New book looks at ‘extremely private’ Queen Elizabeth II

Queen Elizabeth II, the long-time monarch of the United Kingdom, has been on the throne for more than 60 years.

She’s personally known every U.S. President since Harry Truman. She’s been the head of state for her nation during the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Faulkland Islands War, the Gulf War, the War in Afghanistan and the War in Iraq.

But she’s also seen the rise of the European Community, the conversion to the European Union, the adoption of the Euro by most nations except her own and now the crisis of debt levels and the stability of the Euro.

“We British are Europeans. That means we are your partners in the European Community, working closely with our friends and allies for prosperity and peace,” she said to the German people recently, according to the BBC.

Andrew Marr, host of a political show on the BBC, interviewed those closest to the quiet, somewhat reclusive head of the British Royal Family for a new book, “The Real Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II.”

“(She is) very private, and she believes completely in being the opposite of her celebrity,” Marr said. “She doesn’t give interviews. She doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve. She’s not emotional.”

Marr said part of the reason the queen is so private is because of her desire — and responsibility — to endure through the years. Unlike a celebrity, who’s fame rises and falls, the Queen remains through it all, Marr said.

Marr said he’s trying to explain what she does. She lives a very busy life, he said, but in private she can also be quite funny. She can talk about Ronald Reagan, and Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, Marr said, because she’s grown up with them — and she does.

Just not publicly.

“Every single day of the year, apart from Christmas, she spends hours reading the official papers of the British state,” Marr said. “She sees all the secret intelligence reports. She sees all the advance stuff on the economy, global economic trends. She meets politicians. She sees the prime minister for a lengthy chat each week.”

Marr said she’s constantly visiting different parts of the country and even the world as the head of state of the British Commonwealth.”

David Cameron said the talk with the Queen is helpful for him because it’s a totally private conversation he can have with someone who’s been there through it all — for 60 years. So he has to ask himself, according to Marr, why an agreement with a bank or a treaty with the Americans makes sense — because when he meets the Queen, she’ll ask that question directly.

“They’re talking about real things. She’s a very, very plugged in connected person at the head of the British state who chooses, because of her strange constitutional role, to say very little about it in public,” Marr said.

Queen Elizabeth II is enormously popular and, if anything, becoming more popular in the U.K., Marr said.

“For most people, she’s always been there. A lot of people dream about her. A lot of people have little fantasies about what they might talk to her about,” Marr said.