Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother – The Official Biography by William Shawcross

The writer William Shawcross has a long history of orbiting around royalty and the Royal Family, having written extensively about monarchy, so was regarded as well-placed to write about The Queen Mother’s long life. It is, subsequently, a long book. Born Elizabeth Bowes Lyon in the year 1900 to a comfortably upper class background, the woman who was to become Duchess of York, Queen Consort and then Queen Mother lived the entire span of the twentieth century. Every decade of that century was a significant decade for her and it is sobering to note that she was a widow for 50 years. Shawcross paints a portrait of a vivacious, fun-loving outward-looking daughter of the Scottish aristocracy who fell into the royal family because the King’s second son Bertie fell in love with her, pursued her and ‘won her hand’. The couple, feted by the public and the popular press, were not to know of the trials and tribulations that lay ahead and the happy family that Elizabeth and Bertie created as Duke and Duchess of York was to be altered forever by the Abdication Crisis which saw the Duke’s elder brother King Edward VIII step down from the throne thus casting them into the forefront of the nation’s affairs with all the attendant pressures. The highpoints and lows, the triumphs, tragedies and comedies of life and living in the twentieth century are captured through the prism of Elizabeth’s life. The familiar weigh-stations of the historical record are noted along with the personal details that serve to illuminate them. The accession of George VI, the outbreak of the Second World War, the death of the King, the coronation of Elizabeth II along with tales of house parties, dress fittings, letter-writing and horse-racing. And of course the story of the monarchy in the later half of the century with unhappy heirs, marriage failures and disgruntled subjects all set against a background of a changing world and the certainties of Edwardian society – into which Elizabeth Bowes Lyon had been born – giving way to the questioning and scepticism of postwar society. In many ways a social conservative the Queen Mother adapted to a much changed world in her way and on her own terms. This book is a study in how she managed to achieve this in her own life and that of the nation she served.

Book Review - Look Me In the Eye - A Life in Television by Jeremy Isaacs (published by Little Brown, 2006)

Jeremy Isaacs, son of Glasgow, has lived many lives at the glittering forefront of the arts and media in Britain. The list of his appointments and achievements is long and distinguished in a career that took him from beginnings as a producer at Granada TV, when commercial television began in the mid-1950s, to current affairs at the BBC and on to the highest pinnacle of the arts establishment as General Director of the Royal Opera House in the 1990s – a period of his life chronicled with typical verve and style in his memoir Never Mind the Moon. These were the days when television was controlled by the great panjandrums who were the abiters of taste and lords of the airwaves, enlightened autocrats who oversaw the more limited schedules then on offer, compared to our multi-channelled opportunities, according to their view of the world. The old two-state system of the BBC and ITV held sway until Isaacs was appointed first Chief Executive of Channel Four, courting much controversy along the way. The roster of his pioneering firsts in television production include the epic history of the Second World War, the World at War, which further developed the use of eye-witness account allied to documentary film footage and voice-over (provided by Laurence Olivier) and the development of the independent production industry when founding director of Channel Four. The book deals with big issues, as befits a big character, with Isaac’s usual ebullience and brio – he robustly defends the medium of television and celebrates its power to inform, educate and entertain. His is a life marked by personal tragedy borne stoically: his brother was killed by a bomb in Israel and his wife Tamara died of cancer but also a life of great abundance with the arts his joy, consolation and constant comforter. Isaacs has that rare ability to see large things largely and he paints the picture of his life and times in primary colours for all to see.