HOW do we say goodbye to someone who has been with everyone for so long? I find it very hard to believe that Elizabeth the Queen Mother will no longer be among us for that is what she was - a person very much among us.
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon set high standards, lived by them and will, I am sure, be remembered as a most caring and thoughtful person whose smile that radiated so much joy throughout her 102 years also hid the personal grief in her life.
I will remember her as that both charming and effervescent woman in the one breath cheering on her winner in the sport she loved so much - horse racing - and in the next showing in her face the care she felt when visiting sick children in hospital.
She appeared to be never more at home than when she was surrounded by her favourite Guards regiment, the officers and men who towered above her in what could only be described as affectionate protection, and I am sure it would have been woe betide anyone so foolhardy as to try to harm her while in their company.
The clothes she wore, so colourful, reflected herself and no matter how others in her company dressed she stood out among them, a truly remarkable woman who lived through an equally remarkable century; a woman who put the royal into royalty, and one who slipped away as she had lived, without fuss.
Goodbye Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon - Queen among queens.
George W Bateson,
Moorland Garth,
Strensall, York.
...THE death of the Queen Mother is sad. She was a caring, cheerful lady. She was a great help to her reluctant King husband and an immense inspiration to the people of London and Britain in 1940-41.
She was liked by most people more than any other member of the Royal Family.
But she was not without fault.
In my view she was in error in believing that Prince Charles could do no wrong. She never said anything about the dreadful way Charles treated Diana, Princess of Wales. She never said anything about the way Charles behaved with Mrs Camilla Parker-Bowles - she may have said something in private, but somehow I doubt it.
There are very few saints in this world.
David Quarrie,
Lynden Way,
York.
Updated: 10:45 Wednesday, April 03, 2002
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