 Felly, mae'n gwirio i ddod i'r fwyaf, dros y bydwyr, rwy'n gyffredinol, Moir Ysgwrdd, a Gyfran Y Llymlu. Mae yna'n ddod i'r gwirio i'r Platton Yma, ac mae'r Gwyrdd Brytych Llywodraeth, bydd y Gwyrdd yn ym 1998 yn ymgyrch edrych, yn ddwy'r cyfeifiadau cyflym yn y Llywodraeth Ysgwrdd yno ar gyfer y brydyn a rydyn ni'n gweithio'r Llywodraeth, ac mae'n gweithio'r Llywodraeth. A'r wythnosedol yn ymddangos yn cyfnol, mae Ymddangos yn y cyfnod i'r iawn yn yr hwn ychydig y Llywodraeth Bryddoedd. Felly dyma'r wythnos y Llywodraeth Rydydd yn y cyfnod yn y cyfnod, ond wefnod i'r cyflodau yn jersey, rugby, Wester, Cynalwyr, ac Aberdeen, ar y Cyfnod Llywodraeth Llywodraeth Llywodraeth, yn y cyfnodol am ymddangos y Llywodraeth Rydydd. We're also joined by audiences watching online. So tonight's event with Joanna Lumley and Roya Niqar is hosted by Maurea Restuit. Maurea made TV history when she became the first black and Caribbean female newsreader on British national television, and the appearance marked the beginning of an illustrious broadcasting career that has made her familiar to millions. This has included reading the news on news afternoon, Sunday AM, Andrew Miles Show and BBC Breakfast, as well as the Chris Evans Breakfast Show. Maurea went on to join classic FM, taking the helm for her own programmes, Maurea Restuit's Hall of Fame concert on Saturday afternoons, and her interview show, Maurea Restuit Meets. Please welcome Maurea Restuit. Hello, welcome to everyone here, and it's great to have you with us online. Now, as you know, our theme this evening is the 70-year reign and extraordinary life of service of Queen Elizabeth II, and leading the conversation are two absolute experts. May I start off with the illustrious, the fabulous, Dame Joanna Lumley. Forgive the dandruff, but I've got to go. Now, Joanna has been described as our most trusted national treasure. She was born in India, grew up in England and the Far East, and she celebrated the Queen's coronation as a schoolgirl in Pwylolompoir. She's a celebrated actress, a former model and bond girl, an author and presenter. Her varied screen credits have included absolutely fabulous, where she played the legendary Pansy Stone. The New Avengers and Coronation Street. She's well known for her travel documentaries, they're stunning, and as a political activist, including her work for the Gherka Justice Campaign, Joanna's book, you've got to read it, a queen for all seasons will be on sale in the foyer straight after this event, as you know. I've read it, I tell you. Wow, gosh, it was like having her beside you, it really was. Would you also welcome the magnificent, and I hope I've got the pronunciation right, Roya Nica. Perfect. Now, Roya Nica is the royal editor for The Sunday Times, and she's a regular contributor to BBC coverage of royal events, including the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in 2018, the funeral of the Duke of Edinburgh last year, and of course, the forthcoming, platinum jubilee celebrations. As royal editor, she secured exclusive, ah ha, interviews with the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Sussex, and she's presented royal documentaries, including Prince William, Monarch in the Making, and Meghan and Harry, The Baby Years. Now, let me turn to my glorious guests, ask them the first question, and may I turn to you first, my love, your damehood, your wonderful house. Tell me your earliest memories of the Queen. What sparked your interest in following her life and work? I was in Malaya, Malaysia, as it is now, at the army school. My father was serving out there with the gherkers in what was called the emergency, and one day he came back in the middle of the day, most unusual, with a very somber face and said the king is dead, and we went, ah, but we didn't really know who the king was. We didn't know what England was really like, we didn't know where London was. A year passed, and then it was going to be the coronation, by which time we were in a fit of excitement, because there were going to be parades and fancy dress parties, and there were going to be presents. Medals, please somebody do it in time for this jubilee. You had a medal on a ribbon, a little thing of the Queen. If I had mine now, I'd be wearing it today. I got a pencil box with the Queen's face on it, which is one of those double-decker ones. You remember those wooden ones, which slid sideways and pulled it a little like that. I had a golden coronation state coach. The thrilling thing about this jubilee is that they're going to get the coach out, and it's going to clomp through the streets, clippity clop, empty. Thrilling! Imagine yourself in it, actually, if you want. Anyway, so the whole thing was absolutely thrilling, but I didn't know what London was like, I didn't really know what the Queen was like, and then we saw in the Army School in Malair, twice in black and white and once in colour, the film of the coronation. I think it was watching the Queen walking slowly up the aisle of Westminster Abbey, with the maids in waiting behind her, the great train, and a slight swaying, and the coronets on people. I don't know, the whole thing became a fairy tale. And I thought, this is a wonderful person. Then I heard, read even then, that what she'd said at 21 was that she was going to dedicate her entire life to us, and she would never let us down. I thought, that is heroin. So she went straight up in the board in here, heroin, somebody to follow. So that's when I fell in love with her. Roya, your first impressions, your first memories of the Queen? Well, well first of all, so just to say, Joanne, that the Queen isn't going in the Golden State Coach, so there's a space there. We can all imagine ourselves there. My earliest memory is actually, I was very quite small. I think I was about six or seven, and I was at primary school, and I think someone in my class, someone's father, might have worked for one of the Royal Households, and it was a time when the Queen, everyone was going lead free, and the Queen was getting all her fleet of cars converted, and a few of us from school were taken along to the palace for this great moment, and we were given white sweatshirts, which I think I've still got in storage somewhere. It said, I, Greenheart, lead free, and a few of us that were lined up to shake her hand, and I can remember vividly, I mean, I was pretty small thinking, she's tiny. This sort of, you know, this great Queen, tiny, tiny. And then years later, I remember being at home one Saturday night and getting ready to go out, and I had, I love watching those, the greatest hits of the 80s and the greatest hits of the 90s programmes, and you had the overlay, I think, that was happening at a time, and I was just, I suddenly saw the footage of, you know, a bunch of us, and I love lead free sweatshirts, shaking your hand and going, oh my God! That was like my earliest memory of her. I was actually sitting at a meeting here when I was little, but to the point about what made you want to sit full of her, I have to say, I really didn't, and I came to the job, it's a question I'm asked quite a lot. I came to the job in quite a roundabout way. I was at the telegraph at the time, covering the arts on the Sunday telegraph, and my predecessor on the roll brief was leaving to go and write books and do other things, and he said, I think, this was 2010, he said, I think you should go for it, to throw a hash in the ring, nothing ever really happens, it's been very quiet for years, and you get to go on some nice overseas tours, and I was like, I've got no interest in the world at all, I don't want to do that, I sort of snorted at him. Anyway, my then editor, I think, thought, she's the same generation as the younger worlds, maybe we could get her along. Anyway, so I went for it, and I was told that you'll have three months to figure it all out, and we'll introduce you to everyone, and I think two weeks later William and Kate got engaged, and this giant story came flying at me, and I knew nothing. So that's how I started, but I sort of had to have my arm twisted, because I didn't really think it was a brief for me, and 12 years later I'm starting. Look at you now, exactly, absolutely. Well, across all ages, classes and cultures, why this enduring fascination and loyalty to the Queen, do you think? So that's a really good question, and I thought about that one today. I've done quite a lot of travel over the years with other members of the Royal Family, and particularly recently, and wherever we go, I always, wherever you're with, whichever member of the Royal Family you're with, the Queen and what she like, and I think there's something about the Queen when you talk about cultural divides, how