Christmas Poems For Aunts

The Queen and I: Her Majesty's cousin lifts the lid on the private lives of ...

As the Queen prepares to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee, one of her closest relatives and oldest friends has been allowed to give an unprecedented insight into the family life of the Royals. There have been hundreds of other books claiming to offer a glimpse behind Palace doors, but this is the first written by someone who is closely related to the Royal Family and has shared their lives – not only throughout the Queen's reign but also through that of her father, King George VI.

The Final Curtsey, by Her Majesty's cousin and childhood playmate the Honourable Margaret Rhodes, is being serialised exclusively by The Mail on Sunday, starting today.

It tells in enchanting detail the story of Mrs Rhodes's relationship with the Royal Family over eight decades. The book, illustrated with delightfully informal and never-before-seen pictures, has been written with the full knowledge of the Queen, who has read and approved parts of it.

One of the most remarkable chapters is a vivid and profoundly moving description of the death of the Queen Mother, who was Mrs Rhodes's aunt, on Easter Saturday, 2002.

The author – who worked in the offices of MI6 during the war and is now a sprightly 86 – tells how, when she went to record her aunt's death at the registrar's office in Windsor, she was asked: 'Right, what was the husband's occupation?'

'After a second's hesitation, I answered, "King."  She adds: 'I think Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) might have found that almost amusing.' Mrs Rhodes, who was a Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen Mother, paints a colourful and hugely endearing portrait of a much-loved Royal.

'She recalls how, over tea one day, the conversation turned to Tony Blair's Cool Britannia, 'prompting Queen Elizabeth to remark wistfully, "Poor Britannia. She would have hated being Cool." '

Elsewhere in the book she reveals how the Queen Mother was a fan of the TV shows Two Fat Ladies and Dad's Army. Perhaps more surprisingly, she was also a fan of the mystical poet Edith Sitwell and the Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, who was a regular and favoured guest.

Life at Birkhall, the Queen Mother's home on the edge of the Balmoral estate, is described – along with sometimes uproarious dinners. Mrs Rhodes recalls: 'At the end of the meal, Queen Elizabeth would start a series of toasts. As well as "Hooray for..." with glasses held high, there was even more of "Down with..." with glasses almost disappearing beneath the table.

dripidwayprof: poems for aunts

Mom pop brother companies file for GCs for relatives who work in gas stations, these are not to be compared to regular staffing company. These mom pop companies are formed by immigrant community of various country immigrants in association with lawyers who exploit a loophole in the system. These are not restricted to Indians in general. One morre thing is contract marriages, where agencies + lawyer arrange a contract marriage and get the person here and get citizenship. These are more common with mexican, latino agencies. Discrimination on the line of payments will only lead to more mess....and more complaints...in the end people with common problem distance from each other. We all are in this together...we must solve it together including those that did not contribute a penny so far. All we can do is to convince those people to donate for the cause. You know our folks are not the best ...when it comes to donations:).(Not the religious) On the same line of thoughts as yours...I think it is ok to ask the user/questioner if they would like to voluntarily donate couple of bucks...if they think the answer they got is valuable enough and if it served their purpose. On the same note as the user posts a question....depending upon the urgency and the importance of the question...user could have an option to put a 'Value' of donation that they would make if that question gets answered soon enough. Having said that, I kind of disagree with the punishing the wrong answers with a $5.00...most of the answers in these forums are people experiences and they are not legal professionals. People will not be able to share the experiences openly/freely. I think, it's the responsibility of the questioner to pick the right answer and donate for the value that he/she deems the question is worth. I have seen your posts earlier, they are full of abuses, unjust full of most useless comments, let me tell you one thing, it is a very well known truth people who are most abusive on cyber space, are most fattoo & have been beaten up kind of people because they spend their life in threat but on cyberspace they become Lion. You are a typical Cyber Sher... But in real life I can guess...

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