BBC World Service and now witness history with me, Claire Bose.

Today I'm taking you back more than 120 years to the last days of Queen Victoria.

It's January 1901, a quarter of the world's population lives under the rule of one woman,

Queen Victoria.

Her empire encompasses India, Canada, Australia and large parts of Africa.

She was just 18 when she ascended the throne in 1837, and by 1901 aged 81, she'd become

the longest reigning British monarch until Queen Elizabeth II.

She was seen as the mother of the nation, that's how people described her.

Tony Renel is author of the last days of glory, the death of Queen Victoria.

It sounds silly and sentimental now, but mother was the term they used about her, primarily

because she was an elderly lady, but also because she'd been there such a long time.

She'd figured so much in people's lives.

You had to be in your 60s or 70s to remember the time when she wasn't the monarch.

She'd spent Christmas at Osborne House on the Isle of White, off the south coast of England.

It was her favourite place.

She struggled through Christmas, but it was clear to those around her, or to those who

cared to look, such as her doctor, that she was increasingly in a firm.

She was sleeping a lot.

She'd lost her zest, not completely, but enough for her doctor to be very concerned about

her.

Only though, they could not get their heads around the fact that she might be dying.

And when the doctor dared to suggest this to her son and heir at the Prince of Wales,

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