does she bridge that? There is something I found, I went to Barbados recently with the Prince of Wales for the Handover, which was really interesting, and when I was doing some sort of scurring round on the ground before the Handover ceremony, going and sort of testing the mood music on the streets of Bridgetown, people were changing attitudes to the monkey, but they all, we love the Queen, why do you love the Queen? We love the Queen because we feel she's sort of a big brother for us, we've got politicians, we don't always trust them, we feel like she's always looking out for us, and I think there's something about the Queen being not just her longevity, but this sort of trusted figure, and figurehead, that people feel she's above politics, she's not trying to do one over on them, and she's seen it all, and I think there's something about that that sort of really appeals to people's... I think it's a trust thing, people trust her. They do. I think it's absolutely true, I think she's like a sort of mothership, and most people who aren't as old as I am have only ever known the Queen on the throne, that's all they've ever known, so she's been a constant there, and the other thing is that she's unknowable, she's never given interviews, we occasionally get glimpses of what she's like, which is why it was so thrilling to do this book, she said shamelessly plugging it, because you must understand, my beloved people, that I've collected what other people think of the Queen, I've linked it and introduced it and so on, so that people have thought of the Queen once they met her from very, very great dignified, splendid people like Bankimoon or Winston Churchill or right down to somebody who's waving a flag in the street in New Zealand, it's got other people's glimpses of the Queen, and I thought by putting a sort of mosaic together we could begin to understand her through her behaviour to other people, through her pattern of life, what she likes, how she entertains people, what she sees as important, and I think that she's been very constant in her faith too. I think her faith, what really surprised me was how much she respected and admired Billy Graham. Does anybody here remember Billy Graham? We do some of us, we do, and we always, because I was a teenage, sharing a flat with three other girls in Earl's Court, and Billy Graham used to come and preach at the end of the big Earl's Court stadium, and we could hear the loud, you know, to think for ourselves and say, come up on the stage if you wish to be saved. Really. And then I heard that the Queen admired him, and I thought, oh my God, really, but he was a good and serious churchman, and she loved him, and she always had him round, I think, when he came to England, had him to stay and took his advice and talked to him about religious matters, and that's sort of something faded away from a lot of us. I think when a lot of us were little, Sundays were when you put on nice clothes something, grumbling or not, you went off to church, or over the weekends anyway, now that the country has become more culturally diverse, now people go to the synagogue, or go to the mosque, or whatever, but generally the sense is that once a week you go and pray, and that's sort of fallen away from Christianity a lot, except for the Queen, who goes every week, I have constancy. Do you feel that with this renewed need for independence of various Commonwealth nations that the Queen has retained, and will retain till the last day, the affection that people hold her in, and the fascination and loyalty of most, even those who weren't independent? I think exactly what you said, which is that people love the Queen. In Germany they say that there are Queens, but there's only one Queen. They reckon she's the Queen, and in the world when you talk about the Queen, we don't mean the Danish Queen, or the Spanish Queen, we don't, because they're all there, they're all the European royalty. When you count up how many Queens and royalty there is in the world, there's a lot, but when you talk about the Queen, because she's been here for so long, and because she's held in such a high esteem, and it's her, so even people who are absolute rabid Republicans love the Queen and respect the Queen, and I don't know what's going to happen when she finally leaves, because I think there will be a great shaking up, and I think a lot of that might even come from the royal family itself who might be realising that the world has turned on its axis, and that maybe a change will be coming. But I loved what the Queen said somewhere in my book, Summer, which is that she trained up her son, the Prince of Wales, to be the best man he could possibly be for the duty that he's going to have to take over, which is going to be king of a completely different kind of world and a different kind of, you know, he's going to be over a different kind of amount of subjects, whether they'll be the same or different or gone, but she's trained him to be the best he can, and why I like the system of monarchy as opposed to voting in a president is that, look, he sometimes get it wrong, and if you're going to have somebody whose life is to us, pretty terrifying, which is that you're every minute every day is going to be constrained and you'll never be alone, you'll be watched over and guarded and reported on and photographed wherever you are, if somebody's been trained up to it, trained up to it, knowing that's what they're going to do if they're going to have a law, that's quite good, isn't it? Absolutely, but what stands out for each of you in the queen's way of working over the years, and how has she faced up to the challenges and what are those challenges? Roy wants to answer this first. Well, I think one of the things that stood out for me reporting on her for nine on 12 years is that, as Diana touched on earlier, you don't really know what she thinks, so when people say, what did you think about this? Well, the likes of me are there to talk to people very close to her and sometimes I get a very good steer on what she might think about something. But actually I was writing a big tribute piece about the queen recently and someone who works very closely with her said one of the great tactics and one of the great things about the queen, and they used an example, let's take the state visit of Donald Trump here a couple of years ago. This was the example said a person gave, unnamed person called here. For all intents and purposes, that went incredibly well. The pictures here looked great. The queen was incredibly jolly. She laughed at his jokes, etc, etc. The images that were broadcast back to the United States were exactly what Donald Trump wanted. Look at me and with the queen isn't this wonderful. It looked brilliant. It went so smoothly but we will never know what the queen thought about it. She might have thought this is a nightmare. She might have thought this is going really well but we'll never know it because she's the consument professional. So I think that's one of her ways of brilliantly doing the job. The other thing I would say about her in terms of how does she do it I think she has been very good over the years at compartmentalising bits of her life and again to something else someone said to me recently who knows her very well. We are very used to just seeing the public queen the monarch, the figurehead, head of nation, head of state. But for her I think she is the public queen and the private queen and Elizabeth Windsor mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and she has been very good at sort of separating those two and people will say oh well you know she wasn't able to be a hands-on mother well which I say that. There's an amazing film coming this Sunday on BBC One. I do say, tell everybody listen put this in your diaries now start. I went for screening this morning with some colleagues about this. It lives with the unseen queen it's basically a documentary about from childhood to the coronation and it is 90% made up of unseen home movie footage and you will it's incredibly moving, it's very poignant a few of us had a tear in our eye including someone here and you will get a much stronger understanding of what drives her, the challenges she faced her upbringing but it also there's very wonderful footage of her as a young mother with a very young child and a very young Anne, very hands-on very loving and I think she has been very good at compartmentalising those two bits of her life and I think we are only ever think of one bit of it I think very often we forget about the other bit Do you feel that it's been a massive intrusion into her life I'm thinking specifically with the marriage to the fabulous Prince Philip the late Prince Philip and his I think affection for the media and to open up the family a little more Do you think that this was quite difficult for the queen or she'd just taken in her strife Both I would say, you have to remember as well I think again the other thing that we also always forget is that this is a woman who was not born to be queen and so her life changed completely overnight everything about her life from the way she went about it and lived it to the media interest and actually you do hear her talking about that you hear her talking about it at the beginning of this film her own personal reflections on cameras always being before the embargo but you won't tell and she talks a little bit about how you know she dealt with that and I cannot even found them what it must be like to have spent 96 years but she's dealt with it remarkably if she's ever complained she's done it privately through the official channels it's very fact I think because the queen has so rarely complained when she does boom you know people listen to her I think her mother gave her some steers because her mother too was not the late queen mother was not destined for her and not was her husband so do you think that perhaps she was instrumental in helping Queen Elizabeth II to actually be Queen Elizabeth II? I think she was and I think the other I would say probably the most important person in her life in helping her learn that role which again you really really see in this film as her father and actually people now who still work with her say people who remember way back will say you know in the early years and decades of her new reign there was always still talk of the king and what would the king do and you know someone said to me as and when the queen is along with us there was any sort of theory she had in her life was that she'd be able to see her father again and say I hope I did you proud and I think she still everything she has done about the way she's gone about her job I think she thinks very carefully about the role model of her father and you really see that in this film Mori would you let me do something which sounds ghastly? I just want to read a bit the photographer John Swannell has photographed the queen several times and he's a close friend of mine and I said something about you photographing the queen and he'd photographed a photographer and he'd been asked to do official pictures and so on and when it came to could he come to the palace and look around because he wanted to take a picture in the palace on his recce he noticed a large portrait of King George VI by positioning the queen in front of the painting and propping a huge looking glass up in front of her he would capture her and her father twice in one picture the queen asked as this shoot took place if he would do another set up this time without the king John duly took the memorable picture of the queen with her back to the window through which could be seen the Golden Grave Victoria Memorial I don't know if you remember it her with the great statue of Queen Victoria outside that this photograph spread all over the papers but John was saddened that the picture with the king hadn't been chosen as he thought it really was the best much later the palace PR woman she called her told him that far from disliking the photograph of her with the king's portrait the queen had loved it so much that she'd had it framed and hung it in her bedroom isn't that the touching thing isn't that so sweet absolutely I was going to press you for some instances of no heckling from the back some examples of the challenges that the queen has faced through her reign and how she's handled them I think when you look at them talk about peeling upon osa which I think is the two mountains one stuffed upon another when things got bad, things got worse and we can all remember the Annasalribilis when things just were sort of ghastly and that great and valued and adored family home when the castle burnt out and the divorces that were going on and the a sense of disease amongst the public people not liking everybody was cross about everything and I don't know what it's like and you have to go on her mother dying, her sister dying and now we've seen her husband dying and days later everything in place beautiful bright hat, flowers receiving people doing her duty I wonder if that gives you a kind of strength I wonder if I rather like actors who go on stage ill and have to perform and by the end of the show they're usually better because you make yourself not be ill and I think through what the queens had to do and had to endure she's made herself not be weak I thought there's an extraordinary thing that happens when lightning strikes sand it turns it to glass there are examples of this in South America in the big deserts there and I think the oddest thing happened which was when the queen knew she was going to be made queen when she was only 10 and suddenly her uncle Edward danced away and her father was made king and she knew then that her life would be changed forever more and she could be the only one who was going to be queen I think lightning struck her then and instead of burning her up as it would maybe a lesser person it forged her into a new creature and she decided to be that new person of strength and service and I don't know constancy is the only word I can think of she wouldn't let you down or her down or us down she became amazing and Roya have there been instances that you've been really surprised, heartened, saddened on her behalf maybe by the way the queen has faced challenges I have to be honest and say I think the biggest challenges for Her Majesty have come from the thing that she loves the most which is her family and it is extraordinary I think the way in which she has faced that in recent years when I started doing the brief it had been relatively quiet it had been relatively calm for a while I wasn't around during the war with the Welles and all that but of course I know all about it and it comes into our coverage sometimes but if you think about the last few years what she has faced up to in terms of very difficult family situations the Duke and Duchess Sussex leaving Royal Life and the way that came about and the way that has played out the Duke of York, everything that's happened there losing her husband and the way that she has I'm not saying soldiered on but she's really sort of navigated those very choppy waters I sound like I'm writing one of my entries now but she has you know she is at the age of 96 she is dealing with a lot of family drama a country that is you know she's head of nation a country that is in extraordinary times what we've been through and I just think there's something about the way she has faced that and I know a lot of people over the years go the Queen is what she puts her head in the sand she doesn't like confrontation all of which is true but actually in her 90s the most difficult family situations that would be difficult for any family then you play it out in public with the most famous family in the world and I think I have been surprised by what she has had to endure and what some of her family have put her through and I have been pretty heartened by how we've sort of seen her deal with it I'm not sure that many kind of 96 year olds would I mean she's got a lot of people around her she's got advisers all of that but you know every word that ever comes out of the Queen you know pulled over by the likes of me and my colleagues and the public and we have got the platinum jubilee coming up next week there will be you know Harry and Meghan coming from America and that will play out in a certain way and all of that going on it's a lot for a 96 year old and I think it is very challenging we know it's challenging for her and I think she's dealt with it really amazingly actually If I can take a few places back I think the magnificent way in which she unfolded all of us in her sort of care and compassion over say the grandfather or the pandemic it seems that whenever she is needed that fabulous you can quote it much better than I we shall we will be with her, we will meet again it's just whether it be she alone or whether it be in collaboration with her magnificent speechwriters I think wow this woman it's not only the words it's the way they are delivered and there's no I've never seen her pandering or being insincere I think that when she cares when she sends her condolences when she goes and visits survivors it seems to be with a whole heart and I wonder whether this grit and this grace is reflected in the way other countries view Britain gosh that's a really interesting question and I think the answer is probably yes and actually there is something about the queen and the way she delivers her addresses and her speechwriters which are rare these days and when Covid first hit in 2020 and we were all a lot of the royal press pack were clamouring to the palace when will we hear from the queen when will we hear from the queen I think the palace and the government number 10 knew that they had one trump card to play if it was to encourage the nation to do the unthinkable and have our civil liberties removed which was the queen and I thought the timing of it was brilliant and people it's that incredible distinction between her two roles head of state, official stuff head of nation, the sort of symbolic thing and you mentioned Grenfell and I remember she very clearly when that happened and she went with William to Grenfell and sat and for a very long time listened to their stories and I remember talking to someone at the palace overnight riding into the Saturday and it was trooping the colour and they said she woke up she stayed up very late and she woke up very early in the morning and said we cannot possibly continue with trooping the colour as it normally happens I'm going to lead a minute silence and they were like lots of courtes game we've never changed trooping the colour we've never changed trooping the colour and she said we are changing it this year and she's got great instinct and that doesn't just come from longevity I just think she's just got that sort of it she kind of knows what to do in those great moments of crisis Interestingly a lot of the people who've contributed to this and the people I've talked to said she's got a sixth sense I think this comes from being very in tune with animals strangely enough horses and dogs, she's brilliant she's literally world class of her knowledge of horses and dogs she wanted to always long to show the corgis because she's got really premium corgis she loves her corgis and horses, well you know about this she just is magic with horses and she breeds them she trains them, she races them she understands them and she's made sure that they're trained the Monty Robertsway which is horse whispering rather than beating them into submission you suggest to a horse what it might like to do and guess what it does it and she's had all her trainers everybody does that now and everybody has to do this but she's got this extraordinary sense about people and there was one to my absolute shame I'm going to forget his name but if you forgive me I won't look it up it was a doctor who'd been serving in Afghanistan and he'd seen some of the most horrific things he said David Nott he was invited to one of the private lunches at Buckingham Palace which are intimate affairs they're on the Queen's side and there are maybe six or eight members of the public there with a few corgis but the table is small and you sit with them anyway he was put beside the Queen and she turned to him during the second part of the meal and said where have you just come from and he said Afghanistan and what was that like and he found that suddenly at that moment he was overwhelmed with the horror of it all he had lost his mother a year before and it was whether it was the Queen who was about his mother's age asking him so kindly and him remembering dismembered children and bits of child children's bodies and the corpses and the blood and the horror he suddenly couldn't speak and his throat stopped and he began to just tremble and the Queen immediately lent over on the table this little box of biscuits and he brought the biscuits here said these are the dogs and then they lent down on the table there's always a flurry of corgis around your feet and she lent down and began feeding the dogs and talking to him about it and saying this one's this and this is the mother of that one and just talked quietly through talked to him about the dogs and their names and at the end she said there that's better than talking isn't it so she knew she could sense exactly that he was on the brink of absolute burnout and he felt completely calm and he wrote about this in the book that it was just an extraordinary kindness that we never get to see because we only ever see the formal Queen cutting a ribbon or appearing at something wasn't it great she went to the Elizabeth line wasn't it great she sort of photo bombed herself she suddenly turned up in yellow and everyone went oh my god wearing her Ukraine colours the Ukraine hat and then they had to move the thing right down to here so she was very small I loved all that so I was just going to say if you haven't listened to David Knott's Desirene Discs where he tells that story it is beyond moving and you really understand the Queen's sixth sense wow Joanna behind the scenes what are the Queen's likes and dislikes about her role do you know you'd never know I would have thought people who know her well say look at the dutiful things she does when she would love to be walking through a forest or taking the dogs up a mountain or something or helping with a harvest she's sitting on a stage like this in a town hall listening to worthy speeches from people who are so overwhelmed by her presence that they're stammering and stumbling and it's all fairly formal and nothing too exciting nothing that would frighten the horses and so she has to sit there while outside I don't know just all the things that she can't do she doesn't complain but I think there must be that in all of us you see at the end of the day I mean as an actress I'm treated marvellously well when I'm filming people come and collect me my clothes are laid out in the dressing room or in the trailer make-up is there, hair is there to do that there's somebody to hold your skirt up when you walk over the mud somebody says what do you want for lunch today somebody from the press to talk to you you know everything is done as if you are the queen but at the end of that day you take your stuff off and you go home and you bake beans on toast the queen can't really ever ever ever do that and I think that must be a massive restriction she's trained herself not to mind it and people you know more than I do about this that people I mean if that's the only way you've ever been brought up but her eyes must look out the window as she does in Buckingham Palace by Pietro Annigoni looking out and she saw a shunt of the taxi ooh she said that'll cost him money and you just love her for that she's looking at us as much as we're looking at her but we can escape and she can't a lifetime extraordinary Roya what is the current relationship between the press and the Royal Family in general but particularly the Queen ooh um well it completely depends if I'm honest and I think there are some of my colleagues here I think on the whole it's mostly good it depends which publication or broadcast do you work for it is a very individual thing different correspondence different editors publications have different relationships with different households I can possibly comment it's a very interesting relationship and the best way I can describe it is and I often use this phrase when people ask me what's it like, it is like a diplomatic type where you walk every single week we don't work for them we do not work for the Royal Family our job is not to write press releases and sing their praises all the time and say great job when there's a good story to write positive story if it's newsworthy if it makes my news list my news editor is here I think somewhere great we'll do it if there's a story to write that they don't want us to do we will also do it and you know it's a really difficult tightrope to walk because the diplomacy involved is excruciating and you're very aware that you are writing about public figures but also a family and I did a story recently I didn't think it was very contentious I felt it was stating the obvious that the Queen was never going to live in Buckingham Palace again and we did it quite big you know she made the permanent move to Windsor and that was it and I was at an engagement the following week with Camilla and someone who works with her sighed a lot to me and said good story at the weekend we'd much rather you hadn't written that to which I just replied it's not my job because you want me to write because it's not so I would say on the whole now we are much more respectful and bound actually by codes of conduct than perhaps during the 80s and early 90s when I think things were much more rogue than they are now we are very conscious of media law and privacy laws and all of that and I think during the really difficult years of the 80s and 90s the relationship between the palace and the press was much more fractious that's not to say we don't occasionally get legal letters now and then we do sometimes from certain members of the