Gin before lunch, wine during the meal and a Martini and glass champagne at dinner: Queen Mother's drinking habits revealed in the joyously candid memoirs of the niece who became her closest confidante

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On Saturday, Margaret Rhodes, the Queen’s cousin and lifelong friend, gave a rare insight into her childhood with the future monarch. Here, in our second extract from her magical memoir, Mrs Rhodes, who died last month at 91, recalls life with her aunt, the Queen Mother: her disdain of politics, how bereft she was at Margaret’s death — and those cruel rumours about her drinking...

On my most recent visit to Birkhall, the Scottish country house which was the summer retreat of my much loved aunt, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, I got quite a jolt when I saw several of her blue raincoats in the hall, long after her death in March 2002.

Still hanging there even though Birkhall, which is part of the Balmoral estate, has subsequently been taken on by her grandson Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall, they prompted a flood of memories about our windy walks and rain-swept picnics in the surrounding countryside.

In our second extract from her magical memoir, Mrs Rhodes, who died last month at 91, recalls life with her aunt, the Queen Mother 

I particularly remember when we met a group of hikers on their way to nearby Dubh Loch. My aunt had a long conversation with them and from then onwards she received a Christmas card from ‘the hikers of the Dubh Loch’. On another occasion she shared our picnic with some walkers.

Hers was the unstuffiest of courts and it made her day if something went wrong on a formal occasion, for example the mishap which befell my father, the 16th Lord Elphinstone, at the funeral of King George V in 1936. As Captain General of the Royal Company of Archers, the Sovereign’s bodyguard north of the border, my father marched behind the coffin. There was a strong wind and he thought the long eagles’ feathers in his cap were going to blow away.

He lifted his arms to secure them and his braces snapped, forcing him to walk four-and-a-half miles desperately holding his trousers up with his elbows.

That’s the kind of story which delighted my aunt, who was my mother’s youngest sister, and regarded me as her ‘third daughter’. Nothing pleased her more than if a lady-in-waiting made a mistake, or arrived in the wrong place, or at the wrong time.

I was able to oblige her shortly after taking up that role in 1991. In the car on an early-evening visit to the British Library, she asked me if her hair combs were firmly in place. I tried to push one in, forgetting I had my handbag on my arm. It shot forward and hit her hard on the back of her head. She was angelic enough not to mind.

Whether she was at Clarence House, Birkhall, or Royal Lodge, her weekend home in Windsor Great Park, her Household was legendary for its hospitality, conviviality and for her quick repartee.

My husband Denys Rhodes wrote thrillers, and one evening, when we were staying at Balmoral Castle, Princess Margaret asked how his latest novel was going.

‘It’s nearly finished,’ he replied, ‘but I desperately need a title.’ At which point a voice behind us said: ‘And I cannot think of a reason for giving you one.’ It was my aunt, who had entered the room unobserved.

She kept her politics from the public gaze, but no one could say that she leaned towards the Left.

I remember my daughter Annabel having tea with her and the conversation touching on Tony Blair’s then latest wheeze, ‘Cool Britannia’. This prompted her to remark wistfully: ‘Poor Britannia. She would have hated being Cool.’

My invitation to become one of her ladies-in-waiting came in 1990, nine years after Denys died of lung cancer.

At the time of his illness, we thought it sensible to move from our isolated house on the edge of Dartmoor. The problem had been finding somewhere suitable and affordable.

There was not a great deal of money in hand, and therefore I shall never forget the morning when my prayers were answered. I was out riding with the Queen on the Balmoral estate and she turned in the saddle and said: ‘Could you bear to live in suburbia?’

It transpired that she was offering us a house in the Great Park at Windsor, a short drive from the castle and almost round the corner from the Queen Mother whenever she was staying at Royal Lodge.

Denys died soon after we moved there. In the years afterwards my life lacked focus and so I said an emphatic and immediate ‘yes’ when my aunt asked me to become one of the eight ‘Women of the Bedchamber’ who did fortnightly periods ‘in-waiting’ and accompanied the boss on her official engagements.

A rather elderly entourage, we were very well briefed on how to behave before we went out to meet the public — as if we didn’t know — and the Private Secretary would warn us about any potential trouble spots, such as tricky stairs and steps.

Fortunately, when I was in-waiting there were no mishaps. We were always supplied with the names of everyone we could possibly meet, and details of what they were interested in, so that there would be no awkward silences.

Our handbags contained the little extra necessities of life to make a royal visit go like clockwork.

