queen lost a close friend from the racing world, Sir Michael Oswald.

On April 20, The Sun told us that he died on the day of Prince Philip’s funeral:

Her Majesty’s trusted racing adviser passed away from a long illness on April 17 aged 86.

Sir Michael looked after the Queen and Queen Mother’s racing interests for almost 30 years.

He was regularly pictured next to the royal at racing events over the years.

Paying tribute, Sir Michael’s wife Lady Angela, who was a lady-in-waiting to the Queen Mother, told Racing Post: “He always said he had the most wonderful job anybody could ever have had and that for all his working life he was simply doing what he would have done had he been a rich man who didn’t have to work.”

Sir Michael was born in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, in 1934 and attended Eton and later King’s College, Cambridge.

The racing enthusiast was then recruited as manager of the Royal Studs.

He worked for the Queen Mother from 1970 until 2002 before becoming Her Majesty’s racing adviser after her death.

The expert was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) in last year’s New Year Honours list.

He fondly remembered his time working with the Queen and once gave an insight into her dry sense of humour.

Sir Michael had called aide Barry Mitford to let him know a horse the Queen owned called Harvest Song was running and it would be shown on TV in case the monarch wanted to watch it.

He said: “Barry got rather excited at this, asking will it win and should he have a flutter. I told him under no circumstances should he waste any money on it: that I had more chance of winning the 100m at the Olympics.”

Incredibly, the 50-1 outsider won the race by five and a half lengths.

When Sir Michael later rang the Queen to ask if she’d watched the race, she replied: “Oh yes, and may I say that Barry is standing next to me. If I was you, I would find some dark glasses and a good disguise next time to come anywhere near this place.”

Sir Michael’s death is the second tragedy to hit the Queen after her beloved husband of 73 years passed away on April 9.

This is what happens as one ages, particularly into one’s 90s. We see our friends go to their eternal rest.

More on the Queen will follow tomorrow.