Papers bid farewell to 'guiding spirit'

The death of the Queen Mother dominates the front of the UK's Sunday newspapers, with tributes paid to Britain's best-loved Royal.

Staring out from every newspaper are the china blue eyes of the nation's favourite grandmother.

The Mail on Sunday leads the tributes with 17 pages dedicated to the Royal Family's "guiding spirit".

Its front page records the 101 years, 238 days of service she gave to the people of Britain before her death.

Her death was very much like her life - the newspaper suggests - full of dignity, grace, and the minimum of fuss.

'Poorer world'

Royal biographer Penny Junor writes of the "special relationship" between Prince Charles and his grandmother.

Queen Mother represented a 'bygone Britain'

From her love of classical music to her advice on the importance of Royal duty, the prince's will have a "poorer world" without the Queen Mother.

The Sunday Mirror speaks of the loss of "the Nation's Favourite Granny", a woman who despite a privileged life, could still communicate with all people.

Its front page carries the briefest of headlines: Adored, Revered, Admired.

She showed none of the "arrogance" displayed by some more minor Royals, the paper adds, and continued public duties, despite ill-health, almost to the end.

'Blue-eyed angel'

"Buried with Bertie" is the headline of one piece discussing the prospect of the Queen Mother being finally reunited with her husband, King George VI, 50 years after his death.

The Daily Express said 'she touched all our lives'

The News of the World harks back to the "blue-eyed angel who won the heart of a prince".

And it speaks of a woman who played a key role in the propaganda war against the Nazis, dubbing her "Hitler's most deadly enemy".

From 1939 both the then Queen and King George VI practised shooting at Buckingham Palace and they were sent an American pistol by Winston Churchill.

The paper notes the morale-boosting decision not to leave the country and to remain in Buckingham Palace despite the dangers from German bombers.

'Bygone Britain'

The Independent on Sunday declares that everyone who met the Queen Mother was enchanted, and that she came to personify the ideal of modern royalty.

The historian Andrew Roberts, in the Sunday Telegraph, says the Queen Mother represented a bygone Britain.

She evokes memories of a land where, unlike today, great emotion might be felt but was never openly displayed.

And he says, those values continue to be cherished in the hearts of many Britons.

The Observer reports that courtiers have been reluctant to speculate publicly about the impact that the death might have upon the future of the monarchy.

Abdication damage

It says she was always believed to be the greatest opponent within the Royal Family to a possible marriage between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.

The Observer says the Queen Mother was bruised for the rest of her life by the damage done to the royal family in 1936 by the abdication - when Edward VIII sparked a constitutional crisis by stepping down from the throne to marry the divorced Wallis Simpson.

The sentiment is echoed by the Independent on Sunday, which says many believed the shadow of the abdication hung over the Queen Mother until the end of her days.

The Daily Express front page reads: "She touched all our lives."

A carefree day for the Royal Family was cut short by the news they were most dreading, it concludes.