Author Topic: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?  (Read 24660 times)

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Offline CountessKate

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #15 on: March 04, 2013, 02:47:20 AM »
As the St Raphael wine reference indicates, alcohol in various forms was actually considered medicinal in a way not contemplated today - brandy was consistently used for emergency resuscitation after say, fainting, for example, and various forms of alcohol were used as the basis of many medicines, or for build-up of strength and health.  Most children of the period would probably have had alcohol in some form at quite an early age. 

Offline Sanochka

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #16 on: March 06, 2013, 01:50:44 PM »
I agree.  Who has not heard of the modern day assertions about red wine being good for health by lowering cholesterol, etc?

Offline JamesAPrattIII

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #17 on: March 18, 2013, 04:02:15 PM »
Nicholas and Alexandra have been ripped by some people for letting their daughters drink alcohol and smoke. There is a 1900 US guide to russia that recommend that visitors drink only bottled water or well boiled tap water otherwise you could get typoid ect. I think nicholas got this and tatania got it in 1913 which called her hair to fall out so her head was shaved. This must have been a really embarassing, humilating, and ackward experiece for her. I'll bet she went around in all those public events later that year worrying about trippping and falling and lossing her hat and wig in front of thousands of people. I would guess that OTMAA were probably started off on a mixture of bottled water and wine when they were in the 5 to 10 year old range. i would also say there were probably millions of other families in russia and europe who were doing similiar things in part because the water was contaminated back then.
 Now to smoking Nicholas and Alexandra did let OTMA smoke cigarettes. There is a picture of AN on her section with a cigarette in her mouth. People back then didn't realize like we know today that tobacco use is bad for you. Note Nicholas was a cchain smoker and Alexandra did smoke the occational cigarette.

Offline Kalafrana

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #18 on: March 19, 2013, 04:16:14 AM »
I will admit to being surprised that the girls were allowed to smoke, but that is because in Britain in those days it was 'not done' for ladies to smoke. Ladies as distinct from women.

Ann

Offline CountessKate

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #19 on: March 19, 2013, 05:02:30 PM »
I think it was the mild rebellion of the young women of Alexandra's generation - her elder sister Victoria (Mountbatten) was a heavy smoker, and I think there is a photo of Victoria Melita with a cigarette?  These women didn't smoke in public, of course, but private smoking was slightly daring, and perhaps by Alexandra's daughters' teenage years, no longer really daring, provided it wasn't done in public.  Queen Victoria strongly disapproved, of course, but I think there was a story about her actually asking Victoria Mountbatten to light up to keep off the midges.  Alexandra might have seen smoking as part of something allowed girls as a mark of moving towards adulthood (perhaps their cousins Alice and Louise might have been allowed the same thing?).  Of course, the health risks were completely unknown.

aleksandr pavlovich

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #20 on: March 19, 2013, 05:39:25 PM »
  Queen Victoria strongly disapproved, of course, but I think there was a story about her actually asking Victoria Mountbatten to light up to keep off the midges. 

           Unless my memory is faulty (and I would gladly stand corrected), I feel certain that I have seen a photo of Victoria Regina herself in her older years privately smoking. But when you are the Queen.......... .     Regards,  AP.

Offline CountessKate

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #21 on: March 19, 2013, 09:15:53 PM »
Quote
Unless my memory is faulty (and I would gladly stand corrected), I feel certain that I have seen a photo of Victoria Regina herself in her older years privately smoking. But when you are the Queen.......... .     Regards,  AP.

I don't know about the photo, but I found the quote from Victoria Mountbatten: "Guessing that I had probably had cigarettes about me, and the midges being especially annoying, she bade me smoke to keep them away, and even took one of my cigarettes, giving a few puffs at it".  However, she thought the experience horrible.  Generally the Queen was censorious - she continually criticized the Prince of Wales for smoking, but John Brown and his pipe were exempt from this condemnation, and clearly she was able to overlook her granddaughter's habit if it was actually useful.  But there were notices in all her houses requesting visitors from smoking.  After Princess Helena married Prince Christian, a smoker, the men were provided with a small uncomfortable smoking room, far off from the main apartments, but the women had to smoke out of the windows or up the chimneys.  Princess Louise smoked.  So Alexandra would probably have been quite familiar with the idea of women smoking.

aleksandr pavlovich

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #22 on: March 20, 2013, 10:20:41 AM »
 But there were notices in all her houses requesting visitors from smoking.  

