BBC The Diamond Queen Episode 1

[Music] all countries come with a history attached and ours centers on one of the oldest and grandest monarchies of all and the opinion polls show with remarkable consistency that the British liked this idea and in our lifetimes the reason for this liking has been Queen Elizabeth the second [Music] as a young girl he didn't expect to become queen until the age of 10 she could have hoped for a quiet country life but a crisis in the British monarchy made her father King and 60 years ago today when he suddenly died she became queen now in her Diamond Jubilee year she reigns over a different country and indeed a hundred and thirty-five million people around the world you know she was 25 you think about how young that is for somebody to take on this incredible responsibility but what does that mean what does she actually do it's been a life of turning up and reading official papers by our most familiar enigma Queens has provided a huge stability and a huge wealth of experience for those that want to tap into it this series follows the Queen's working life over a year and a half we'll hear from some of those closest to her mother she's put up with him a lot and muscle on speaking terms so I think that's where we achieve Minh we explore her own history and look at just how much behind the pageantry she has changed the British monarchy she's a proper professional her trade got some young upstart like me trying to do his way it was always important everyone again to look at how it's how it's really done for 60 years she's been looking back at the rest of us understated sometimes hard to read at over 60 years many of us have become so used to her we've stopped asking quite what she does or why she does it we've taken her rather for granted and after 60 years perhaps it's time we stopped [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's spring 2010 hello Queen she's making a regional visit to Wales this is what she does a symbol of the country on legs she's been on parade for six decades seen it all but watching as closely as ever remembering names comparing the road includes jobs done in other countries by presidents but also native traditions presidents know nothing about she never stops rarely pauses every day almost every hour is carefully planned we talk about veteran politicians out in the campaign trail this is the real endless perpetual campaign year in year out and in terms of pressing the flesh meeting people this is the real veteran she's here one week after her 84th birthday but retirement nevermind applications seem to be words never mentioned in her presence this is a typically busy schedule on a two-day visit North Wales she's getting about the Queen has a private motto I have to be seen to be believed and this of course is a family train she's professional ability to to know how to move around to who speak to and how to also engage with people you know in their few split seconds of meeting them in the way that she carries herself forward smiles constantly able to go into a room and bring the room to life you know these are the things that our age you shouldn't be doing and yet she's carrying on and doing them I'm not only in this country but all around the world to some extent that's in the genes are thinking there is an understanding of getting out and about you you actually have to go to meet people to find out what's really going on and to give people a sense of your understanding and what is happening whatever granny walks into a room everyone stands up stops and just kind of watch his/her because I see it's usually she was in her room and I find that incredible I Kroger now of course she's north ornery she's very rich privileged protected and cherished different in so many ways big and small she doesn't need a passport or a driving license her husband does more important she's only the fourth in what is effectively a new royal dynasty stamped with her personal style but built by her grandfather in years of mayhem and war [Music] the First World War toppled the monarchies of Russia Germany and Austria George the fifth faced criticism that his family saxe-coburg-gotha were somehow Pro German and he knew there were anti royal murmurings at home when the writer HG Wells spoke of an uninspiring and alien Court King George retorted I may be uninspiring but I'm damned if I'm an alien in 1917 he changed all the German sounding family names and not knowing what his own surname might really be he chose Windsor for it's thoroughly British ring he insisted the Royals crisscross the country visiting hospitals towns and barracks and a lot about today's monarchy comes from him for the Queen this was not something that she had to read about in books the Queen remembers very well the man she played with when she was a small girl she called him grandpa England and George v really was the man who made the Windsors her father was george v ii son Prince Albert of York who'd married a cheerful young Scottish aristocrat Lady Elizabeth bowes-lyon she turned him down twice but it turned out to be a very happy marriage so that princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary spent her early years in a private world of quiet security but when she was born it was a time of turbulence eight for the 21st 1926 and there is a really uneasy air in the country the general strike is just about to start a lot of people predict a revolution and a princess is born third in line to the throne here in Bruton Street a fairly post part of central London but in a relatively normal house owned by her aristocratic grandparents later the German bombs would remove it and it's now possibly one of the dullest buildings in central London at eight months her parents left her