royal family not from the Queen but by and large it's a fairly respectful relationship both ways most of the time for those who are not involved with the media world how are royal stories how do they come about how do you find out about unless it's just obvious but or you're surmising or whatever but how are royal stories an insider all these people sort of unnamed sources tell us I can tell you but I'd have to kill you I would say the biggest misconception of my job is that members of the households and palaces are handing out sweeties of stories I can tell you that most of my stories don't come from the households I might hear stuff go to the households and say I've heard this, can you guide me is this right, is this wrong and sometimes I'll be really helpful great and other times I'll be like we can't comment on that but for my job the majority of my stories come from really good contacts and relationships that I've built up with tell us, tell us she's press, she can't it's as my newsletter will tell you I mean the amount of phone calls I make going you can't tell anyone but it's trust and actually I remember going back to my old school a few years ago and giving a talk about journalism and then there was a Q&A at the end so I'm very punchy 13 year old and went don't you think you can just go too far with your old family all the time and I was like oh I do remember saying to her actually you'd be amazed how much I know that I don't write it's tons see you in the bar and I would presume that you have a very similar you find yourself in a similar situation insofar as I'm sure that you have an insider's view not really no not really because people sometimes say I'm not close friends with Prince Charles and I don't ever know how to say this properly I'm not close friends with Prince Charles people like me aren't close friends with him he's immensely nice to me all of the royal family incredibly nice to me but a close friend is somebody who you can pick up the phone to I've never done that I wouldn't know how to do it I'm not that, they're extremely nice to me but that doesn't make you close friends so it's a funny odd relationship people who are close friends know who they are and they are the close friends and you know who they are but I don't know who they are and so this is in compiling your book how did you go about finding apart from the gorgeous general public how did you find people to give you some insights that you know I want to lie here can I just lie I did it all myself the truth is that the publishers Hodran Stotten, remarkable, respectable people came to me and said we are going to did you know it's the Queen's Platinum Jubilee no not so soon my god we've only just done diamond no platinum diamond they said would you like to do a book but I'm not a historian I'm not a biographer I'm nothing how can I possibly do it no no no we're going to gather masses of stuff like a kind of armful of confetti and throw it at your feet and you'll make a book out of it anyway all this stuff came in and of course it was heavy heavy weight on the death of the king, the coronation of the queen then this is a long reign it gets very sparse I thought well I can't do a linear story through this I'll have to do it thematically then I had to think what the themes were and look through all my stuff because I'm a pedant I mean no that's the wrong word I'm a dimwit actually let me just say that what I meant to say is that I'm not very good at working online so I would print things out and put them all around the floor like this and go that's chapter nine no that's good so a lot of this went on the house which was covered with piles of stuff then sometimes huge chunks of the book would be taken out when I'd already constructed the chapter and done all the interlinking bits and sat it carefully together this is boring isn't it how books are constructed and then suddenly at the last minute Michelle Obama pulled hers from her book pulled it and publish it Annie Leibovitz so do you remember that story about when she photographed the queen somebody fake news pretended that the queen had stormed out and she hadn't and it was a BBC Michelle I'm very bad, bad, bad people at BBC so all that lovely story about it Annie gone you go no these big chunks and everything I'd balance stuff around so this was anyway this is how I got to write the book but what I did get to do was to put in some of the bits because I've met the queen several times and I've met many members of the royal family and to put in stories about Princess Margaret who I really adored she was fabulous because she didn't seem to have breaks you know what I mean and she was very good fun and very smart and she adored the theatre and so I really met her through the theatre when she'd come backstage and she loved theatre folk if you know what I mean and I must just tell you one quick story Princess Margaret I was playing Elvira in Blythe Spirit she's the ghostly wife who comes back to haunt her husband and to taunt the new wife and so you're dressed for pretty much in white with very pale hair and white make up and so on and I thought gosh I'm going to look like a piece of mashed potato I'm always going to wear a red mouth you can see he was talking with Easterham on stage and Princess Margaret came backstage and we were all still in our clothes and she said why do you have a red mouth and I said because I thought I'd look like ectoplasm and she said no you're a ghost and you're dead you should not have a red mouth and she said come on let's go up to the party upstairs well the party in the theatre was up it was like here at the back of this the sort of circle bar which was all made nice and lovely for a royal presence and they'd said we'd had the ruling Princess Margaret must not have anything to drink what we said no she mustn't none of you nobody would have anything to drink nothing no drinks Princess Margaret came up there and you could see her just thinking so she got hold of me and her lovely lady in waiting Janie Stevens who's now just sadly died and she said come on and we all went down to one of the boxes beside the theatre which all shut up the theatre's empty nobody there we got inside there and she got out for a thing a little flask of whiskey gorgeous little cigarette and we had a little glass of whiskey and a little chat pretty fabulous it must have been a reflection Roya I must ask you as someone who knows nothing not as much as I should about royal etiquette when Michelle Obama was seen to put her arm around the Queen's waist was that accepted with grace and with annoyance or was she actually as she seemed to be charmed totally loved it fabulous royal protocol royal etiquette the Queen is much more informal than I think people think and actually you reminded me talking about the John Swinnell years ago when I was covering the arts on the telegraph I interviewed Rankin who had been commissioned to do a very funky portrait of the Queen and actually do look up that picture it's super cool and I remember talking to him about it and I said what was it like when you went to go and meet her and photograph her and he said I was quite stressed I was at the private secretary before and I said what should I wear and they were like whatever you like and he said should I wear a suit and don't need to wear a tie Rankin is quite funky he's not really a suit kind of man and the private secretary said Her Majesty will expect absolutely nothing he was like do I bow Her Majesty will expect you to do absolutely nothing just do whatever you want to do and he was very funny he then got super-togged up with Paul Waibrew her and she was just like she isn't one for protocol I think there are other members in the family who care about it much more than she does I'm obsessed with that phrase she doesn't have brakes I'm going to have to use that that is the best phrase ever I love that it doesn't have brakes don't attribute it to me a royal little side of sir now look you two the world has changed a great deal since the coronation so what do you expect the future of the royal family to be I don't know I can't predict I think the world is changing for the promotion of this book I've done all kinds of interviews with Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the last interview I had with Canada said don't you find it odd that we're supposed to be her subjects right over here in Canada and I said I'm sure things are going to change I think the queen is quite separate from monarchy and royalty and how it's going to be in the future I think she's a separate woman which is why I've tried because I'm not diplomatic or knowledgeable enough to go into the full scope of what it means if we suddenly become a republic and whether we would become a republic or whether we're just going to have a scale down to keep talking about or how it will be funded or where they will be will they be in Buckingham Palace or somebody rather brightly suggested if we're going to have to repair the Palace of Westminster we won't put all the MPs in Buckingham Palace I think that would be quite nice somebody said rather grandly it's not big enough anyway I don't know what will happen I hope that we will keep our heads and be as steadfast and kindly back again to the treatment we've had from them Rwya Do you see any particular challenges for the future royal family? There are lots of challenges I think things will change a lot under King Charles I think he knows that things need to change he will open up the palaces he will open up the residences of the public I think the biggest challenge for the royal family going forwards is relevance I wrote a piece for the Sunday Times a couple of weeks ago about the transition that we're seeing that happened for a long time between 2001 on my colleague's rated piece that ran on the same page which was fascinating and it was a sort of litmus test of young people in the royal family and she went out and asked a few questions and said what do you think about Prince Edward and someone said who's that is that Charles' son that generation they don't know really who the royal family are they're not that interested but they don't know who Lawrence Olivier is did I say that did I say that they don't know anything we mustn't take this as a litmus test they have no interest in virtually anything that's horrible I don't know if it's just me and whether I'm 112 but it just seems so odd even when I was very young I knew who George Formby was even though he was before my time I knew of these people but they don't know actors or people they I've read in the same article I think they thought that Prince Charles might have been Harry's older brother or something how can you not I know it doesn't matter but if you don't have a wide enough interest in anything and your interests are so as they are now so narrow and that's part of the phone life the screen life you're told to focus and you can pick your own news the news that you might like to hear what's news not your selected news things I might like me things I might not want to hear oh live darlings you've got to live I think the monarchy will endure I don't see a republic anytime soon but I think come the reign of King Charles and the reign of King William I think the monarchy is going to be very very different thing and I think they acknowledge that that's not to say that all the sort of magic and mystery and ceremony will disappear it won't because I think they know that people actually really love that most people but I do think it needs to be and it will be a leaner machine I think King Charles will have a very different style to Queen Elizabeth I think King William will have a very different approach to both of them so times are changing people often say the wheels are changing it's much more slowly inside palace walls and everywhere else but I think they will speed up on the Charles and they will massively accelerate under William What's your reaction to the way the Queen has been depicted in fiction, on film even Madame Tussauds but from the sublime to the ridiculous and I'm not suggesting that Madame Tussauds is ridiculous it's slightly Are you in it? Oh god I was in it and I've been sent to Birmingham now I think look I've got to say something which makes me sound like a pompous prude I don't watch the crown simply because I've met a lot of the royal family and I've known them a little bit and I can't bear to think of people for instance I'm married I can't bear somebody to make up a conversation between me and my husband they've never met either of us and pretending it's the truth and me and my husband not being able to say this is word beginning with be you know you can't it's just I find it staggering it's beautifully acted wonderfully presented but it's presented as the truth and that frightens me because people say we saw it and it's in the crown What was quite interesting was when the second series four the last series came out the one that was depicting Charles and Dana's marriage and it was very interesting to me how heavily the royal household briefed against it because previously there had been very little comment for the first two series and then people were alive and it started to come very close to home and there was a sort of very heavy briefing against a few plotlines particularly as you say particularly in America people take it as and here take it as gospel truth I think but there is unfortunately for the royal family an unbelievably deep held fascination around the world about them you know we saw the depiction of Christian Stuart played Diana in Spencer awful film is it I haven't seen it I haven't seen it don't bother but I think the house of Windsor will continue to be for the long haul portrayed it and actually you know every year Peter Morgan says this is the last series and then every year he's like there's another series coming and I think he knows it's a gold mine and for each of you what are the key moments in the Queen's reign which you think might appear in future historical films oh gosh the James Bond story I think that was so astonishing Danny Boyle parking up the carriage to go to Buckingham Palace and she said once yes what what you will you'll go ahead with this and apparently the only stipulation she had was that she would be allowed to say good evening Mr Bond and I think that's the sweetest and most gorgeous and it shows the kind of fun side of somebody and the fact she kept it absolutely secret from her family so they had no idea when it happened apparently Prince Charles went oh no what's happening now suddenly he could see the familiar figure and he thought it might be Jeanette Charles who's the great queen exactly and then he saw the familiar corridors at Buckingham Palace and then it was the queen and then of course then it all began to happen and she'd had this cocktail dress made absolutely in secret for the stuntman and then the whole thing happened and as she jumped out of the plane apparently the two young princes behind her I said go Granny I've got another good ending to the fact that this story cos I remember I was at the telephone at the time and I watched it and the next morning which was a Saturday I spoke to Danny Boyle on the phone about it and I said how on earth did she keep that secret and what was it like going to the palace asking her to do it and he said the most extraordinary thing was we went to the palace, we had a meeting with her private secretary and her team and said it would be possible for us to portray the queen we suggested a few actresses and they said let's just try and nail this pin this down and it disappeared and went up and Angela Kelly her assistant who went up and literally asked her then and there and came down and said the queen says absolutely not she's only going to do it if she plays herself Danny Boyle was like what we didn't have the nerve to do it and she was like I'm doing it and I'm doing it myself so there you go sweet reading lady sassy, I mean it's such guts and such warmth somehow I hear what you say and I've known throughout my broadcasting life which is longer than you most people have been alive in this but it's extraordinary that one feels through her body language through her facial expressions that one knows her a lot better than one actually does and although one never is or very seldom privy to her conversations whether it be at Grenfell whether it be wherever she has a way of connecting with people and I remember early early early before I got into broadcasting myself seeing the queen in touring the Commonwealth and she had a beatific smile on her face as she danced with Kenneth Cawinda who was then the president I think which country it was but anyway, somewhere in the south thank you, thank you I mean just wonderful wonderful woman who has I think is a very soulful woman and you can tell by her body language the difference between the Obamas and for instance the wonderful meeting with Donald Trump are quite quite apparent but ladies and gentlemen I am going to turn to you we love some questions and here are your experts before you anybody fancy please if I had to pick an epithet for the queen Elizabeth the what rather like Richard the Lionheart or something like that Ethelred the Unready what would we do what would we say about the queen the constant I've used that word so often but it sounds a bit sort of plonk but it might be Elizabeth I would say Elizabeth the one and only