A time for contemplation. But also memories flooding back. My Mother, a wonderful storyteller, reminded my children of a visit to Tonga during the Commonwealth tour in 1953... When they reached Tonga, Queen Salote and her entire family had moved out of the residence so that the Queen, Prince Philip, Mike, the private secretary, and my mother (as lady-in-waiting) could stay there. Two sides of the room my mother was given were composed entirely of windows, which made dressing and undressing difficult. Each window had tiny net curtains attached and you could either shut the windows, close the curtains and die of heat or open them and change in view of the whole of Nuku’alofa. As the garden was very small and the wall separating them from the street and neighboring buildings was only three feet high everyone who had congregated just beneath my mother’s room would cheer and wave whenever she went into it. They thought it was great fun when she brushed her hair, more cheering. A feast was given for an astonishing 700 people, seated cross legged on cushions. Endless and generous portions of food were handed to them on beautiful leaves. My mother was soon surrounded by a mountain of leaves and hardly knew whether to be embarrassed or proud. The Queen gallantly did the best her small appetite would allow and was able to spin it out for some time knowing that as the person of highest rank when she stopped eating everyone else would also have to put down their leaves. This was a royal visit with a difference, all aspects of the daily routine seem to be on show. Late one evening, intending to make her way over to the bathroom my mother found so many prostate bodies sleeping on the staircase and in passageways that the only means of getting to the bathroom was through the private secretary Mike's room, where, to her surprise, she bumped into the Queen, who was also tiptoeing through Mike's room. When the Queen turned on the light in the bathroom, she found that its other door had been thrown open to the garden and that she was now in full view of the town and the 400 or so men who were sitting around campfires in the garden.