I did not know the contents of Her Majesty’s handbag, but there was astounded merriment at Clarence House when the satirical magazine Private Eye suggested that she never ventured far without an ironed copy of The Sporting Life, a packet of Marks & Spencer chocolate eclairs, a ready-mixed gin and Dubonnet in a hip flask, and a large number of £50 notes ‘just in case’.

Tony Blair is shown conversing with Oasis star Noel Gallagher and wife Mel Gallagher

When I was not trailing round after her, coping with the overflow of bouquets and keeping conversation going along VIP line-ups, I spent a lot of my time answering letters at Clarence House. She had a huge post, and every letter — even if written by some poor person who was mildly deranged — had to have a response.

There were quite a few of those. Her official engagements never started before the sun was well and truly up and were conducted at a leisurely pace. She liked to give full value, and so they often ran late, which didn’t bother her at all, although some members of the Household accompanying her occasionally got twitchy.

When she did decide it was time to end a conversation, she had a wonderful sign-off line. It went something like this: ‘Well, I’d love to stand here talking all day, but I really must get on,’ as if she had to get home and put the joint in the oven.

People were enchanted by her mix of cosiness and glamorous royalty. I have seen even the most die-hard republicans melt when she directed the full beam of her blue-eyed charm at them. Princess Diana shared this talent for scattering stardust, although in a much more overt way. But the Queen Mother was compassionate, too, although she did not brim over with it before the crowds. A no-nonsense woman, she did not admit to illness, unless totally unavoidable, and regarded aspirin as a dangerous drug.

Her idea for the curing of a bad cold was a bracing walk in a stiff breeze across rugged terrain. It invariably worked! But during her tenth decade, her family became increasingly worried about her falling over.

The Queen sent her a special walking stick, asking her to at least try it. She did, but under protest. I recall watching her, after one engagement, tossing it with a gesture of contempt into the back of her car.

And so the royal round continued, as did my stints ‘in-waiting’. Of all my aunt’s homes, Birkhall was the one I most deeply loved and the few rooms there for visitors were filled whenever she held open house.

As an 80th birthday present, her friends and relations had all contributed to the cost of building a charming little wooden cabin beside one of her favourite pools in the River Dee. She called it the ‘Old Bull and Bush’ after a pub near London’s Hampstead Heath.

That had been immortalised in the music hall song Down At The Old Bull And Bush performed by Florrie Forde in the Twenties, when my aunt was a young woman. She loved the old songs and knew all the words. In another life she might have been a star of the ‘Halls’.

Maragret Rhodes is pictured with reigning monrach Queen Elizabeth II

Dinner at Birkhall could be an uproarious affair. At the end of the meal she would start a series of toasts. As well as ‘Hooray for . . .’ with glasses held high, there was even more of ‘Down with . . .’ with glasses almost disappearing beneath the table.

The toasts, combined with the nostalgic sing-songs, always made for an unforgettable evening. So being ‘in-waiting’ was not all protocol and curtseying: it was, in fact, tremendous fun.

After my aunt’s death, my life changed radically. I was almost 82 then and my social life has since become minimal, although I have regular stays with my cousin the Queen at Balmoral and Sandringham, which, as always, are hugely enjoyable.

At home, the Queen drops in on me sometimes on Sunday after matins in our little chapel, and we exchange the latest news. I have been fortunate to have had her as my cousin and to have seen first-hand what she has achieved.

In her lifetime, the country and the Monarchy have markedly changed, but the one constant has been the role of the Queen.

The annus horribilis of 1992, when two of her children were divorced and there was a major fire at Windsor Castle, was clearly a time of great sadness for her.

But it was when Princess Diana died in 1997 that there was a new mood about the Monarchy and the Royal Family, which was unique in her reign.

A lot has been written about the outpouring of emotion at that time. The Queen and Prince Philip were at Balmoral with the children when the news reached them, and her instinct was to do everything to protect the grandchildren from the full glare of grief and publicity.

This was misinterpreted as her being out of touch with the prevailing mood, but nothing could have been further from the mind of the Queen, who as I know, is a caring and feeling person.

She has weathered many storms, both public and private, but she has made it absolutely clear that: ‘My job is for life. It has been a question of maturing into something that one has got used to doing and accepting the fact that it is your fate.’

In 2012, her Diamond Jubilee year, she emerged as the consummate master of her role. The nation has cause to be grateful. I certainly am.

• Adapted from The Final Curtsey; A Royal Memoir By The Queen’s Cousin by Margaret Rhodes (Birlinn, £8.99). © Margaret Rhodes. To buy a copy for £6.74 (valid until December 16), visit mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 064. P&P is free on orders over £15.