She was known as the last great Edwardian lady, a stickler for royal protocol and a fierce protector of appearances – at all costs.
In her later years, The Queen Mother became a celebrated hostess and threw glittering parties at her home in the Royal Lodge with guests from the music and art worlds.
According to author Tina Brown, these occasions allowed Queen Elizabeth (as she was more formally known) to show off one skill in particular.
Ali G poses after the MTV Europe Music Award at the Festhalle in Frankfurt, Germany, Thursday 2001
Queen Mother was not only a bon vivant, but also a great imitator
The Queen Mother’s portrayal of Ali G was much appreciated by Prince Harry.
The Queen Mother was a talented impersonator, says Brown, with some unlikely impersonations up her sleeve.
“Her Blackader would be very good,” the author writes in her best-selling book The Palace Papers.
‘But even better was a portrayal by Ali G, which was much appreciated by Prince Harry.
“She’d say, ‘Honey, lunch was great – respect.'”
The Queen Mother was not the only humorist in the family. Her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, was known as a skilled imitator – strictly in private, of course – of those she had met.
There were fewer restrictions for the Queen Mother, who enjoyed teasing her daughter, the Queen.
“Have you ruled today, Lilibet?” she apparently asked when Elizabeth returned exhausted from an engagement.
The Queen Mother was “famous for her irreverent toast games,” Brown writes, “raising her glass high-high-high for people she liked and low-low-low under the table for those she didn’t, a gesture that was reciprocated. through fits of laughter and accompanied by large amounts of alcohol.’
According to historian and biographer Hugo Vickers, an invitation to an evening at Royal Lodge was one of the hottest tickets in town.
In her later years, the Queen Mother became a celebrated hostess, throwing glittering parties at her home in the Royal Lodge, with guests from the music and arts worlds.
When the queen seemed exhausted by her engagements, her mother would ask ‘have you ruled again, Lilibet?’
The Queen Mother was ‘famous for her irreverent toasting games
‘John Betjeman and Ted Hughes read their poetry on cultural evenings. Noël Coward performed at the piano, Raymond Leppard and Ruth, Lady Fermoy (Diana’s grandmother) played duets,” he told MailOnline.
‘In 1984 a Canadian baritone sang songs by Schubert and Britten directed 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 home to the Duke of York.
His former wife, Sarah Ferguson, also spends time there.