             Realizing that the topic is basically re "alcohol," I do indeed thank you for your comments on the smoking aspect!  As to the house notices banning smoking, I do recall that the photo to which I have previously referred, did depict HM seated at a small work table(?) outside, thus preserving, somewhat, her own compliance!  I unfortunately cannot recall the published, referrenced source, but the photo was pervasive to memory, such as the rare smiling photos of her.    Regards,  AP.
« Last Edit: March 20, 2013, 10:25:13 AM by aleksandr pavlovich »

Offline TimM

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #23 on: March 20, 2013, 03:15:04 PM »
Sad to think that if the IF had lived, some of them might have ended up with lung cancer or emphysema when they got older.
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Offline edubs31

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #24 on: March 20, 2013, 05:05:44 PM »
Sad to think that if the IF had lived, some of them might have ended up with lung cancer or emphysema when they got older.

Of course this is precisely how many smokers and alcoholics justify their nasty addictions...

"I can worry about my body breaking down on me many years from now. Or I can die tomorrow in the basement of the Ipatiev House." (so to speak)
Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right...

Jen_94

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #25 on: March 20, 2013, 05:53:29 PM »
I agree Tim. That is a sad thought.

Regrading the smoking, the dangers of smoking were not as well known in those days were they, as JamesAPrattIII states. Didn't they/people tend to smoke when stressed? Correct me if I am wrong. And in regards to the bottled water, I still hear that today actually, buy bottled water when in Russia and do not drink straight from the tap...

Offline CountessKate

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #26 on: March 20, 2013, 09:12:49 PM »

Smoking was not considered so much an unhealthful activity, as it was a masculine pursuit (and therefore generally rather unsuitable for ladies, at least in public).  The UK study which provided the convincing statistical proof that tobacco smoking increased the risk of lung cancer was not published until 1956, long after the death of the imperial family, and even then it took some time for accepted attitudes towards this activity to change. Certainly from about WWI it was promoted by the tobacco industry as actually healthy, due to the tranquilizing effects which became particularly noticeable at the front, at which time it also started to become acceptable for women to smoke in public.  With regard to alcohol, while alcoholism was well known about,  the potential dangers of giving people alcohol in medicines and as stimulants for illness or injury was not really known about until after WWI either, and you certainly find in novels up to the 1950s how common it was for people to be given brandy for shock.  For Alexandra, alcohol and smoking were all activities which should be indulged in moderation, but had no other known dangers and if anything, were good for relieving stress, or for stimulation after shock or injury.  She had no idea of any link between smoking and the throat cancer which killed her Uncle Alfred, or the bronchitis which killed her Uncle Edward VII for example.

Jen_94

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #27 on: March 21, 2013, 12:30:16 PM »
I believe Queen Elizabeth II's father, King George VI also had Lung cancer, but didn't actually die from it. He was also a heavy smoker, and had his left lung removed I believe. He died not long before that report was published, a few years before, wasn't it?

I wonder IF, in any ways, the smoking did affect any of their health at all (the IF)? But that's depending on how much they actually smoked really...

Offline Kalafrana

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #28 on: March 21, 2013, 12:40:06 PM »
George VI died from a heart attack in his sleep. However, he most certainly had lung cancer. He died only about 4 months after having the lung removed, so whether that fully dealt with the cancer is unclear.

Ann

Offline TimM

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Re: Did Alexandra Allow The Girls to Drink Alcohol?
« Reply #29 on: March 21, 2013, 03:27:50 PM »
Elizabeth herself was in Africa on visit, I believe, when her father died and she became Queen.
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