Thanks, Sabba! In fact, I could kick myself for not mentioning your kindness in activating my account (which took much gnashing of teeth on my part).

I am sorry about the forum's near future, about which I only recently found out. How ever much I like the elegance of the forum, as it looks today, it is the forum's posters which give it its particular élan. As long as it has that, it has a lot, so smile.

Welcome Maravilha.

Sophistication, fun and good teeth is just what the doctor orders for this board, so I'm calling the Foro's vestals to throw petals at you as a sign of our joy.

I see from your posts that you are also a fan of Nellie's pictures, which I have been collecting with fervour for years (she has a vestal assigned to her 24 h a day). Let me use one favourite of those to show you how happy we are to have you here.

Queen Mary and cousin Missy, taking a stroll incognito.

A very warm welcome to you Maravilha - lovely to see you here. You really will enjoy being a part of this Board.

Hello Maravilha and good to meet you.

Sophisticated and fun sounds just right for a royal board.

Here is Queen Mary taking tiny steps.

Thanks for your charming words of welcome, Octavius! I would expect no less from a man whose avatar features one of the most perfect men who ever lived.



That's not a vestal. That's Sabba dressed as Carmen Electra.



This is magnificent. I had never seen it, Octavius!

I'm guessing this is the Nepalese pavillion (or so) at the British Exhibition in 1924. If memory serves, the unforgettable Queen Marie and her hubby were on a State Visit to Britain then.

Since I cannot offer much in the way of Queen Mary photographs, and leave that to Nellie's good offices anyway, here is a soundbyte of King George V opening the Exhibition.

http://members.lycos.co.uk/bee1924/georgev.html

Incidentally, that's the same visit one can see in newsreels, which show King George, Queen Mary in a miniature railway, with the caboose holding the self-same Queen Marie. Priceless.

Thank you very much, June. It's wonderful to share this space with a Kiwi. Hope to see you around!

Nellie, maybe some day someone can explain it to me, but I could look at photos of Queen Mary all day.

Thank you so much for all your photographs throughout the years, which I have enjoyed silently.

This is the first time I hear George V's voice so thanks for that!

Then feast your ears on this, Octavius! King George AND Queen Mary. Not scratchy like the first, either.

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3JyC6qw2D_s&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3JyC6qw2D_s&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

Amazing, isn't it? It was a fairly common sound recording made by the King and Queen at Buckingham Palace, on Empire Day 1923 (so around the time of the photograph posted by Nellie above), a special day in the Empire's calender back when, since it was celebrated on Queen Victoria's birthday.

This vinyl record was sold to the general public (in places like Selfridges and Harrods, I was told by relatives) but what makes it unique is that someone found in it SOUTH KOREA, and posted it to Youtube.

Youtube has got to be one of the treasures of modernity.

Note: There is some controversy in the Youtube comments about the Queen's voice. I find it fascinating that non-royalist commenters are targeting her, since it shows she holds a certain magnetism that draws people to her, almost inexplicably.

What the controversy is, I won't say. I don't want to influence your reactions in the least, when you first hear her voice at 2:37.

This is amazing Maravilha...!
I can't understand why people don't think is really her. I can't see anything anormal on that.
I mean, why not...? She was not mute as far as I know...

Thanks for the document.

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Ah, no. The controversy (not only on Youtube, but in another royal forum website that I read, where this was also posted) lies in her "accent". This is a touchy subject for some as you can tell by the Youtube comments, but for me, very fascinating.

I had read that the queen had a low voice, but an extraordinarily cultured one. Further, that she had an accent that was hard to place, a combination of continental royalty mixed with Mayfair chic. You can easily tell that is the truth, if you are sensitive to accents, as I am.

Unfortunately, the beautiful but completely unreliable Lady Diana Mosley took this situation as an opening gambit to insinuate that the Queen had such little command of the English tongue, that she had to have English language lessons the whole of her life (!).

She also claimed the Queen was a native German speaker, which was a stretch of the truth (and the thing about the lessons, libelous).

Certainly old Queen Mary spoke German, how could she not given her parentage, but not only in the Pope-Hennessy bio but according to her children, she wasn't at pains to speak it, and didn't like Germans anyway. The last time the family spoke it en famille, was when Elsa, the family's beloved German maid, was sent back to Germany on the very day of the declaration of war in 1914.

Queen Mary certainly acted "plus anglais que les anglais", perhaps as an unconscious compensation mechanism.

Thus, I suspect her attitude is a little of "the lady doth protest too much", given the fact that being foreign in Britain is a severe social handicap, plus her husband's notorious dislike of anything foreign, which served them well during the xenophobic days of WWI.

Now I will tell you my opinion.

Youtubers who commented that she has a distinct German accent are half-right. What she has are German language INFLECTIONS. You can tell by the rhythm of her speech, and when she gets to words like "people", "daughters" and "Victoria" -- she makes it sound Germanic by drawing out the sounds, especially the Rs. Where the commenters are wrong is the bit about the A-sounds, like pronouncing family as feh-meh-lee. That isn't German, but rather was the standard "U" pronunciation for words with short As. It is considered precious and too upper-class today, and thus not used except by...the Queen, her granddaughter, and older relatives. Irony.

Well, I'll stop now, before I start sounding like Henry Higgins, though that's not too bad a thing for a person with Eliza Doolittle as her avatar.

Just you wait 'enry 'iggins...!

Well, I am afraid it's too difficult for me to manage with all these nuances of the english accent. I wasn't born within St. Mary Le Bow earshot bells (grin)
But I understand that the issue is fascinating for all of you... and I like to read about too.

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