A lifelong friendship: the Elizabeth I knew

On 29 January 1947, the Queen and Princess Elizabeth came to St Mark’s in Mayfair to attend my marriage to Eric Penn. On the following day they set sail on HMS Vanguard for South Africa where King George VI and the Queen, accompanied by their two daughters, were to make a historic tour of the region at a pivotal moment not just in the history of the union of South Africa, but of the British Empire itself.

Princess Elizabeth and I were both born in 1926 within three months of one another, but our paths did not cross until I became engaged to Eric. He was comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office in the Queen’s household and I became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.

Nobody under the age of 70 can remember a sovereign other than Queen Elizabeth II, and probably finds it hard to imagine her before her accession – as a young and very beautiful girl living with Prince Philip the relatively normal life of a happily married couple with two young children.

Her children and ours were more or less of the same age. There were tea parties in each other’s houses and weekly visits to Buckingham Palace, where ‘Miss Vacani’ taught them to dance. When people say that the Queen didn’t have time to be with her children, they are talking nonsense.

On one occasion when the Queen was staying with us in Suffolk, we went for a walk along the banks of the river Alde. Below the 12th-century church of St Botolph at Iken we met a woman walking her dog, which happened to be a corgi. Her Majesty was a magnet to dogs, and it made straight for her. She bent down to stroke and talk to it. Seeing the affinity between them, the woman asked if she happened to be a corgi fan too. She said that she was, whereupon the owner said: ‘Well, you and I are in good company, because the Queen has them too.’ ‘Wasn’t that killing?’ she said as we walked away.

After my husband’s retirement we moved up to Scotland, and there was an anxious moment when he had to go into hospital. Her Majesty very kindly sent him some flowers and the following day when I went to visit Eric, the doctor who was looking after him beckoned me into his office as he had something funny to tell me. Apparently the nurses on the ward kept asking my husband who had sent him the beautiful bunch of flowers. Becoming bored by the repeated question, he thought he might as well say that they were from the Queen. The nurses reported to the doctor on his morning round that all was well on the ward, with the exception of Eric Penn who thinks he has had flowers from the Queen. Her Majesty laughed a lot when I recounted the story.

Queen Elizabeth II was an exemplary monarch. Her steadfast matter-of-fact attention to her duty was constant. Her wisdom and her compassion permeated through her official life to her family and friends. A true and loyal Christian if ever there was one, she was greatly loved and universally respected.

The coronation was a major event which required time and meticulous preparation. It was a marvellous and moving spectacle. In the period between becoming Queen and the event, I remember her talking about it as ‘the coronation’ and not as ‘my coronation’. I think she saw the Crown as an institution above all else and that the mantle just happened to have fallen on her shoulders. It was a situation that she embraced with humility and dedication for the rest of her life.

An illustration of this was when we gave a dinner for her and the Duke of Edinburgh and a few friends in our house in London. I had a carefully thought-out table plan which I forgot to take with me into the dining room and got into a serious muddle over the placing of our guests. Her Majesty took over and in no time at all had made a very good job of it. She sat down and said: ‘Lucky you weren’t giving an important dinner party.’

The Duke of Edinburgh was her heaven-sent consort and without his love, support and encouragement her task would have been so much the greater. She was also sustained by her loyal and professional household who served her with devotion and respect throughout her long reign.

The close relationships between the Queen and her mother and sister were touching. I don’t think a day passed when they did not speak on the telephone. The switchboard at Buckingham Palace would call and say: ‘Her Majesty, Your Majesty.’ Their departure must have left a void in her life that no friend could replace. As a friend there was no one better: she was caring and thoughtful but with a degree of remoteness beyond which one didn’t trespass. She will be missed by her subjects too, maybe more than they would ever have envisaged.