Although of course, it was expected, I was especially sad to learn of Queen Elizabeth’s death. She and my mother were born three weeks apart. My mother, a British war bride raised in Gibraltar, the child of a “crown colony,” revered the queen and the monarchy in general. In 1936, the whole family turned out with the rest of the British citizens in Gibraltar for the Silver Jubilee of King George V. My grandfather was dressed in top hat and tails and my mother in her Brownie uniform. Even the dogs had bows tied around their necks.
I always told people that I was named Elizabeth after the queen. In fact, it turned out I was named after my great grandmother on my father’s side because I was born the same day 101 years later. However, my mother never contradicted me when she overheard me boasting I was a namesake of the queen.
My father was rejected by the American Army as he had high blood pressure and asthma. As a result, in April 1942, he joined 17 other Americans who had enlisted in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, a British regiment raised originally in America to fight in the French and Indian War . He fought with the British in Italy in late 1943 and early 1944 before transferring to the American Army to drop behind enemy lines into France in the months after D-Day.
In 1955, on the two hundredth anniversary of the founding of the regiment, the American recruits were invited back to England for a ceremony during which they were to meet Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip. In this picture, my mother is the one in white gloves which she knew were required to shake hands with the queen
From Daughter of Spies, to be published October 25th:
In the photograph, my mother is dressed in a simple black suit with pearls at her throat, an outfit almost identical to the queen’s white dress. She looks slim, calm, and chic, her white-gloved hands folded in front of her. You can tell that the queen is speaking directly to her; other people in the line are leaning out to listen, and although the queen is smiling brightly, my mother looks solemn and attentive, but not overly impressed. She’s British, after all, and unlike the Americans on either side of her, she is at ease with the idea of royalty. Born only a month apart, these two young mothers (Charles and I were born the same year, the queen’s first child, my mother’s third) with their identical hemlines, two-inch heels, and pins on their lapels, look as if they could easily have been friends.
