WW II Friendship - Royal and wounded Australian officer

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

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the future Queen Mother and a wounded Australian officer who made her ‘laugh out loud’ has come to light in previously unpublished letters.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

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.’