Every Proper Queen Needs Her Wellies and a Good Ghillie, Part 1

Yes, yes, we all know the Queen has a supporting cast of royal family members who over the decades we've come to know, love and hate just as intimately as if they were our own. It seems the worlds'--and our--fascination with her and her often scandalous family is without bounds.

We're way too familiar with her snooty, often righteously indignant and irreverant sporting husband, her dignified Scotch-swigging mummy, her irascible children and grandchildren with their lovers, spouses and exs, and finally her royal pack of yelping corgis. She certainly is at no loss for dramatic distraction, pathos and scandal in her life.

Add to that deliciously wicked mix, a bright, new Prime Minister with a perfectly compatible, clever wife, members of Parliament and royal attendants (those with scruples and those without) and it's obvious why we've been enthralled with these people for generations.


Then, just when we think we know everything about our royals and their soap opera lives, a new source of fascination shows up: here comes "The Queen" to US movie theaters everywhere.

It's a fascinating look behind the scenes at the the queen and the royal hubbub at Balmoral Castle in the Highlands of Scotland, during the time of Princess Di's scandalous death in Paris and Tony Blair's election as Prime Minister of England in September, 1997. While the rest of the world was erupting in orgasmic grief and emotion over Diana's tragic accident, the queen and company were keeping their own counsel privately, quietly at Balmoral, much to the consternation of the rest of the world.

It is film worth seeing if you're fascinated with that time, those people and like beautiful, dramatic scenery in faraway places.

Not only did I like this movie, I came to see and admire the Queen in a light I never dreamed possible. I found her to be in many ways my kind of gal.

Such a statement is a 180 degree change from a time I found her to be a hard-hearted battle-axe of a woman, presiding over an anachronistic institution whose time had long since come and gone.

That was all before I saw Her Majesty at Balmoral Castle batting around alone on the 40,000 acre royal game preserve, driving herself in a beat-up old Land Rover with her head shrink-wrapped in a silk scarf, and getting her vehicle stuck in a trout stream before calmly having to call her ghillie for assistance for a broken front shaft.

Now there's a woman I can jolly-well identify with. More in Part 2.