Reader\'s Digest Australia & New Zealand - June 2018

32 | June• 2018

FOOLING WITH THE FACTS

keep her royal title and income. hen

in 2009, a letter surfaced from Mar-

garet to Eden in which she tells the

PM she is yet to “properly decide

whether I can marry him or not”,say-

ing “everything is so uncertain”.

It seems she had simply fallen out

of love, rather than become a tragic,

bitter igure. In reality, she was funny.

When asked in New York in the 1960s

how the Queen was, she reportedly

replied: “Which one? My sister, my

mother or my husband?” hough her

fondness for drink is definitely not

overstated.

THE QUEEN IN GHANA

T

he Queen’s foxtrot with

Ghana’s President Kwame

Nkrumah did happen. hat’s

almost the totality of fact inThe

Crown’s coverage of the event. While

socialist, Ghana was never a Soviet

state: rather, Nkrumah was a canny

politician who needed funding to

build the Akosombo Dam to provide

hydroelectric power. The USSR did

ofer loans to African nations, loans

that had better terms than British

loans. The Queen’s dance did not

end Nkrumah’s relationship with the

Soviets, as he won the Lenin Peace

Prize the following year.

The Crowndepicts the Queen’s

visit to Ghana as a reaction to being

outshone by the Kennedys during

their visit to England in June 1961.

Towards the end of the episode, John

It’s likely the Queen didn’t know, but

it wasn’t Lord Salisbury’s fault.

Churchillbouncedbackandre-

mained PM until his 80th birthday

in November 1954. The story about

Graham Sutherland’s portrait is

mostly true: Churchill did hate it, but

amemberofLadyChurchill’s staff

burnt the portrait.

PRINCESS MARGARET

P

rincess Margaret sufers badly

on screen with her romance

with Group Captain Peter

Townsend, depicted as thwarted by

the Queen Mother and Tommy Las-

celles, then PM Anthony Eden and the

Queen. In 2004, it was revealed that in

1955 the government was prepared to

change the law to make the marriage

possible, while allowing Margaret to

Complicatedlovelife:

Princess Margaret

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES