Hero who made Queen Mother 'laugh out loud': The touching wartime friendship between Royal and wounded Australian officer

  • Letters sent between Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and Lt Rupert Dent
  • Friendship struck up when Lt Dent treated at Elizabeth's family castle
  • Correspondence found in a draw in Sydney, Australia
  • Queen Mother, then 18, joked about her 'small ears'

A touching wartime friendship between the future Queen Mother and a wounded Australian officer who made her ‘laugh out loud’ has come to light in previously unpublished letters.

Correspondence between the then 18-year-old Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and Lieutenant Rupert Dent were found in a chest of drawers in Sydney.

Lt Dent was wounded in the Somme and moved to the Elizabeth’s family home, Glamis Castle in Scotland, which was used a convalescent home in the Great War.

1915:  Future wife of King George VI, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother) as a stallholder at a wartime Red Cross bazaar.
Discovery of letters from the future queen to a 2nd Lieutenant from Stanmore reveal details of an extraordinary wartime relationship.

Friends: Letters sent between a young Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon and wounded officer Lieutenant Rupert Dent in which she said he made her 'laugh out loud' were discovered in a chest of drawers in Sydney, Australia

In one letter dated December 9, 1918, she wrote: ‘I still laugh out loud when I think of that evening.’

She later added: ‘Can you tell people’s character by their ears?... If they are large it means brains, doesn’t it?

'I must then be in the unfortunate position of having NO BRAIN as my ears are very small!’

The owner of the letters did not make them public for many years because he thought they were love notes.

Now they are to be auctioned.

Lt Dent’s daughter, Judy Fydler, also revealed her father was introduced to the theatre by Elizabeth.

William Shawcross, the Queen Mother’s biographer, said: ‘These lovely letters are in keeping with her personality.’

All smiles: The Queen Mother, pictured at Epsom in 1991, said Lt Dent made her 'laugh out loud' and joked about her ears being 'very small'

All smiles: The Queen Mother, pictured at Epsom in 1991, said Lt Dent made her 'laugh out loud' and joked about her ears being 'very small'