to take a six-month sea voyage to Australia in New Zealand her mother was very upset to leave the baby but the Empire called duty first family feelings second her parents were following the rule book set out by their grandfather George v get out there be seen work hard his wife we married once retorted to an exhausted princess who complained she was tired of traipsing round hospitals we are the royal family and we love hospitals if you're looking for a motto for this Queen 60-year reign it's not a bad place to start she loads being late still Criss crosses Britain and hardly ever cancels on the second stage of her North Wales visit she's about to do it all over again well here in London no she's not due for another hour there hasn't been much advance publicity and already there was a pretty substantial crowd hoping to see her now I ask you how many politicians could draw a crowd in advance not only hoping to see them but hoping to be pleased to see them [Applause] [Music] celebrities caught the camera they open up the Queen is not a celebrity cameras caught her and she doesn't is this instinctive or something she's learned but it's shrewd celebrities Flair and then they burn out it's pretty remarkable that in her 80s she still generates the same warmth and excitement as ever the Queen has developed this into an absolute art form how to get around the maximum number of people make as many people as possible feel that they've made some kind of contact some small human connection with her the thing is when you're in the presence of the Queen you're at your feet up and you know you you want to be your best you want the occasion to be something you can talk to everybody about afterwards that of course is the magic of what she is wherever she goes the real human exchange that happens there is not effects imminent and it's not drummed up by the press it's it's something about the best of us if we've come to take this for granted it's worth remembering that she would never have become Queen if her uncle hadn't been a failed unsuccessful monarch the body of his late Majesty King George the fifth behind the captain walks his majesty the king their Royal Highnesses the Duke of York you have Gloucester the Duke of Kenton North Tower she was nine years old when her grandfather George the fifth died as he was lying in state part of the Imperial state crown fell from the top of his coffin his heir Uncle David as she called him the Prince of Wales saw this and wondered if it was a bad omen it was 1936 would become the year of the three kings already loved and respected as Prince he said I'd to do his duty as king in the industrial areas of Britain [Applause] but behind the scenes the constitutional crisis grew the crisis which concern not only politicians of Westminster but the Church of England and which was to prevent his coronation Edward V 8th reigned for just 325 days surrendering the throne to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson he was the bad King the Windsor who got it wrong vain and self-indulgent he demonstrated that charisma while useful in politics or entertainment is a dangerous confection for a constitutional monarch [Music] these are the unreleased stamps designed by him looking like an emperor to mark the coronation that never was he was bored by duty left of official papers lying around with whiskey stains on them but the Queen's moral seriousness have been an instinctive reaction to her uncle's short and disasterous reign it must have been a terribly cruel betrayal for her because he was such an enjoyable relaxed member of the family in this very stiff sort of environment and then suddenly she discovers him must have been revealed to her at the time of the abdication that he's blotted his copybook in this terrible way in a way that they probably didn't thought a mother and father couldn't talk to her about mrs. Simpson divorced women or this sort of thing the very silence about it people going quiet when she came into the room this must have made it all the more awful and all the more of a betrayal [Music] carefully stored away in Victoria tower at the Palace of Westminster archives which record these dark days of the monarchy these are the papers on the abdication of Edward the eighth and they reek of misery and crisis this is his address to the House of Lords in which he says I will not enter now into my private feelings but I would beg that it should be remembered that the burden which constantly rests upon the shoulders of a sovereign is so heavy it can only be born in circumstances different from those in which I now find myself as you then get the act of abdication which went through both houses of parliament all of its stages in a single day that's a sense of crisis for you and then here is the Royal Assent to that and it finishes with the great Red Seal by the king himself signed with his own hand and his own hand is on the front of the document Edward RI Edward Rex Imperato King Emperor and by writing that signature on this document he ceases to be King so it's the only example I've ever seen and may exist of a signature which destroys itself amazing with barely time for the country to take it all in the Queen's father was crowned King George the sixth eleven-year-old Princess Elizabeth who was a little shocked to realize she would have to move into the drafty Buckingham Palace but she caught the sense of magic writing of the coronation I thought it all very very wonderful and I expect the abbey did to the arches and beams at the top were covered with a sort of haze of wonder as papar was crowned at least I thought so papa was only 41 and the prospect of her own reign must have seemed unimaginably distant but that quiet little family her mother's sense of fun her sister Princess Margaret's mischief what they called wee for would now be changed forever and it's a family whose joys and sorrows are much like yours and mine I suspect a new King George the six moved his family out of the comfortable and familiar house in Piccadilly and into the grandeur of Buckingham Palace imagine what it must have felt like for the young girls and the shift certainly pushed the father and his older rather serious ten-year-old daughter who he now knew was going to be Queen much more closely together it was a pretty intimidating drafty old bother place and and pretty austere and some fairies fairly strange working practices as well by minder the worker price has been going there for a long long time I think even in Queen Victoria's day I think that she will Prince Albert complained you know that there were three different departments that were responsible for a fireplace so there was there was she made been for I think one was responsible for cleaning it another one that's responsible for filleting it because the forestry department had to produce the laws and somebody else had to light it and then another Department I'd look after I mean it was absolutely ridiculous he's got a lot better since [Laughter] her childhood was comfortable but not exactly crowded no random friendships city streets for looking down at not for walking on remarkably even then security issues including Irish Republican threats loomed over the girls Elizabeth and Margaret lived in a world dominated by family jokes and private games often played in a kind of ante palace hidden away in the grounds of Royal Lodge Windsor the people of Wales gave who booth in bath the little house to her on her sixth birthday and here she'd play in read books beginning a tradition that now includes her granddaughter Princess Beatrice growing up and now we've been lucky enough to play here and cousins and and second cousins mitts the big family family treat it's the most glamorous Wendy house ever but it's really beautiful and what you're seeing in the eyes now is after through the year renovation which you've been in charge of yeah it's one of the one of the people but it's been we completely being researched and new curtains new wiring new sort of bit of a bit of a spruce up really because it was such you know it's such a wonderful little place that you never want to have a look at that can we see inside [Music] Wow he said as you see as you see no sort of all the little little China and glass and everything is created for its good especially for the house it's got a very 1930s feel to it doesn't it yes it does the kitchen is very 1930s - and actually the fridge in that it's not supposed to be in here it was the fridge from the nursery but when all the boxes came back it suddenly reappeared we now have the original 1930s fridge in the house and granny was Rayanne Runa was very clear that all the fabric she wanted very little very little designs because it was such a little house that she knows who have come for very little flowers and bows but soon we have some quite new modern friends that have that she spent she spent many many happy hours and days here as a girl yeah she did and I'm still now she likes to come back and visit and it's you know it's wonderful that we can have you know sages granny's a great grandmother now so we can have Savannah come and come and play in here as well to put herself great-grandchildren in the future as a child granny never went to school when her mother was urged to get her more books they all turned out to be comedies by PG woodhouse but she learned French and she was taught about the Constitution by an eccentric history teacher from Eton more important the new king was passing on his own advice and despite his stammer and lack of readiness for the role was growing in confidence himself he refused to leave London during World War two splits the queen mother took up pistol practice in the palace grounds in case she had to make a last stand against german paratroopers and they visited the battered East End visit the scene to bring comfort and share to all those who have suffered from this all too frequent form of Nazi frightfulness on September the 13th 1940 in George the 6th and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother were very nearly killed when a German bomb landed right here in the quadrangle at Buckingham Palace if the window in the room where they were standing had been closed rather than open they would have been hideously mutilated by flying glass a workman nearby was killed showing fine British phlegm one of the policemen there turned to the Queen Mother and said a magnificent piece of bombing if I may say so mob within a few yards from where the king and queen were sheltering the Royal Chapel was struck tearing through the roof the bomb completely wrecked the altar and hurled 20 tons of debris into the basement we thank God that their Majesties were unhurt during world war ii the whereabouts of the princesses was a national secret in fact they were at windsor castle from where they made a radio broadcast to the children of britain [Music] this country have had to leave your home and be separated from your fathers and mothers my sisters Margaret rose and I feel so much for you as we know from experience what it means to be away from those we love most of all you only have to look at pictures of the Queen's father before and after the war to see the toll it took on him a dramatic aging but this was also the time when the ties were more tightly bound I think that was the time when the Queen got closest of all to her father and to see him wasting away in front of her and you wondered was she aware you know that even as she's losing her father and