Queen Mother's Bomb Letter Released

14 September 2009

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A letter has revealed Britain's Queen Mother's reaction to the bombing of Buckingham Palace in September 1940.

The missive - written to her mother-in-law Queen Mary 69 years ago, when she was 40 - was penned a few hours after the attack.

It reveals Elizabeth ignored the initial air-raid warning because she was busy removing an eyelash from her husband King George VI's eye.

She wrote: "We heard the unmistakable whirr-whirr of a German plane. We said 'ah a German', and before anything else could be said, there was the noise of aircraft diving at great speed, and then the scream of a bomb.

"It all happened so quickly, that we had only time to look foolishly at each other, when the scream hurtled past us, and exploded with a tremendous crash in the quadrangle.

She also describes watching household staff giving first aid to three workmen injured in the attack.

the definitive portrait of a remarkable woman

The letter ends with: "PS. Dear old B.P. (Buckingham Palace) is still standing and that is the main thing."

Meanwhile, unseen photographs of Elizabeth have been unveiled.

The images - which appear in the new official biography of Elizabeth, written by William Shawcross - include a shot of the Queen Mother standing alongside the Prince of Wales and Prince Henry of Gloucester in 1922, the year before her wedding to ‘Bertie'.

Another shows the young royal during a visit to Africa in 1924.

The book includes numerous transcripts the Queen Mother secretly recorded before her passing in 2002 at the age of 101 and gives her opinion on many subjects including the late Princess Diana and recent British Prime Ministers.

The biography - entitled 'Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother: The Official Biography' - is described as "the definitive portrait of a remarkable woman".

It will provide the first account of the 1936 abdication crisis which unexpectedly thrust her nervous husband onto the throne and will look at the years the couple refused to leave London during World War II.

Their devotion to duty during the Second World War earned them the respect, admiration, and love of the British people, especially in London's East End area.

The book is due to be released in Britain on September 17.

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