Читать книгу The Lost Diaries - Craig Brown, Craig Brown - Страница 44

It had been a hugely successful tour. Once again, the Canadians had shown that they loved Queen Elizabeth and she had shown she loved Canada.

‘I have never known anyone who could wave half as brilliantly as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother,’ recalls a close aide. ‘She had this extraordinary ability to hold her right hand up in the air and then –and this is where the real skill comes in – to move it, with amazing delicacy, very gently from side to side. And she really could do that for literally minutes at a time. I’ve honestly never seen anything like it.’

Another onlooker found himself entranced by her singular ability to combine this skill with another. ‘I remember looking at her in her carriage. She was already performing that outstanding wave – it literally radiated sunbeams from its epicentre – when it suddenly struck me that she was also doing something else, equally remarkable. Yes, she was waving – but at one and the same time she was also smiling!’

And by all accounts, that smile was the most perfect smile the world had ever seen. ‘I don’t know how she does it,’ one courtier confided to his diary, ‘but it has something to do with her mouth. Somehow she manages to raise both ends at the same time. As if by magic, she creates a smile, and she then holds that smile for several seconds and turns her head, so that everyone can see it. I have never seen such selflessness and generosity. The effect is transcendent. In the shadow of that gracious smile, I have witnessed entire nations moved to tears of consummate joy, peace and understanding.’

By the time Queen Elizabeth arrived back from her tour of Canada, the Vietnam war had been brought to an end, world trade was prospering once more, thousands of patients had been cured of their illnesses, and Britain was enjoying a glorious heatwave.

Once again, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother had smiled her way into the hearts of the people. ‘It’s so very thrilling,’ she confessed in a letter to Queen Mary. ‘The little Canadians simply ADORE me!!!!’

WILLIAM SHAWCROSS ^*

Day 18,295 in the Big Brother house. 11.27 a.m.: Aisleyne and Imogen are in the kitchen.

AISLEYNE: How long we been in here then?

IMOGEN: Where?

AISLEYNE: Here?

IMOGEN: Here?

AISLEYNE: Yeah. Here.

IMOGEN: Fifty years, babes.

AISLEYNE: Fifty fuckin’ years?

IMOGEN: Yeah.

AISLEYNE: Oh. Right. I gotta do something about these hair extensions.