Embarrassing Moment With The Queen (6 May 1976)
Here’s a belated Health unto Her Majesty on passing her 50th birthday. May she have many more birthdays and on them be able to let her hair down, so to speak, more than on this occasion.
There was a time when I would not have been so enthusiastic. As you know, I spent the early part of my life in the industrial part of the West Riding. There a royal visit of any kind was a very rare evert. The Princess Royal lived at Harewood House, just north of Leeds; Queen Mary, her mother, paid private visits to the posher, less “Yorkshire” town of Harrogate; and the Prince of Wales sometimes turned out with the Bramham Moor Hunt.
But the nitty-gritty towns, where much of the nation’s export wealth was then produced, saw little or nothing of them. I never did see George V in the flesh, though I lived throughout his reign. I fancy, however, that the Prince of Wales might have done more slumming generally after his famous visit to the South Wales coalfield – during which he confessed himself shocked – had not other events intervened.
Most of the public showing seemed to be reserved for that far-off, nigh-foreign place called London. But we paid for’em as well, didn’t we?
My home town had only one royal visit of any kind during the near 30 years I lived and worked around it. But it turned out later to be quite a favour, for the visitors were the Duke and Duchess of York. At that time they had only a secondary role in royal affairs, but of course, they subsequently became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (now the Queen Mother).
They came to open a new wing to the local hospital, of which the town was very proud. The Duke seemed to me to be somewhat stiff and shy, but the young Duchess was what nowadays would be called a real smasher, both in looks and personality.
The visit had a curious side effect – one which could hardly have been reported at the time. There was no National Health Service in those days. Hospitals were built and maintained voluntarily by the public at large. In every hospital town the hospital was by far the chief charity. Everybody joined in either with money, or work or both.
So what a bother there was in the drawing rooms of the industrialists and merchants about who should be “presented.” “I gave much more than she did to the hospital appeal.” “Ah, but she never lifted a finger at the jumble sales.” That sort of thing.
Some of the dames never forgave each other. Those who were presented were henceforth on top of the world. For those who were not presented it was the end of the world. Nothing was said about the widow and her mite, nor about the worker whose only dress was the one she stood up in. I would not have thought any of it mattered a hoot. But then, I have never been a woman, rich or poor.
It was their magnificent conduct during the war that drastically changed my attitude to the royal family and to the concept of the monarchy. I spent five years in the army, much of the latter part in the environs of London. In the provinces everything was still OK so long as Big Ben chimed over the wireless at nine o’clock each night. In London everything was OK so long as the King and Queen were around and intact.
After dinner at the depot on VE Day I went AWOL for my one and only time and spent the afternoon and evening in central London. So did many others, especially those whose homes were in London. I shall never see such a scene of rejoicing again, nor, I think will anyone else.
But one thing struck me forcibly. When Churchill appeared on the Whitehall balcony there was wild cheering from the packed-solid crowd. When, later on, the King and Queen appeared on the palace balcony, the cheering was thunderous but tears were streaming down the faces of all around me. I then knew, for good and all, that the nation’s ultimate and greatest binding force was not the government, but the constitutional monarchy.
When I got back to my unit that night, or early next morning, I was formally booked for going AWOL. So were all the others.
Nothing was done about it. Besides, we had all seen the Colonel Commandant himself, hatless and breathless, leading a huge “conga” of troops and be-ribboned ATS out onto the public roads that morning. We had also seen a corporal, grinning hugely, marching a platoon of 20 to 25 officers to their mess and ordering them to salute every private in sight. So there was just a general reminder from the Commandant that the war in Asia had yet to be won. Then everybody got down to it again.
Since the Queen’s coronation there has been almost a surfeit of royal visits to Bletchley compared with what happened pre-war in those northern towns. The most notable, of course, was the visit of both the Queen and Prince Philip in 1966, memories of which are still fresh.
During my coverage I had one embarrassing moment. I was a bit late getting to the Rivers Infants School from the civic welcome at the Castles Estate. The royal party were already inside and I intended to tag on to the tail and pick up what I could.
When I entered there wasn’t a soul in sight. It was also very quiet, as the Queen was to see the children actually at their school work.
So I went into the nearest classroom and was asking the class teacher whether the Queen had been to the room when the teacher looked towards the door. I turned my head in the same direction and was non-plussed to find the Queen and her lady-in-waiting entering the room. I was trapped. Instead of tagging onto the tail, I was accidentally ahead.
Fortunately, the Queen stopped at the first little desk and spoke to the child there. So I was able to edge my way unobtrusively (I hope) all round the room and eventually to escape to the tail.
While so doing, one little lad tugged my trouser leg. “Please, mister, which is the Queen?” he whispered.
“The one in the green hat,” I whispered back. He just about made my day.
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