Interesting bit from the Guardian, quoted from a summary of her life:-"She was an obstacle to reform: a fan of pomp and circumstance who bitterly opposed the notion that members of the royal family should pay tax. Her closeness to her grandson, Charles, embroiled her in the family's biggest crisis since the abdication.
When it became clear that Diana would not behave as she believed a royal should, the Queen Mother became the princess's greatest enemy (a mutual hatred recorded in Andrew Morton's Diana: her true story, in her own words). Diana believed that the Queen Mother saw her as a second Wallis Simpson and that she had persuaded other family members that the princess was out to undermine all that the Windsors stood for. Such revelations momentarily took the shine off the Queen Mother's status as the "nation's favourite grandmother". Although she is known for her smile, for a long time only her closest companions knew what lay behind it.
In 1998 Woodrow Wyatt's diaries confirmed what many former courtiers had said. The Queen Mother was portrayed as an elderly woman who adored Margaret Thatcher and apartheid-supporting South African PW Botha, disliked Europe, the unions and middle classes, was against immigration and regretted the loss of imperial possessions in Africa.
The Queen Mother believed that it was the duty of a royal to behave like a royal. To this end she lived in almost Edwardian splendour at Clarence House; with six cars, three chauffeurs, five chefs, two pages, three footmen, two dressers and 30 more assorted secretaries, maids, treasurers and housekeepers. As a hobby she bred racehorses.
The Queen Mother received £643,000 a year from the civil list but this goes only a very short way to covering her running costs and she is subsidised by her daughter. Nevertheless, her lavish tastes have still seen her £4m overdrawn at the royal bank, Coutts."
Re Joe's story, that sounds highly unlikely. However, she and George were certainly in favour of appeasement of Hitler rather than going to war.
Graham.