do you have I would say Elizabeth the steadfast steadfast ask a journalist or an artist any other question sir any portrayals of her majesty that you have watched and said that's her ones that get her for want of a better term correct yes actually and actually a very recent one I was lucky enough to interview some Michael Mopergw recently and he has written a seriously lovely fairy tale called their once as a queen and parts of that have inspired what you're going to see next Sunday in the jubilee pageant on Sunday and it was heaven talking to him and he had been to one of those private lunches with the queen at the palace and he's really captured her in that book because it speaks to her love of horses and it really gets to she's not named as queen Elizabeth but it's so obviously her and she goes and sits under a thinking tree and with her horse and her dogs but as I was talking to him he said how did you get a sense of her because she's a massive fan of warhors obsessed with warhors loves it, had been to see the play had Joey the puppet come to see her at Windsor for a private audience he talked about this lunch and said he was lucky enough to sit next to her and he said there was a phrase that stood out and he said as I was talking to her she suddenly transformed from the queen it was a second to just this granny a granny just desperate to get out of that shell and connect with people and I think that sort of infuses this wonderful fairy tale and actually it's really sweet that book and beautifully illustrated and I just feel he's sort of got the essence of her really well I liked Stephen Frear's film, I can't remember what it was called was it called the Queen? I thought that seemed to be a very interesting take on it Helen Mirren who was pretty faultless anyway I thought she did it with such some sort of grace because she's not remotely like the queen but somehow she seemed to capture a kind of queenliness that was very good and she didn't over-egg the pudding I thought that she didn't make herself just unapproachable or whatever she just seemed to embody something within our concept of queenliness I thought she did extraordinarily well and particularly as you say she looks like nothing like her her physique is nothing like her I thought she really did and her interaction with forgive me a colleague of yours Sheen Michael Sheen as Tony Blair this is very very clever and of course Sheen is nothing like Tony Blair and Sheen is nothing like David Frost actors Are you saying that you're nothing like Nancy? Are you saying that you're nothing like Nancy? I think we have some questions sorry I saw the queen before any of you were born except for Joanna In 1957 I was in my first year at university at the University of Maryland and we had the Queen's football match it was a match between North Carolina University of Maryland where I was a student a freshman student and the Rolls Royce's came around and it was advertised as the Queen's football match and she got out and waved to the crowd and it's just something I'll never remember and this was many many years ago how lovely so I saw the Queen one year after the coronation that's what value of being very old I could be your mother I was three on the day of the coronation and I remember did you think, I'm intrigued quickly did she seem to use a very young glamorous dynamic beautiful woman and Philip came out and it was advertised as the Queen's football match she went to meet the president forgot her words at the time and she wanted to see a football match and when she was in America and everyone stood up and applauded and she and Philip went and after the match everyone waved and Royce went away so I'm someone in history yeah gosh you should be in the next film as a matter of fact where the hell were you in the Queen the film I have a question here from Kenilworth library that's come in from everyone watching in Kenilworth they've said do you have a favourite decade of the Queen's reign you've got quite a few to choose from I would say the 50s when she was when she got married and then her father dying and then her becoming queen and being crowned and then suddenly going on these immense tours around the world and having her babies I mean it seemed packed full of incident and she was so young and all the photographs you see of her in those days you realise how immensely slim we all were we've all got fatter she had a little 23 inch waist it was as pretty as a picture so beautiful she and her sister Margaret and Prince Philip who was just the handsome man in the world and the two of them cut such a dash around the world the world was uncomplicated then we all seemed to be less cynical and I mean probably more naive in many ways I'm not sure that was bad it was something very sweet and open about the world then it seemed anyway in the tours they did and the way that they were received and the very respectful way that the press always treated them it seemed kind of sweet a way where people like me it's probably when I fell in love with aprons I just adore aprons I still have some and wear them all the time favourite decade of yours I think it's probably now the last ten years that I've been doing this job because it's really interesting actually whenever you're sort of putting up a story or you're thinking about which moment it is there's this sort of thing at work the queen is box office and she is and whenever she thinks about something it's all trickles down from the queen and it has not been a dull decade that I've been doing this beat it has been extraordinary and jam-packed, huge change and yeah I mean for me it would be the last ten years the extraordinary thing is, if I may button that seemingly she has become even more accessible and stronger I remember when she was so devastated when she had to give up the royal got Britannia etc etc I can't remember whether it was before or after that she, there was this dreadful fire at Windsor which really devastated her and other members of the royal family since then she has dealt with all kinds of national and more personal dilemmas, tragedies embarrassments etc etc and each time I think from the death of Diana Princess of Wales we have seen her become come into herself and have such as I say a strength and a grace and somehow one feels that one can rely on her no matter what hell can freeze over there could be whatever disaster happening and as long as she has been there she has somehow been reliable one can almost sort of gauge and comforting, she always seems to send the right messages when there's a drama around the world or something tremendous has happened and a message comes from the queen we all feel so proud that she's written it so beautifully and it's just what we wanted to say and hurrah she's done it I think of the people at the other end of the message thinking how thrilling it would be to get congratulations or commiserations from the queen maybe the politicians could take a few any other delicious questions any other delicious questions hello ladies good evening if I may ask this question how difficult is it really for the queen not to get involved in politics and kind of turn ahead the other way or in particular or international situations or crises well as far as I can gather I think she knows more about politics than almost anybody alive she's met all the presidents, all the prime ministers she's been around all the commonwealth countries and non-commonwealth countries she's picked up, she has to read her red boxes every single day so she knows everything but her position is that she will say nothing and none of us have been party to any of the prime ministers conversations she's had and I imagine she never gives advice but I think rather like psychotherapy don't give you advice they just ask a question which might make you think about something and I think that might be the way that she deals with it people say what will happen when prince Charles becomes king Charles he's been the best prince of Wales you could ever remember he's been fantastic for the causes he's embraced and the light he's poured into things when he becomes king he won't do that people say oh what will he do he won't do that, he knows the rules come on don't be stupid he knows the rules but while he isn't there he can't talk but when he is there like the queen he won't and I'm amazed at how he's been he has filled his life with really meaningful things to do I've had the absolute honour to be involved with his trust for a thousand years and I tell you there is something like at that time I saw figures there was something like an 84% or is it 87% success rate dealing with youngsters who have come from hell who have come from real being deprived etc