'Very, very special': Helena picks up a CBE from her 'daughter'

By Rebecca English, Royal Correspondent


The Queen's mother in The King's Speech: Helena Bonham Carter received a CBE for services to Drama at Buckingham Palace today


For both women it was a meeting that could have provoked the strangest feeling of deja vu.

There on the dais was the Queen. And in front of her, her own mother – or rather, Helena Bonham Carter, who played the Queen Mother in the hit film The King’s Speech.

The 45-year-old, who won the best actress Bafta for her role opposite Colin Firth who played the Queen’s father George VI, was at Buckingham Palace yesterday to collect her CBE.


It is understood that the Queen has seen the film, about the king’s battle to overcome his speech impediment, and enjoyed the actress’s portrayal of her late mother.

Miss Bonham Carter is renowned for her eccentric style of dress and did not disappoint when it came to her royal encounter, choosing an eye-catching tartan outfit believed to be by Dame Vivienne Westwood, teamed with super-high heels and a top hat perched on her trademark bird’s nest hair.


Family affair: The actress described the day as 'very, very special' but joked that her daughter Nell, 4, had struggled to concentrate

A real honour: The actress, who has twice been Oscar-nominated, made her name with a string of appearances in Merchant Ivory films

But the most noteworthy aspect of her outfit was, for once, not her clothes or her headwear – but the mobile phone in her hand.

For while most women tend to accessorise with a stylish little handbag, she was clutching a smartphone encased in a fluorescent pink cover with large bunny ears protruding from the top.

Miss Bonham Carter was accompanied to the Palace by her equally wild-haired husband, American film director Tim Burton, their children Billy Ray, eight, and four-year-old Nell, and her mother Elena.


After the Investiture ceremony, Bonham Carter posed proudly with her partner, director Tim Burton



source:dailymail