Ruled by duty, fuelled by fun

Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother made the "worst mistake" of her life when she attacked a Zulu warrior during a royal visit to South Africa.

It was 1947, when she and King George VI and their two daughters spent four months stopping at every main town in the Rainbow Nation.

The Zulu man had run through the crowd and grabbed the side of the royal car, startling the Queen, who then began whacking him with her umbrella.

It was not an assassination attempt as she had feared - he was only trying to present Princess Elizabeth with a 10-shilling note for her 21st birthday.

As much as the Queen Mother was revered for her gentle nature and her seemingly permanent smile, she was also a feisty wee thing, feared and admired by some of the world's most powerful figures.

In the year before the onset of the Second World War, the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, watched a newsreel clip of the British Queen placing a red poppy at the foot of a war memorial in France and declared her "the most dangerous woman in Europe".

The US Ambassador to Britain, Joe Kennedy - father of American President John F. Kennedy - was so captivated by the Queen's ability to hold her own in a conversation on international politics that he called her "one of the most brilliant women I have ever met".

Even Queen Elizabeth II was in awe of her mother's ability to captivate a crowd.

The Queen once told her lady-in-waiting after a long night working on state papers: "You know, I do work awfully hard, but Mummy has all the charm."

During her 101 years, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was given many unofficial titles along with her royal peerage - icon of the 20th century, the richest jewel in the royal crown, and the nation's favourite grandmother.

She was the widow of a King, the mother of a Queen and the last Empress of India.

She was also dubbed "a frightful old busybody", who was seen as interfering in her grandchildren's affairs, and a "pampered old lady", who earned too much money for a simple wave of her gloved hand.

She was by no means a puritan - she smoked, drank, loved a flutter on the horses and ran up a colossal overdraft.

During the first half of her life, she smoked cigarettes after meals and at state banquets, and throughout her years she refused to give up her penchant for a glass of gin or a flute of the finest champagne. When she had a hip replacement in 1998, she had a case of vintage bubbly smuggled into the hospital.

Horse racing was one of her greatest passions, and as an owner she had more than 400 winners over 50 years.

She bought numerous New Zealand-bred horses and raced them in her royal colours.

Soon after she learned to walk, she could ride side-saddle - but that was as far as her riding days went.

One of the Queen Mother's racing managers, Michael Oswald, summed her up: "She has always taken a personal interest in every one of her horses and she is very knowledgeable.

"She plays an active part in choosing which horses to run in which races and she seldom misses them race.

"She always takes the rough with the smooth and, more than anything, she makes it all so much fun."

But the money she spent on buying her stable of racehorses, the upkeep of her wardrobe, and maintaining her collection of homes and staff became a bone of contention.

Royal biographer Anthony Holden recalls hearing a top-secret rehearsal of the Queen Mother's funeral a decade ago.

"I listened with disbelief as a woman who had never done a day's work in her life, who had blithely run up eight-figure overdrafts of the taxpayer's money on racehorses, had four palatial residences, 50 full-time servants and the pampered life of a latter-day Marie Antoinette, was credited with winning the Second World War single-handed."

In the early 1970s, the royal family - including the Queen Mother - were criticised for being given hefty pay rises.

Labour Opposition member William Hamilton thought it obscene that "an old lady like that" was receiving (then) £95,000 ($316,000) a year.

"And we say, 'Yes she's always got a pleasant smile on her face'. If my wife got that pay she would never stop laughing," he said.

Yet others were happy to see the effervescent Queen Mother being paid to continue her work long after retirement age.

Although she scaled down her official appointments on the eve of her centenary, she still managed to support more than 100 charities up until her death.

Even as she spent more and more time in hospital recovering from operations, the Queen Mother tried always to appear outside Clarence House on her birthday, August 4.

She always carried a see-through umbrella, so her loyal followers could see her famous smile and blue eyes.

King George VI, a stickler for promptness, would get impatient with his wife as she lingered to chat during her walkabouts.

That was one of the reasons she was loved by the masses - she always stopped to listen to their stories, and smelled every bunch of flowers presented to her.

As Queen she created her own fashion following - a style that she retained for the rest of her life.

It was as if all the clothes in her pale green dressing room at Clarence House were cut from the same pattern - the graceful cross-over dresses and simple straight coats.

The colours were strictly pastel - muted hues originally chosen to hide the dust during the Blitz of the Second World War.

During the war, when the Queen visited the ruins of London dressed in her finest silks and furs, it was quietly suggested that she tone down her attire when she met the victims of the air-raids.

"They would wear their best dresses if they were coming to see me," was her resolute reply. She believed firmly in keeping spirits and standards high in the face of the Nazis.

She had already won a special affection for staying in London during the Blitz rather than heeding official advice to be evacuated.

She was fashion-wise whenever she moved around the globe. When she visited New Zealand in 1958, she travelled with six "coffins" - huge trunks carrying her state gowns so the skirts wouldn't crease.

She wore platform shoes for extra height, weights in the hem of her coats so they would not be caught by the wind, and threw her gloves away at the end of every day.

When she flew into Whenuapai, 100,000 Aucklanders lined the route to the city. One man was so overcome when she stopped to speak that he curtseyed, and she laughed.

She made world headlines whenever she did anything - when she played a new card game, canasta, in 1950, or when she turned down a glass of champagne at a Shakespearean play and instead asked for a "nice cup of tea".

Later in her life, Britain's most influential newspapers ran stories with headlines such as "Queen Mother Walks Unaided" - she climbed three steps outside a hospital without help.

During an age when the paparazzi would become the bane of the Windsors' life, the Queen Mum was always accommodating to photographers.

"I need them just as much as they need me," she said.

She was born at the turn of the 20th century, before aeroplanes flew and when gas lamps were still lit in the street. While the world changed dramatically around her, the Queen Mother remained a creature of habit.

She carried out the same routine every morning: she ate breakfast at 8 am - porridge, kippers and toast - in bed with the newspapers, as a piper paraded outside her window, then rose at 9 am to phone her daughter, the Queen.

She believed in maintaining family values, and as her grandchildren grew older, she was instrumental in helping "arrange" their marriages.

Both Diana - with whom she later fell out and called "that silly creature" - and Sarah Ferguson left for their weddings from her Clarence House residence.

She was a lifelong confidante to Prince Charles, whom she adored. It is even rumoured that she provided a clandestine telephone line for him to call his mistress, Camilla Parker Bowles.

Her devoted courtiers swore that the Queen Mother was the same person in public and in private: kind, compassionate but a no-nonsense woman. And she always expected the same from those around her.