Balmoral had provided particular respite in the summer of 1959: “We all… were needing the rest pretty badly after Canada!” the Queen told Rowie. For 45 days, beginning on June 18, the Queen and Prince Philip had toured Canada. Only one Canadian was told the royal news, prime minister John Diefenbaker. Unlike his countrymen, Diefenbaker knew that morning sickness, rather than being served bad moose meat, had caused the Queen’s two days of forced rest in the Yukon capital of Whitehorse.
At home, the Queen and Prince Philip broke the news to their children. The response of 10-year-old Prince Charles was more positive than his younger sister’s. “The children were very excited at the news of the baby, especially Charles, who loves small children!” the Queen told Rowie, adding, “Anne is getting more used to the idea now!” In a statement that reveals the women’s intimacy, the Queen also described to Rowie something of her own feelings and Prince Philip’s: “It has taken the parents a long time to get used to the idea, too, being so very much out of the baby world.”
Seven years had passed since a visitor to Balmoral had been charmed by watching the young Queen “sitting on a fireside stool in her private sitting room while [four-year-old] Prince Charles ‘cut’ her hair with white plastic scissors” and Windsor weekends of Elizabeth, Philip, Charles and Anne watching Muffin the Mule at teatime. It was long enough for both royal parents to feel “very much out of the baby world”. The Queen was delighted nevertheless. “It is lovely to feel that there will soon be another baby in the nursery,” she continued.
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