THE LAUGHING QUEEN AT HER FIRESIDE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 188, 29 October 1927, Page 20 (Supplement)

THE LAUGHING QUEEN AT HER FIRESIDE

Notable Biography by a Former Factory Girl WHISTLING COMEDY TUNES INTIMATE glimpses of the Queen, whistling snatches of musical comedy in the corridors of Buckingham Palace, hanging pictures “with the greatest of gusto” in the same Royal home, and tucking up her sleeves to tackle furniture and carpets at Holyrood, are given in a remarkable book published in London during September. The author of the book, “Queen Mary: A Life and Intimate Study,” is Miss Kathleen Woodward who was once a work-girl in a collar factory near the Old Kent Road, London.

At the age of 14 Miss Woodward was an agitator calling a strike, and she became a kind of mascot at her union’s headquarters. She was, however, a restless young woman, and rapidly passed through several jobs in attempting to improve her lot in life.

She worked her passage to South Africa as a stewardess, sold sewingmachines and photographs in London. Then she became private secretary to a public man, and was described by him as “the world’s worst secretary.” She read books voraciously. THE INSPIRATION

One day, in the summer of 1925, the ex-factory girl was leaning out of a window overlooking Temple Bar, watching a Royal ceremony there. It was the first time she had seen the Queen at close quarters, and it struck her that her Majesty was practically unknown to her subjects as far as her private life was concerned.

Miss Woodward dared to write to Buckingham Palace suggesting that her Majesty should tell the story of her life. “Is it unnatural and presumptuous,” she wrotfe, “to wish to know how she works, in what she works, and know it in some definite and readable form, not in fleeting glimpses or in vague rumours and intimation?”

The Queen adopted the suggestion. It was decided that Miss Woodward should get her material from those actually around her —from ladies-in-waiting, equerries, courtiers, statesmen and diplomats, from housekeepers, dressers -and serving men. After a year’s investigation at the Royal homes and from public men and women the book was written and submitted to their Ma jesties. It was read by them at Sandringham, and now is passed on to the public. ROYAL HOME LIFE

Queen Mary is revealed as one who lives heartily and has the gift of infectious laughter; as one shy and sensitive who can be “angry, ragingly angry”; one with “an eighteenth century taste” and a deep passion for antiques; one who loves colour but

is “unclever about clothes” and disdains cosmetics; and the possessor of “an uncanny memory.”

Many charming stories are told of her; but the affecting and most popular fable of the Queen —that of her personally supervising the conduct of the Royal larders and Knen cupboards —is killed outright. The authoress bluntly points out that she has not time for this. She says: The domestic genius of Queen Mary is especially to be noted in its relation with her domestics—the innumerable officials and servants, the hosts of the households, all of whom she conspicuously leaves to their own particular work. Intrusion, encroachment, would be unthinkable because unnecessary, and an absurd waste of time; and Queen Mary does not waste time in her household affairs.

Domesticity, for itself, leaves the Queen “notably cold,” adds the writer. Her particular personal contribution lies in decoration. It is recorded that Windsor Castle has been transformed from a higgledy-piggledy depository of treasures into a well-ordered beauty of furniture and antiques under her direction.

Pictures and other treasures have been unearthed from dark cellars and obscure corners, and reset in period rooms with unflagging industry. Queen Mary has become an authority on pictures, furniture, heraldry and antiques, particularly in respect of Georgian times. Her working day is so full that the bulk of her daily post has to be dealt with before breakfast.

In the matter of dress, the Queen is Said to be a mixture of “pliancy and sheer immovableness.” She will not shed her liking for toques nor tolerate a glimpse of her ankles. She permits nothing “dressy” in her wardrobes.

Her favourite colour in dress is a wistaria—delphinium blue —pale, soft, with a suggestion of mauve in the blue —Pervenche blue. ... In all things she prefers soft pastel shades to brilliance in colouring. She has a marked aversion to black . . .

On the use of cosmetics and the modes and manners of the modern society woman, the Queen is said to be “frigidly English.” It was a woman who appeared at Court “in a skirt slashed up almost to her knee” who made her “angry, ragingly angry.” Photographs in an English periodical of society people, abandoning themselves on a fashionable French shore, drew from the Queen the comment, “They would look almost more decent if they had no clothes at all.”

Though she has “an almost constitutional inability to ‘go out’ to people,” her Majesty has apparently enjoyed the frank confidences of Labour leaders for a long time. THE QUEEN’S LAUGH “When that woman laughs,” Keir Hardie is reported as saying, “she does laugh, and not make a contortion like so many royalties.” Mary Macarthur “positively lectured the Queen on the inequality of the classes —the injustice of things”— and the same Labour woman declined to back out of the Royal presence, “not being a gymnast,” as she explained.

“I don't think the Queen ever talked to me about anything outside Bolshevism—Com m u n ism—S oc ia 1 ism— T rade Unionism,” stated another Labour woman.

The book tells a neat story against the Queen during a tour of East End slums:

Round and about Ware Street she toured in her characteristic way, and when she turned at last, despairingly to a woman of Ware Street, and asked: “Why, why do you live here?” she was reminded, with firm courtesy, that it was because “We can’t git nowhere else, ma’am.”

It is recorded that her Majesty returned to Buckingham Palace “and her reflections.”

Officially her “expressions of horror” had no sequel, but it is added on the authority of Lady Cynthia Colville, that “one of the results was the £40,000 voted within the next week or two by the London County Council toward clearing up the horror.” THE BABY’S EYE On another occasion the Queen visited a maternity home at Hampstead and a baby was placed in her arms for the usual photograph. At the critical moment the Queen cried, “Matron! But what is the matter with its eye?” She was the first to detect a slight inflammation of the child’s eyelid. Her observation and “uncanny memory” is illustrated by a story of giving presents. With regard to one prospective recipient she remarked, “Well, I know he smokes cigarettes by his fingers. Let’s give him a cigarette case . . .”

“Above all things Queen Mary is r oman,” adds Miss Woodward.