can see his mortality what that means for her and how that's going to limit her own personal life he was really the only person from whom Princess Elizabeth could learn about how to reign how far to go with the politicians how to do the paperwork he become a revered symbol of the British reliable constant still in his mid-50s for her an anchor and then the cable snapped King George the sixth death came 60 years ago this week here at Sandringham the private estate he loved so much his daughter was then 25 she had two children of her own but this sudden death pitched her straight into the public and private world of remorseless meetings and duties which she's always taken with the same kind of dead-straight seriousness that she learned from him she was considerably younger than you are now and she became queen do you ever have reflect on what an extraordinary jump that must have been from a relatively private life suddenly thrust into that role Rick yeah definitely and one of the things that's also really struck me when I sort of look back at it now was also in a very probably male-dominated age where it must have been extremely daunting to be put in that position and that age you know I and I still have trouble trying to be serious about certain things so for her at that age it must have been incredible having that burden or that responsibility placed on you she's shouldered the responsibility since then one day after his father it will land on Prince William's shoulders but what is the essence of that responsibility what's the point of a constitutional monarch what really is the job for but first the Queen is head of state and the state is a political creation one of the most important of the Monarchs duties is something the Queen has done thousands of times her weekly audiences with a prime minister these meetings mostly happen here in the deep privacy of the Queens apartments at Buckingham Palace the Queen's first prime minister was Winston Churchill a titanic figure she found a great speaker [Music] he's saw things in a very romantic and and glittering way but perhaps a less good listener since then she's had eleven British Prime Minister's alone and at the heart of the relationship are those totally confidential conversations compared by one official to a weekly meeting with a therapist here one can't take it in but there it must be electron magic isn't it it's simply two people sitting down talking in an entirely relaxed and informal way but they cover everything I mean the Queen as head of state has a right to know what is happening has a right to know what her prime minister has in mind to do I certainly found I could discuss anything with her in total confidence and that included by the way all sorts of cabinet ructions and difficulties [Music] early on in her reign the Queen had to cope with prime ministers who were older Wilier and often ruthless Anthony Eden came close to entangling her in his deception of the House of Commons and the wider world during the Suez invasion of Egypt in 1956 a disastrous adventure that divided the Queen's advisors and family she was said to have been upset by the dishonesty involved and so was Prince Philip's uncle Lord Mountbatten or do you Mountbatten very close to the royal family was First Sea Lord and he tried to resign as that crisis deepened and was ordered by the First Lord Quintin Herschel to state his post and he did the resignation the attempted resignation letter all Declassified so the Queen was deeply deeply concerned Eden's successor Harold Macmillan entangled her in politics by forcing the pace when he resigned so that his favored successor Alec Douglas tune got the job [Applause] the Queen had visited Macmillan in hospital to hear his views and many thought that the conservative leader was using her his own end oddly perhaps she seems to have established a very warm relationship with her first northern labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson I think it was said that Harold Wilson once remarked that particular times of crisis late 60s when he was in deep trouble and there were plots as he thought against him he used to say that he looked forward to the meeting with the sovereign which I think was then on a Tuesday evening because it was the only meeting he attended in the week which didn't leak and it was the only time he met somebody for a proper serious conversation who wasn't after his job [Music] as the Queen has grown ever more experienced and grown older and her Prime Minister's have grown younger the balance has changed perhaps the most pivotal important Premiership of all was that of Margaret Thatcher in 1986 the Sunday Times suggested the Queen thought mrs. Thatcher was uncaring and confrontational that the Queen was a political inner fighter prepared to take on her prime minister this was over briefing by an enthusiastic Buckingham Palace press officer the Queen was fascinated and sometimes amused by Margaret Thatcher once during a particularly stuffy diplomatic reception when the Iron Lady felt faint for the second year running the Queen glanced over and said oh look she's killed over again and the royal family isn't comfortable with too polarized politics as the people at the top they like the idea of the country holding together however the Queen always saw the point of Margaret Thatcher she admired her guts and she was intrigued by this self-made female leader evidence is generally that actually on personal level they go on very well no I think they did I think they do I think they each thought the other was like a stray I am the pence Prime Minister of Queen Elizabeth the second reign Tony Blair's new labour presented a different problem a vigorous government of self-proclaimed modernizers which