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She was known as the last great Edwardian lady, a stickler for royal protocol and a firm guardian of appearances at all costs.
In his last years, the The Queen Mother she became a celebrated hostess, hosting dazzling parties at her Royal Lodge home with guests from music and the arts.
According to author Tina Brown, these occasions allowed Queen Elizabeth (as she was more formally called) to display a particular skill.
Ali G poses after the MTV Europe Music Award at the Festhalle in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday, 2001.
The Queen Mother was not only a bon viveur but a great imitator.
Ali G’s portrayal of the Queen Mother was highly appreciated by Prince Harry.
The Queen Mother was a talented imitator, says Brown, with some unlikely impersonations up her sleeve.
“His Blackader was said to be very good,” the author writes in her best-selling book, The Palace Papers.
‘But even better was a performance by Ali G, much appreciated by Prince Harry.
‘She was like, “Honey, lunch was wonderful, respect.”‘
The queen mother was not the only comedian in the family. Her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, was known as a skilled imitator – strictly in private, of course – of those she had known.
There were fewer limitations for the Queen Mother, who was happy to tease her daughter, the Queen.
“Have you been reigning today, Lilibet?” he apparently asked when Elizabeth returned exhausted from an engagement.
The Queen Mother was “famous for her irreverent toasting games,” Brown writes, “raising her glass high-high-high to people she liked and low-low-low under the table to people she didn’t like.” , a gesture that was met with laughter and accompanied by copious amounts of alcohol.’
According to historian and biographer Hugo Vickers, an invitation to an evening at the Royal Lodge was one of the most popular tickets in town.
In her later years, the Queen Mother became a celebrated hostess, hosting glittering parties at her Royal Lodge home with guests from music and the arts.
When the Queen seemed exhausted by her commitments, her mother asked her: “Have you reigned again, Lilibet?”
The Queen Mother was ‘famous for her irreverent toasting games’
‘At cultural evenings, John Betjeman and Ted Hughes read his poetry. “Noël Coward played piano, Raymond Leppard and Ruth, Lady Fermoy (Diana’s maternal grandmother) played a duet,” she told MailOnline.
“In 1984, a Canadian baritone sang songs by Schubert and Britten conducted by David Willcocks and Lord David Cecil read from pieces by Mary McCarthy and Max Beerbohm.”
The Queen Mother died in March 2002 at the age of 101. Since then, Royal Lodge, a Palladian mansion in Windsor Great Park, has been the home of the Duke of York.
His ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, also spends time living there.