Queen Mother's Alleged Racism Was Censored, Diarist Claims

High society diarist Sir Roy Strong revealed he omitted details of the Queen Elizabeth's alleged racism from his memoirs.

Strong, 81, has published two memoirs and includes various interactions with the royal family in his writings. Strong is the former director of the National Portrait Gallery and Victoria and Albert Museum. He recorded all of his interactions with the Queen Mother, he says, but he never published certain ones.

“I can remember the Queen Mother came to lunch at Ham House, which was a branch of the V&A,” Strong said, referring to the Victoria & Albert Museum. “In the middle of lunch, I was on the left of her I think, and the Queen was in Africa at the time, and the Queen Mother leant over to me and said, ‘Beware the blackamoors.’ I thought, ‘I can't put that down, it's too awful.’ But one knows she was color prejudiced,” he told The London Times Monday.

Strong remained silent for so many years because of a sense of duty, he says. “I always felt there was a certain streak of me that was protective of things, but on the whole not,” he said to the Times. Strong’s comments are not the first time there have been reports of the Queen Mother’s alleged prejudice.

“One of her ladies-in-waiting said her attitude to Africa was, ‘Poor darlings; the Africans just don’t know how to govern themselves — it’s just not their form. What a pity we’re not still looking after them,”’ said Tanya Gold in a 2009 piece for The Guardian.

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The Queen Mother, wife of King George VI, and mother of current Queen Elizabeth II, died in 2002 at the age of 101. Although Strong is reporting these comments 15 years after her death, the royal family — especially Prince Philip — has been known to make racially insensitive comments throughout the years.

In light of recent terror attacks in England, xenophobic attitudes are a sensitive topic. The latest of these attacks occurred Saturday when three men ran over pedestrians on the London Bridge and stabbed several of them. At least seven victims are dead; police killed the three attackers.

Two weeks earlier, a suicide bomber attack left 22 dead and 119 injured outside an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena. The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, has been associated with both attacks.

The Queen attended church on Sunday to pray for those killed and injured in the attacks. At 91, she is still heavily present in the public eye.

Strong’s comment about the Queen Mother’s alleged racism ignited Twitter Monday, with some pointing out alleged royal links to the Nazis. (The Duke and Duchess of Windsor met with Hitler and are said to have been fans of his.)

Some of their reactions have been posted below: