The Commemorative Edition.
The life of the Queen Mother, portrayed by Robert Lacey in this entrancing book, is a magic and memorable story. For three quarters of a century, from the day in 1923 when she married Prince Albert, Duke of York, she occupied a unique position in the life of her country, upholding the highest standards of duty, courage and grace, and earning an astonishing level of affection from her people.
From the early days, when she was occupied in supporting her nervous and sensitive husband, the future George VI, to the grim time of the abdication of Edward VIII in 1936, and the war - when she insisted at obvious risk to herself and her husband on remaining in London - to her years of widowhood, Robert Lacey shows how the Queen Mother's skill, judgement and endearing motherliness steered her through the difficult times and won for her the undying loyalty of the British people.
Lacey's portrait reveals a woman of spirit, whose sense of fun never diminished and whose principles were never allowed to slip. In recent years, when the institution of the monarchy itself has come more to be questioned, these qualities were tried once more - but she proved equal to this challenge too.
First published to mark her eighty-seventh birthday, 'God Bless Her!' has now been thoroughly revised and expanded, and republished in this commemorative edition as a tribute to the life of a remarkable woman.
Included here are more than 120 full-colour portraits and photographs by such luminaries as Augustus John, Cecil Beaton, Norman Parkinson and Lord Snowdon, the latter commissioned especially for this book. It is a unique memento of the Queen Mother's life and of almost a century of our history.
