From: "Jeff Wood", [EMAIL PROTECTED] A few weeks ago one of our correspondents (I cannot remember who) posted a message referring to the appeasement tendencies of the wartime King and Queen. The present Queen Mother was that Queen. I was one of several people who replied presuming that the writer had confused Edward VII - who abdicated in 1936 and was strongly suspected of fascist sympathies - with George VI, his brother who took over the throne. However.... In the London Observer of 16 July, review section, there is a long and bitter attack by Anthony Holden on the Queen Mother. I should explain that her husband was never regarded as very bright (he did have the sense not to want to be King) and his wife was always regarded as the brains of the outfit. Holden writes: "Amid the national crisis, it was swiftly forgotten that the pre-war King and Queen had been devout appeasers, responsible for the most unconstitutional act of the century when they endorsed Neville Chamberlain and his Munich agreement by escorting him on to the balcony of Buckingham Palace. And that the belligerent Churchill was the last man they wanted to see succeed him. Their swift change of political horses remains, of course, the reason why the generation which fought so manfully in that war always nursed the kind of devotion for the Queen Mum normally reserved by British manhood for its nannies or school matrons. That is why they chose to overlook her conspicuous human failings: her stubbornly cruel treatment of Wallis Simpson, "the woman who killed my husband"; her wilful burial of her head in the sand during the domestic dramas of her own dysfunctional family; her key role in the casting of the Charles - Diana soap opera which brought the institution of monarchy to its knees." There is much more in this vein, and no doubt the full article can be found on the Guardian/Observer website. Yours sincerely Jeff Wood [EMAIL PROTECTED] Public PGP Key at: ldap://certserver.pgp.com Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___________________________________________________________ T O P I C A The Email You Want. http://www.topica.com/t/16 Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Your Favorite Topics
