It surprises me that he speaks rather positive about her in his memoirs, and does not take her down as he could have done.
RN
I always take his memoirs with a grain of salt. They are greatly at odds with a) his private letters and sometimes b) facts. I don't think it would have been the greatest PR move if he had written a 'tell all'. Perhaps if he were alive in these times it would be different! He would've gained nothing by trashing an older relative. Most royal memoirs tend to be pretty sugar-coated.
Keith--I think it was probably true that it was after 1910 that whatever bitterness Toria may or may not have had begun to develop. She led a pretty vibrant, if circumscribed, life between 1901-1910. After that, it was as if she were buried alive. She was still a relatively young (middle-aged) woman, yet she spent the next 15 years of her life basically sealed away at Sandringham with increasingly elderly and frail persons. I don't think there was anyone with 2 decades of Toria's age in her mother's retinue in these years, was there? I always found it rather horrific in a sense. It's not like she never left Sandringham, but that was where the bulk of her life was spent and it was rare that she was able to leave without her mother prescribing where it would be to. I would have loved to have seen photos of Coppins, which she set up in her later life and how she had it decorated. We really know nothing of Toria's taste in furniture, art, etc...
