Great Britain owes a debt of gratitude to the low-profile contributions of the Queen Mum.

Britain’s Queen Mother, affectionately known as the Queen Mum, died last weekend at the age of 101, and even though she led a relatively low-profile life in recent years, she once was a major rallying figure for a nation under attack.

To many, not only in Britain but around the world, she is regarded as a symbol of “the way we were,” to borrow from a popular tune.

It was during World War II when England was fighting for its very existence and was perilously close to succumbing to Nazi forces. There were many who attempted to get the queen and her husband, George VI, to leave London, even England, perhaps for the safety of the Canadian provinces.

The Queen Mother, whose daughter Elizabeth II now sits on the throne, said that nobody in her family, from the children on up to the parents, would leave and that she certainly would not entertain such a notion.

Had it not been for the celebrated Battle of Britain, won by the gallant Royal Air Force in the fall of 1940, England could have been invaded by Germany and the course of history would have been horribly changed. Unable to invade, Adolf Hitler launched massive bomb strikes against England, mainly in heavily populated London, where Buckingham Palace is located. During the “blitz,” the queen and king regularly ventured out among the battered citizenry to inspire them. They were bloody but unbowed. When the palace was damaged in the bombing, she remarked, “At least I can now look the East End in the face.”

Her husband had not wanted to be king but was thrust into that role when Edward VIII abdicated in favor of marriage to an American “commoner.” There was heavy pressure immediately on the new queen.

“She fought a very hard battle to make her husband able to be king. He could hardly speak, was a nervous wreck,” said Harold Brooks-Baker, publishing director of Burke’s Peerage, the directory of the British aristocracy. “Under her guiding arm, Bertie (King George VI) tempered his tendencies to tantrums and overcame his terror of public speaking.” The king, too, emerged a symbol of hope to Britain because of the backbone supplied by his prim and proper wife.

There have been difficult times for “the royals” in Britain and many give the Queen Mum credit for helping to solve one problem after another. With Queen Elizabeth II aging and the Queen Mum gone, Britain is likely to look harder than ever at the merits of retaining “the royals” as they have existed for so long. But whatever happens, there can be no minimizing the enormous impact the Queen Mother made on her nation for many, many years, some of them the most critical in England’s storied annals.