Whitehall insiders said had little instinctive feel for monarchy being in power changed that you know the fact is any Prime Minister ends up with with unexpected events and happenings and crises and you need to be able to come through those and handle them and actually handle them psychologically as well as politically and I often used to talk to her about the past about previous prime ministers what it was like for how they handled things and she was she was prepared within the context of the audience to be very frank and open and informative in fact I mean I think they want to do that deal if they possibly can the question is how we can get everyone through it at the end of this week really but it's for the new countries particularly they want one that's and that's the best chance we're gonna get anyone you can imagine we now have an older grandmotherly queen who remembers so many forgotten scandals and got past that one crises the Queen has according to the great Victorian journalist Walter Badgett the right to be consulted to advise and to warn and the more experience she has the more perhaps that means and today it's David Cameron's turn we're recording this as it happens on budget day and at a time when British pilots are flying over Libya so there will be a great deal for the prime minister and the Queen to talk about once they get down to the meat of their conversation what will she say to him what will he reply we will never know and that is the point but here's a rare glimpse that David Cameron's probably keeping his dynomite news or his best gossip for when the camera has gone probably the only meeting from seeing mrs. Cameron at the end of the day is about the only meeting where there's no one else in the room and I feel the responsibility as Prime Minister to try and explain my perspective on the big issues going on in the world and the country that week does it make you thinks it makes me think because there's no one else in the room because there are no minutes taken I think you are you reveal both to her but also to yourself your deepest thinking and deepest worries about these issues and sometimes that can really help you to reach the answers but does all this really matter what's it for has it in any way changed the lives of the British the Prime Minister is the executive arm of the government and the monarch has this extraordinarily important set of ceremonial duties that means that the country whatever things that its politicians can fear a great sense of ownership and unity around the institution of the royal family and in particular her Majesty the Queen I think gives us not only all the advantages in terms of people wanting to come to Britain and engage with Britain but gives us a huge advantage of stability the Queen stays on top of things she reads the newspapers not just the racing post the lot she really does she listens to the radio and the evening news on television and every day wherever she may be those fat heavy red cabinet boxes arrive brimming with closely typed paperwork carried to her through the corridors of the palace in these boxes have been some of the deepest secrets of the British state over the last sixty years what they really thought in Whitehall during the most dangerous parts of the Cold War when the world was on the edge of nuclear annihilation what they really felt about some of the big domestic stories those great confrontations when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister or the true story of Tony Blair and taking the country to war in Iraq and Afghanistan the fight between Blair and bran the Queen really has had an absolute ringside seat for everything that's most important they call her in number 10 reader number one she uses a desk glossy with royal history modern Britain's business is dispatched on furniture which once belonged to the Bourbons of Paris brought down by the bloody French Revolution here is British democracy's reader number one always ready for when the next box of documents arrives why does she read those papers is it important that she sees the secrets of the state and knows what's going on if she's going to fulfill that function of keeping prime ministers and secretaries of state on their toes in her weekly meeting with the prime minister or the bilateral she regularly has with the big ministers she's got to be well primed and she has this enormous accumulated compost with memory and knowledge but you have to keep it up to speed it's I suspect it's her equivalent of athletic training it's her workout I've heard it said that there are only three people in government who really truly understand what's going on the chief secretary to the Treasury the Prime Minister and the Queen one of her former private secretaries way back in the 70s said that if she wasn't on top of all of this stuff very quickly people would notice Prime Minister's ministers ambassadors for it would realise that she didn't know what was going on and sort of something soggy and soft would happen at the apex of the state I think that's probably true although to be honest quite a lot of the Queen's functions are almost rubber-stamping I think on a more personal level if the Queen didn't keep up this great discipline of having to read every single day and keep on top of things she might never be able to catch up again or she would feel under pressure and she has an iron discipline to read [Music] Iren discipline is of course a military quality and the Queen grew up often surrounded by men with regimental instincts for timekeeping order dress code and duty responsibilities was drummed into her the South African speech aged 21 is the speech of a true believer in monarchy nationhood God and destiny shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong so this is the woman who became queen we've seen the way her reading at her private meetings with politicians mesh at the heart of the British state but what about the grand public occasions such as the opening of Parliament which she's done 58 times Britain unlike other countries has no written constitution no founding document her authority is more like an ancient echo a half hidden mystery and this is the room that you never see this is the robing room and the Queen will come in here and the Imperial state crown which with the other jewellery has arrived in its own coach from the Tower of London and then she gets rode this is not to the House of Lords and it's not the House of Commons this is the Queen's bit of the Palace of Westminster and it's really important symbolically because the monarchy the state the unending United Kingdom meets the day-to-day world of politicians arguing about the things that politicians argue about and when the Queen leaves this room with that great crown on and all the regalia she is going to speak the words of her here today gone tomorrow politician the Prime Minister of the day but she is still the queen she is not the government it's her government but she is not the government and this is a crucial distinction [Music] we don't live in a Tory country or a coalition nation there was never any such thing as New Labour Britain these are just the labels of governments weren't quite squatters that would be unfair but are merely launchers the state is meant to represent all of us whatever we think of the people running things at the moment the state should have an acute memory of what happened in the old days and how things used to work and a lively interest in the longer term future other countries represent the state with a constitution of walk a bit of paper some kind of symbol France has Maori an or a clapped-out politician called a president we have a lady who every year reads out what her government is up to and quite rightly never lets us know what she really thinks of it my Lords pray be seated in modern times the state opening of parliament can look like a gaudy pantomime or convocation of playing cards but its political significance is real enough my Lords and members of the House of Commons my government's legislative programme will be based upon the principles of freedom fairness and responsibility and yet all the work at home is only part of what she does a lot of the Queen's life has been about travelling abroad again why why is she the most well-traveled mana in history why has she made more than 325 overseas visits to more than 130 countries doing far beyond the state she reigns over or even the Commonwealth they included Russia we're revolutionaries killed her relatives are nicholas ii and his family and communist china all of this costs money does it really bring britain much in return does her presence make a real difference to the way we sell ourselves abroad well yes it does it's undoubtedly adds great weight to how it was and it draws attention to us selling ourselves abroad the queen doesn't do trade deals the queen isn't actually herself soliciting business for the country but the presence of the queen draws enormous attention and her travels take her deep into Republican territory to if there's one place on the planet which challenges the idea of monarchy more than any other it's the United States of America the most successful democracy of all time they didn't just reject monarchy they rejected our monarchy and built a system with an elected leader whose powers are far greater than any king or queen has ever had on the other hand what they lost was continuity they're always remaking themselves the queen remembers Eisenhower jf Kennedy Nixon Reagan Carter and there's nobody at the apex of the United States you could say that about here in the United States you might think that nobody thinks much about that you might think that in hard-boiled New York people don't miss continuity or a sense of history but you'd be wrong [Music] by here in America you don't really see as much females with her statue so I think she has a great influence I like that she's a remnant of the past so I like that you don't see too many of the Monarchs still around so the Queen we love here and that's what she's coming here though [Music] she's here to make a speech at the United Nations the organization set up to promote world peace it's a speech she's worked hard on before largest current providers of peacekeeping troops in the world our Commonwealth countries she's head of state of 16 United Nations members so this matters to her the Queen makes speeches all the time but she's not one of those people who like the sound of their own voice she is pleased when the speeches are over public speaking is a routine familiar well-oiled ordeal in less than two hours time the Queen is going to be standing there addressing the United Nations first time she's done it since 1957 back then she was upbeat and optimistic and so she will be today you might say mostly her story has been the triumph of optimism and hope of a bitter experience but after all that is the story of monarchy and it's the story of the United Nations - it is perhaps always been the case that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all that was a really important speech and she was able to to go there and talk a lot about foreign policy aspects talk about the successes that the UN has had and the issues that are still troubling it about failed States so you know she can do an enormous amount queen is not controversial and therefore everybody feels included in in in in when she goes abroad and that is a completely different atmosphere when the Queen comes down the stairs as