etc and I've even had the privilege of meeting a few in prison who were imprisoned for nothing as seemingly trivial as drugs but actual murder and it's extraordinary that even there he has reached out and given an extraordinary helping hand and not from a position of privilege and being patronisingly kind but actually helping people who I've seen talk to fabulous young people who have spent their lives hurting themselves either through lacerating their skins or their minds or whatever and because they have had the privilege of being introduced by the Prince of Wales Trust to actually be put together with a mentor they have found a reason to actually turn their lives around they have found a reason to turn their lives around not being told this is the way to do it and I had the temerity I'm going to shut up in a minute but I had the temerity when Gordon Brown was in power to say Prime Minister to say honestly the country could take a lot of leaves out of the Prince of Wales's approach to dealing with young people and seemingly very expensive and he said he's a wonderful idea and I think that's the end of that any more questions I have one here tonight's topic has been all about a queen for all seasons and I'm very conscious that we're heading into a new season of life for the queen we've talked about a transition to a future monarchy obviously there's been lots in the press about her mobility and how things are changing for her as she grows older and I'm very curious as to your thoughts of how she will endeavour to balance the needs for herself as an individual in this new season but also how she'll endeavour to continue to connect and be who she is and all these lovely things that we've talked about tonight and what will that look like in this unique season that we're heading into well it's a difficult balancing act isn't it between knowing everyone wants to see you everywhere and knowing and understanding your limitations as a 96 year old and just sometimes having good days and other times not having good days I think in terms of the platinum jubilee I think the queen will do her very best to make as many events as she can she won't want to disappoint people but at the same time as the palace will guide us these days they only confirm on the day when she's going to attend so then it's a lovely surprise when she does turn up to Chelsea when she does turn up to Paddington in terms of beyond that I think what the queen has been brilliant at over the last few years actually much more successful than lots of us is really adapting to the work from home scenario and now that she has permanently moved to Windsor most of her future engagements will be held at Windsor and you know it's not hard to get people to come and see her whether that's prime ministers of Canada as we've seen recently or you know presidents people really want to go and see the queen and so that's not to say I think she's going to become a zoom on the queen after the jubilee but it's a good way of her continuing to connect with people and we still see her in the palace very good at putting out pictures and clips of her but I think we have to be realistic as I wrote recently in the spectre of transition piece you know the state opening of parliament not seeing her there and the very poignant image of the crown in front of Charles that image in itself on the Queen's Faces and you know it was dawning you know she might have had a bad day mobility wise or she might have planned and thought people need to start seeing this I'm not going to be here forever this is what's coming this is what I'm planning and you know my argument in that piece was actually that it was quite carefully planned by her and I think we will probably see a few more big set pieces where she delegates at grouping the colour this year I wrote that last week she's not going to sit on the parade ground for the whole 90 minutes and who can blame her so that's not to say I think her role will not be diminished but I think we have to be realistic and it goes to what Joanna says we have only ever known the queen and she's conscious of the fact that and I think you know I hate to talk about the future but I've always said I don't think this country is even vaguely prepared and the world for how it's going to feel the shock it's going to feel when she's no longer around I think it's going to be seismic I can't even get my head round it but I think she understands she needs to prepare us and I think we have been seeing that for a while now Do you know what I'd love to do from us as a present back to her would be to say your Majesty we just adore you and thank you for everything you've done from now on will you do only what you want to do go to the Derby on Saturday don't turn up to ghastly boring speeches from Parliament that's awful do exactly what you like because you've earned it and we want you to have that of course she'll always do her red boxes and go on being dutiful but we just want her we want to say be free now now do exactly what you want and that would make us the happiest of all that would be the best present to the nation would you reckon do you think she's been handling it pretty well that's far I think she is though I think she is being much more selective what she turns up to this is the very last question can I just take you back to the year 1997 when the monarchy was in dire trouble and the death of Diana what do you think was the queen's role in really pulling it back there and really building a monarchy which people have loved ever since and a very very difficult and dangerous time for the monarchy it's a good question I would say I would say that period it shows how well she takes advice and huge screaming of the press where is our queen and we all know she felt she wanted to be a grandmother first but actually what tipped the public mood over the urge to pull it back was that extraordinary live live walk she gave from the palace speaking as she started saying I speak to you as a mother and a grandmother from the heart and it was extraordinary you see the footage of that the world is waiting to hear what she says and I think that is instinct I think she knew what a dangerous time it was and I think the public responded to her extraordinarily well but it was a dangerous time and it's interesting whether or not Charles would be able to pull things back in a similar way so that the queen is sort of unique like that actually in terms of people listening to her I think we've got to I keep on saying do look at it but anyway if any of you are lucky enough to buy the book please look at some of the things because Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother said in a speech to the public she said I beg you to give all your love and support to the daughter in this lonely and awful role she's now got to take on she didn't say awful but she said a really testing there's nobody who's going to be equal to her anywhere she will be above everybody including her husband her children it doesn't matter who she will be above it and nobody can tell her what to do and I think that we've then got to lend all our love and support all become a republic but don't let's be half hearted if Prince Charles which he will become King Charles at some time let's just go save the king and let's go on in the way that the queen would have wanted us to go on you know there's nothing worse than people going oh it's not like the queen, of course it's not we all know it's not going to be like that we all know it's not going to be like that and guess what the queen wasn't like King George VI every successive monarch is different but I think one of the highlights for that terrible time the death of the Diana Princess of Wales was at the gates of Buckingham Palace when they beer and cortege went past and people were the expressions were stiffened and quite almost angry in some cases but it was the queen who bowed and I thought that spoke volumes to all of those who were so angry with her initial seeming lack of understanding of how the whole nation felt I think she understood only too well but we also have to realise I lost my own mother very recently at the age of 95 and I do realise that having been born almost in the Victorian era to have come all the way through to now and to have handled what she has handled I think so carefully and so well and with such devotion to us I think that's pretty good I think she's done all right I hope you agree Ladies and gentlemen I adore you, thank you so much and don't you think these are the two most fabulous experts you will ever see on what's really going on with Elizabeth II and I bet keep on looking I'll take you through the next decade or so I think you will Thank you so much