Duty will help Queen Mother cope

The Queen Mother would call at Kensington Palace at tea time. She was always immaculately dressed, always regal. In her second century this redoubtable lady still knows the importance of keeping up royal appearances - even for a visit to Princess Margaret in her sick bed.

It was an example that her youngest daughter found difficult to emulate in the last couple of years of her life. "Come along, Margo, you must try and make an effort," the Queen Mother would continue to urge the ailing Princess, right up to the end.

In many ways Margaret was almost a carbon copy of her mother. They shared the same sense of fun and love of luxury, frivolity and parties. When Margaret was once asked where she had learnt some modern slang words, she replied, "At my mother's knee, or some such low joint."

Like her mother, Margaret was also a brilliant mimic. What she never quite managed to imitate, however, was her mother's iron self-discipline.

The Queen Mother always had a very clear notion of where her duty lay. She knew there was a price to be paid for the good times and ill-health was not allowed to interfere with her work. She knew it was part of the royal job to get out and be seen, even if you were not feeling very well. "If you have a headache, take an aspirin," she instructed her two daughters.

It is advice the Queen has followed to the letter. Margaret was more wilful. In the final months of her life, however, much of that will went out of her. What so shocked the Queen Mother when she went to see Margaret at Kensington Palace was the way her daughter seemed almost resigned to her illnesses. For weeks on end she even refused to allow her hairdresser to attend to her.

It took all the Queen Mother's resolve to persuade her that rather than lie in bed feeling sorry for herself, it would be much better if she rallied and made an effort. Her words clearly had their desired effect, however. She made it to her mother's 101st birthday party and was photographed at her side at the gates of Clarence House. And only last week she attended the party Lady Glenconnor gave for her grandson, entering into the spirit of the occasion by allowing balloons to be tied to the back of her wheelchair.

This was the Margaret of old, full of enjoyment and good humour. That is the daughter the Queen Mother will wish to remember.

As a child Margaret had been closer to her father, King George VI. But after his death when she was only 21 years old, it was to her mother she turned for support. They have been intensely close ever since. They had their own private jokes and talked on the telephone every day. On picnics at Balmoral when for once the usually immaculate Queen Mother became dishevelled by wind, it was Margaret who fussed over her and repinned her hair, saying, "Mummy, you must get some better hair grips, these ones are so old-fashioned."

Together with the Queen, they formed a tight little family circle. They grew to prefer each other's company to all others. They holidayed together, out of royal tradition but also out of choice, and gossiped together, often in French.

And all three were partial to stiff martinis. One evening at Sandringham they got through nearly a whole bottle of gin and another of Dubonnet at pre-dinner drinks in the oak-lined salon. When they eventually made it to the dining room the Queen Mother could not get the vegetables out of the silver serving dish the stoical footman was holding. Spoonfuls of peas were sent cascading to the floor, accompanied by regal peels of laughter.

It was Margaret, though, who indulged their mother in a way her sister could not afford to. In recent years the Queen has become ever more alarmed about their mother's profligate way with money and was forever urging her to stop ordering dozens of new outfits every year. Margaret, on the other hand, shared no such concerns. When a number of her couturiers passed away in quick succession, Margaret's first remark was, "Who's going to make Mummy's new clothes now?"

There were times when their relationship came under strain. Margaret blamed her mother for her lack of formal education. And she was very bitter at the way the Queen Mother had sided against her in the Peter Townsend affair. Margaret was desperate to marry the former Battle of Britain pilot who had been her father's equerry. But the Queen Mother felt that as a divorcee, Townsend was not suitable to become a member of the Royal Family and was furious with her daughter for provoking what she perceived as an unseemly scandal at the beginning of the Queen's reign. Margaret later recalled the "long and frosty silences" her mother subjected her to for weeks on end afterwards.

The bond between them did not break under the tension, however, and the Queen Mother was much more understanding about her daughter's subsequent liaisons. She liked Margaret's husband, the photographer Earl of Snowdon, and remained close after their acrimonious divorce.

More surprisingly, she was also fond of Roddy Llewellyn, 17 years Margaret's junior. She invited him to stay for a weekend at Royal Lodge, her home in Windsor Great Park, where, unable to fasten the studs of his dinner shirt, he went looking for assistance in the ironing room. On the way he encountered the Queen Mother who did his studs up for him. Llewellyn was not wearing any trousers and was standing in his underpants.

It was one of the funny memories they continued to share right to the end, and there is no doubt that Margaret's death has left a terrible gap in what remains of the Queen Mother's life. It is the most terrible thing for any mother to live to see the death of a beloved daughter and it will take all her resolve to see her through her grief.

But even in old age, the Queen Mother has not lost her single-minded sense of duty. She has always set herself what she calls "my little targets". She was determined to make her 100th birthday and she did. Now more than anything she wants to get through this week of mourning. It is what she believes, as a mother, she owes her youngest daughter.