The Queen's Early Life

[drezzle]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01250/royal11_1250655i.jpg

Here's a picture of toddler Charles with his parents and grandfather George VI.  Here I can see where the queen takes a hands-off approach with regards to Charles.  His grandfather looks concerned and actively worried.  Prince Philip looks like...........who knows, but in light of later knowlege, not so good towards Charles.  As much as I hate the way Charles treated Diana, I feel for him in his early photos.  Clearly he got mixed messages which has to be devastating for any child.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/4413081/The-Queens-early-life.html?image=11

[elise27]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01250/royal11_1250655i.jpg

Here's a picture of toddler Charles with his parents and grandfather George VI.  Here I can see where the queen takes a hands-off approach with regards to Charles.  His grandfather looks concerned and actively worried.  Prince Philip looks like...........who knows, but in light of later knowlege, not so good towards Charles.  As much as I hate the way Charles treated Diana, I feel for him in his early photos.  Clearly he got mixed messages which has to be devastating for any child.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/4413081/The-Queens-early-life.html?image=11

I disagree with this.  The queen does seem to be "just" looking at him but you can't base everything on one picture. I think that unfortunately the media simplifies situations so much when reality might be much more complicated.  There's wonderful footage of the queen playing with her son and looking extremely proud.  She may not have made the best of decisions in going off to malta to be with her husband and leaving her children behind, but the queen was very very young at the time and perhaps didnt know better because her own parents had often been absent.  I always look at footage of the queen during the christening of princess anne and I dont know but I dont see her all that happy, charles close bond with his grandmother is extremely obvious and the way then princess elizabeth looks at him almost seems like she feels a bit unhappy or feels bad or regretful even that he's closer to his grandmother than to her.  By all accounts she was not as absent with her younger children whom she had later in life. 

Also as for George VI, he was already quite sick at the time of this picture, also i see images of the current queen around that time and its obvious that she is worried for her father and is starting to feel the burden, its dawning on her that she might be queen sooner than she had expected.  This is particularly true also of footage and images from her trip to the US around that time as well.

[Alexandra123]

I remember watching a program about Her Majesty, and there were scenes of her returning from a foreign trip. Charles was at the airport to greet his mother. Her Majesty got off the plane and greeted Charles, by hand, just as she greeted everyone else. No emotions, no hugs or just a warm smile, nothing that would tell a small boy his mother missed him. And that was a long trip too.

Her Majesty is a wonderful woman and there are few people I admire more. However, because of her role as Queen (which she always took very seriously), she didn't (and couldn't) spend as much time with her children and normal mothers would. Anne was Philip's favourite; she resembles him a lot, including in her nonsense attitude. Andrew has always been Her Majesty's favourite and Edward, as the youngest, always enjoyed a lot of attention and care from both his siblings and parents. Charles was left out and if it weren't for the Queen Mother, he would have been a very lonely and unfortunate child indeed.