well it's it's different from where anybody else doing it it just is different in tomorrow's world we must all work together as hard as ever if we are truly to be United Nations [Applause] rousing speeches aren't really her thing in truth the way the Queen connects best is with a personal touch she may not be a natural performer she's never provocative but she has found the right words for times of grief and crisis and she moves people just by turning up as she's about to do here in the last part of her New York visit at the site of the Twin Towers Ground Zero nearly a decade on and it's messy dirty and busy and hot and still very sad part of the job of a monarch is to articulate what people feel when tragedy strikes when things go wrong 67 British people died here among the nearly 3,000 who perished and in the days afterwards the Queen spoke very well she spoke through the British ambassador just along the road at a church as the rain streaked down and she said these were dark and harrowing times and she finished by saying something which is simple and true which is that grief is the price we pay for love now so long afterwards she's back she's going to be laying a wreath Prince Charles and Camilla have been here before but she's never been here and it's going to be I'll be a poignant moment actually among those waiting for her is firefighter John Moore Abita who who survived the collapse of the South Tower 411 emergency workers lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks just to be able to meet the Queen and see her human side that she would come down here and grace us with her presence at the World Trade Center site I think it lifts the spirits of Americans especially New Yorkers there are times especially in the fire department we feel like were the world kind of forgot about us and what we went through so to have someone like the Queen of England which is you know a sister country to us we feel we feel very closely close bonds of England to come down here and to pay our respects it means a lot to New Yorkers especially and I think some Americans it shows a human side of her as well [Music] watching the Queen operate abroad even outside of the Commonwealth you do see her differently people I've talked to here in New York were genuinely thrilled and moved that she'd come in a way I don't think they'd feel about a British Prime Minister or politician it would be absurd however to say that the Queen helps to project British power power seems the very last thing that she's about all glory or pomp at least here it's as if we have a foreign office a Ministry of Defense the Department of Trade and she is our slightly mysterious Department of friendliness it is a rum business but in a good way [Music] it's November 2010 in Abu Dhabi and the Queen is in the Gulf once the Windsors were king emperors now they travel as would be wealth creators promoters first onto the beaches were the politicians and the businessmen at their backs the color of the carpet waiting for her never changes but the world certainly does when she became Queen this place was in British hands and it was mostly dust and camels and old forts when she was last here more than 30 years ago this was an independent country on its way and now it's one of the great mushrooming Jack and the Beanstalk economies enormous ly powerful do they need us still do we need them we certainly do it strikes me that this has become a place which matters an awful lot - I mean Manchester City fans but also to a lot of workers it's not really sure it's not just it's not just the UAE it's the whole region yeah hugely important from the business opportunities the business case there's an awful lot going on I've been coming to this region now for whatever it is in 12 years and developing the relationships and this part of the world needs continuous hands-on time and personal contacts matter a lot o hugely hugely and the fact that her magic is coming and now is really really important especially after the the new government has given and reinvigorated the relationship with whole of the region but as you can see here a plane is rolling up now yes that's all right mustn't keep them from the Queen thanks very much thank you monarchies are a minority in today's world but they're hardly unusual 40 odd countries of monarchs depending on how you count them and there's no doubt that monarchs have a natural curiosity about one another which can all the wheels of trade the kings and queens club tonight this queen is greeted by the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi so straight from the airport her first stop is the exuberant Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque one of the world's largest and partly the work of British companies shoeless the Queen whose range of hats is famous now where's her tribute to local fashion including her version of the traditional abaya gown she meets children learning the Quran rather late at night one of the things that's changed in the Queen's reign and she is now very conscious of is that she is also queen of 1.6 million British Muslims ambassador what does it actually mean in concrete terms for Britain that the Queen comes all the way out here it's tremendously important for the relationship this is a country that counts for the UK it counts because a hundred hundred twenty thousand British people live here it counts because of their security so the defense and security relationship between the UK and UAE with our troops serving alongside each other in Afghanistan with our law enforcement agencies intercepting bombs on the way to the UK is very important Yemen's just round one corner in Iran's over the water so it's a pretty important place if there was no royal family if we were