Major Colin Burgess - Behind Palace Doors - My Service as the Queen Mothers Equerry

S he was quite simply the most magical grandmother you could possibly have and I was utterly devoted to her.

Her departure has left an irreplaceable chasm in countless lives but, thank God, we are all the richer for the sheer joy of her presence and everything she stood for.

Above all, she understood the British character and her heart belonged to this ancient land and its equally indomitable and humorous inhabitants, whom she served with panache, style and unswerving dignity for very nearly eighty years.

HRH The Prince of Wales

During her long and extraordinary life, her grace, her sense of duty and her remarkable zest for life made her loved and admired by people of all ages and backgrounds, revered within our borders and beyond.

She was a unifying figure for Britain, inspiring love and affection in all she met.

The respect she received and the outpouring of affection after her death are not the result of her long life. The tributes could have been a ritual, but they were not. They were genuine and heartfelt and from young and old from all walks of life.

It is the belief in duty that captures her spirit best. Yet it is not duty in an arid or formal sense; she enjoyed life, lived it and loved it to the full.

She loved her country and in turn it loved her.

The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair,
Prime Minister

The Queen Mother was a wonderful queen and an extraordinary person. Her death is more than a source of grief to the royal family. It is an irreplaceable loss to the whole nation.

The Rt. Hon. Lady Thatcher,
Former Prime Minister

We each had an individual and unique relationship with our grandmother she was very, very special indeed.

HRH The Duke of York

The Queen Mother was a pillar of strength and inspiration to many people all over the world.

Mr George W. Bush, President of the
United States of America

She was an exceptional person who devoted her life to her family, her nation and the Commonwealth.

Mr Don MacKinnon, Commonwealth
Secretary-General

Our country is the richer for her life and the poorer at her death.

The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major,
Former Prime Minister

She treated people in a friendly way, with sympathy and interest. Many also in Germany admired her.

Mr Johannes Rau, Former President of Germany

The Queen Mother was a woman of deep faith and deep interest in people. Whenever a person met her, it was almost as if you were the only person who counted at that moment. It was remarkable that a woman of such faith and astonishing vitality, in spite of her age, took such an interest in people.

I think that throughout her life she had a great sense of duty and obligation to her country.

Dr George Carey, Former Archbishop
of Canterbury

These are just a few of the many tributes that poured in for Her Majesty the Queen Mother, known affectionately as the Queen Mum, after her death in March 2002. Many tried to paint a picture of a woman who was unswerving in her duty as the most senior of the Royal Family and who was kind, generous, thoughtful and hard-working but above all a very private person. For here lies the great mystery in the Queen Mothers life it was virtually impossible to puncture her outer shell and really get to know what she was like deep down. Many tried close friends such as Noel Coward, Fred Astaire, her friends in the Special Forces and her ladies-in-waiting but nearly all failed.

Type her name into Google and youll get hundreds of thousands of hits. But nearly all say very little about her, save for a smattering of quotes she has come out with over the many years and the odd anecdote, many of which have proven to be apocryphal, because so little is actually known about her life.

So what was she really like? What made her tick? What were her interests and hobbies, if any? Whom did she like and dislike? What were her views on the French, the Germans, Britain and the Commonwealth? What did she do to relax and what was she like in the moments when she was caught off guard?

These are all questions that have never really been answered, even a few years after her death, because nobody has ever come forward to tell the real story of what the Queen Mother was actually like. People like her page William Tallon or her Private Secretary Sir Alastair Aird all have secrets and stories to tell, but as the days and months go by its becoming increasingly apparent that they will take these stories with them to the grave. The reluctance of so many of her former members of staff to reveal all is baffling, given the publics appetite for such knowledge. Yet I have held back from telling some stories. Maybe it is because she was such a private person that they feel it is an intrusion into her privacy. But she left such a magic legacy that it seems ridiculous to let the memory of her life just fade away.

Step forward Major Colin Burgess. He worked as Equerry to the Queen Mother between 1994 and 1996 and continued to see her on a regular basis until her death. He worked with her every day and would often spend long periods alone with the Queen Mother, periods in which they reflected on things past and present. Here, for the first time, is his story.

It was a turbulent time for the Royals during the years that Colin worked at Clarence House. Prince Charles and Princess Dianas marriage was collapsing and there were negative stories about the Royals popping up almost every day in the press and on television. Colin reveals how the Queen Mother coped with events leading up to the biggest royal crisis since the abdication, namely the death of Diana. He reveals the stresses and strains of life in the Royal Household, the trips, the official visits and the moments when the Queen Mother and other Royals could relax, away from the prying eyes of the public and the media. Its an amazing tale, that was told to me in a series of informal chats over the course of six months, and which paints the fullest and most in-depth portrait of the Queen Mother, her character and personality, that has appeared since her death. She was the original Iron Lady long before Margaret Thatcher assumed that mantle; someone who lived life with a steely determination to make the best of every bad situation and enjoy the good ones to the full. It was clear from our conversations that Colin had and still has a deep fondness and respect for the Queen Mother and out of this comes a portrait of a very private Royal that goes some way to probing what could best be described as her inner layer.

Paul Carter