The Nation's Favourite Grandmother

It is as the Queen Mother that two generations have known Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.

In her "uniform" floaty pastel dresses and coats, shell-shaped hats and pearls she has become "The Nation's Favourite Grandmother" - - and a great-grandmother to nine herself.

After the death of King George VI in 1952 the Queen Mother wore black for a year, and beat a private retreat to renovate and refurnish a castle she had bought in Scotland.

But persuaded, it is said by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, not to spend a life in mourning like Queen Victoria, she returned to public life as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

Historian David Starkey says the title, while unprecedented in Britain, was taken from the well established French Reine Mere to distinguish her from her daughter Queen Elizabeth II.

Other widowed sovereign's consorts had participated in public life but Starkey says the Queen Mother has "done something very special" with the role, capturing the national imagination.

He said: "There are of course two kinds of grandmother, the severe, domineering kind of which Queen Mary is perhaps an example and the one who sometimes gets a bit tiddly and has a bet on the horses which she has embodied."

Public role

Pastel dresses and coats have been the Queen Mother's "uniform" since she came back to public life in 1953 after a year of mourning

Today the Queen Mother is the patron or president of about 350 organisations, including being the Commandant-in-Chief of the Army and Air Force Women's Services and for Women in the Royal Navy and being the Commandant-in-Chief of the Nursing Division of the St John's Ambulance Brigade.

She has kept a busy round of public appearance, with over 100 a year as she turned 90 and now around 25 annually.

Having lived through the terror of the German blitz during World War II, remembrance of those involved has played a large role in her public appearances and in 1995 the Queen Mother officially opened the VE (Victory in Europe) 50th anniversary commemorations in Hyde Park, London.

She later appeared on the Buckingham Palace balcony with her daughters, re-enacting the joyous scenes of 50 years beforehand.

Since the King's death the Queen Mother has also been on 40 official visits abroad, including one to Canada in 1989 to mark the 50th anniversary of her first visit.

Family

Having created a solid family life to which millions of Britons could relate, in recent years the Royal matriarch has had to watch as the relationships of the younger generation crumble around her.

Her daughter Margaret, forbidden to marry Peter Townsend, a royal equerry because he was divorced, later divorced the man she did wed, photographer Lord Snowdon.

Lady Diana Spencer - entered the Royal Family as Charles' bride with the Queen Mother's approval

Grandchildren Anne, Andrew and, most spectacularly, Charles also saw their marriages collapse in the early1990s.

Lady Diana Spencer - - Diana, Princess of Wales - - had entered the Royal Family as Charles' bride with the Queen Mother's approval, but as the princess chaffed against the constrictions of court life and an increasingly fraught marriage she was dismissed as a "silly girl."

There was no love lost on either side, according to royal writer Anthony Holden, who reported Diana referring to the Queen Mother as "the chief leper at the leper colony."

Starkey points out that the now fractured family is no different to any other, but looks bad set next to the example of moral rectitude set by the Queen Mother - - an almost impossible model to live up to after the 1960s had hit.

Still a firm believer in the sanctity of marriage vows the Queen Mother has refused to meet Charles' divorced mistress Camilla Parker Bowles, for many years and only attended the quiet Scottish second wedding of the Princess Royal after apparent earlier hesitation.

Edwardian Lady

To a large extent today the Queen Mother still leads the life of an Edwardian lady.

Drawing £643,000 a year from the public purse on the Civil List she reputedly has a £4million overdraft to help finance her multiple houses, cars and servants.

From left to right: Prince Andrew, the Queen Mother, Earl Spencer, Queen Elisabeth II, Princess Diana and Prince Charles

In London she lives at Clarence House near Buckingham Palace, weekending at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park.

In autumn, and in May for the fishing season, it is off to Scotland for an almost continuous round of hunting weekends and guests at Birkhall in the grounds of the Balmoral estate and Caithness Castle of Mey in the far northeast.

As the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports she also has use of Walmer Castle near Deal in southern England.

Despite her age the Queen Mother is still often the life and soul of the party. At her 98th birthday she sat down for a private dinner party at 11.45pm after a full day of walkabouts and celebrations.

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