7 One rainy night, she put on a mackintosh and sou'wester and took the corgis for a walk. Unrecognised by a sentry, he commiserated "Bad luck, having to exercise the dogs on a night like this." "Yes," replied the Queen Mother and nodded towards the royal residence, "I bet they wouldn't like to do it."
10 Before their coronation, she persuaded her husband Bertie to walk around the Palace wearing his crown so he would get used to its weight. Her daughter Elizabeth, went through a similar trial when it was her turn to be crowned in June, 1953.
16 "Tck, tck, tck Bertie' was her way of calming her husband King George VI when he got into one of his "gnashes". She would hold his wrist and count the seconds until he smiled again.
37 "You think I am a nice person, but I'm not as nice as you think I am," the Queen Mother said to a friend when describing her feelings towards the Duchess of Windsor.
52 When Princess Margaret refused to join fire practice at Royal Lodge, Windsor, she said: "Oh well, she'll just have to burn, won't she?"
56 Every morning the two Queens speak to each other on the telephone and they are connected by the operator with the immortal words, "Your Majesty? Her Majesty, Your Majesty."
69 A policeman in Manchester watched open-mouthed when, as Duchess of York, she rolled down the car window and flicked a caramel in his direction on her way to a hospital.
72 "If you don't mind, I'd like to have a drop of whatever's hiding behind that curtain," she said on being offered tea visiting a Women's Institute, and instead spotting their secret sherry supply.
74 "I don't know about you, but I am going to bed now with the King of England," she said at a house party not long after Edward's abdication.