a republic what would be the difference do you think it will be shallow shallow shallow how big a deal is it this is probably the most important bilateral contacts between the UK and the UAE of the decade the official welcome is a traditional Bedouin one but again this is really about corporate Britain a European influenced museum designed by a Britain backed by the British Museum a British architect Lord Foster produced its own lots of money involved but the bigger picture is that in the Gulf the Chinese are moving in and this dance of royal diplomacy is one of the ways the British government is trying to fight back the role the Queen can play as Britain tries to find its place with the other great powers that there's a great part of the work is is a really big one the fact that they have such esteem and affection for her actually gives Britain enormous advance is seriously interested in in the project and in architecture we saw they don't work which is really impressive one thing you have to realize when you're abroad is people absolutely adore the notion of the British monarchy they are fascinated by they want to know about it I mean if I'm whatever part of the world I'm in they will always ask me about the Queen about what it's like about the monarchy and so for us as a country it's a no brainer actually in terms of what they bring because they they bring something no one else can the pinnacle of course is the Queen's visit but it's what's going on beforehand where the political context is what's going on with a relationship and then you've then got a look at what happens afterwards and it's it's it's the gathering of those strands that you pull together and then as it were the Queen is the person who sort of cinches them at that one particular moment and so these are special and they add shine varnish and to some extent paint to the canvas that is the relationship between us and another country [Music] the Queen's visit continues to the kingdom of Oman ruled by an old friend of her Sultan Qaboos at times it feels more like Narnia bagpipe playing camel mounted soldiers glittering forts but Oman counts an oasis of relative peace in an increasingly angry region often ignored by her people at home the Queen has been helping keep Britain quietly plugged in around the world for 60 years she seems to enjoy it that is the job but for a woman of her age the politicians keep on pushing her hard is there any sense that sometimes it's a bit much to ask a lady of her age to undertake some of these huge trips well not really I mean of course one naturally thinks would it be a bit much but very clearly it isn't a bit much I mean she's extremely well rehearsed these sort of things now but having done that for so many years it must be incredibly tiring and is extremely emotionally draining but she's led the way in in doing waka bites and with engagements and long way that continue at that level of head of state with the Queen as our mana with the institution of the royal family even if you come at it with a sort of cold heart and a clear head it is a brilliant Organization for Britain [Music] [Music] the experience of following the Queen even for a short time takes you to some strange places and involves a great deal of exotic transportation it sometimes like ordinary life with the color balance turned up so high it's almost shrieking but it's hot hard work and underneath the clutter and glitter rather more hard-headed and down-to-earth than it looks for 60 years the Queen has been many people would say an adornment what she isn't is an ornament it could have been done differently running this monarchy in modern times juggling old Authority and noisy democracy hasn't just happened it's been carefully thought through by the Queen her father her grandfather and their advisors they had an idea a plan and by and large they've stuck to it in episode 2 of the diamond queen we explore that plan further we look at how the Queen has been a quiet but restless moderniser she did Clause a circuit of history we ask how the family have learnt from her she very much leaves the family to go off and find their own way and if you get it wrong stand by you'd be put back in your place and we hear the inside story of her grandson's wedding I rang my grandmother off some clarification on the issue and Julie got told that it was a ridiculous she was right as she wasn't [Music] the diamond Queen continues at nine next Monday tomorrow the One Show comes live from Buckingham Palace that's at 7:00 [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: Expat UK

Views: 1,690,575

Rating: 4.6739068 out of 5

Keywords: Elizabeth II (Monarch), BBC (TV Network), Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth, Windsors, British monarch, The Diamond Queen (TV series), documentary, BBC, TV, Diamond Jubilee, Queens Jubilee, monarchy, Andrew Marr, USA, ground zero, 9/11, Tony Blair, President Obama, Obama, Barack Obama (US President)

Id: HgweMOYZRZs

Length: 58min 58sec (3538 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 09 2012

Reddit Comments

[u/ArtistEngineer]

I couldn't understand the sense of scale until they stepped inside.

What a very bizarre scale.

[u/Cast_Me-Aside]

At the point they went inside it was entirely clear it was a hobbit-house. Aside from the height issue I genuinely don't think I'd get my shoulders through those door-frames straight on.

I'm not much of a royalist, but it was quite charming when the princess referred to The Queen as Granny. They live in such a standard of detachment and opulence that it's sometimes hard to imagine them as particularly normal.

[u/StairheidCritic]

Andrew Marr's voice-over drips emetic sycophancy.

Only watched until I saw the size of the "wendy-house", FFS!