H.R.H. the Duke of York

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 44, 22 February 1927, Page 1

H.R.H. the Duke of York

(By W. T. UNDERWOOD.)

» Strenuous Career of Public Service.— Sailor, Airman, Social Reformer.

If His Royal Highness Albert, Duke of York, Baron Killarney, and Earl of Inverness, were called upon to contrast the career which fate has had in store for him Avith that which in his boyhood days he had mapped out for himself, he would, like humbler folks making the same comparison, be amazed and perhaps amused by the difference. If ever he had visions of visitiug New Zealand one day, he probably saw himself steaming into AYaitemata Harbour as the captain of one of His Majesty's battleships, or perchance in command of a fleet. Like the Prince of Wales, and their father before them, he had the ambition to make the Royal Navy his career, as his grand-uncle the late Duke of Edinburgh did, and as did also his kinsman, Prince Louis of Baltenberg, one of the most scientific as Avell as one of the most loyal sailors who ever served under the White Ensign, and as the Duke's ] younger brother, Prince George, I is doing now. But for Prince \ Albert (not then Duke of York) ] fate, in the form of a breakdown j in health, interposed to sever his j connection with the Eleet and j forbid his thinking of a naval j career. In one sense, therefore, the j present New Zealand visit of the Duke and his charming consort I is the result of an accident. Had j his health remained unimpaired, New Zealand would have had little chance of seeing him now, and, if he had come later, it would have been in another capacity. But it was an accident which found him well prepared. All his early training had had as its aim, his equipment for public service, and though his ten years' association with the Royal Navy has not had the secpael which was intended, it was by no means wasted. The proverbial adaptability of " the handy man n has not been lacking in his case. He has a slight impediment in his speech, but it is nothing like so bad as it was when he was first called upon to take part in public ceremonies. It says much for his courage that he has not made his disability an excuse for shirking public work, and much for his perseverance that he is gradually overcoming his difficulty. Let it not be forgotten that he was thrown unexpectedly into public life, when little more than a lad, and when his previous experience had been at school or at sea. Early Education of the Princes. The education of princes, which has been the subject of many discourses, from Machiavelli to Hannah More, is indeed a difficult problem, and has not always been successfully solved. The sons of our King and Queen havi been more fortunate than most of their predecessors an< contemporaries. To a large extent they have escaped thi process of intensive culture, which, in men as in plants, i apt to produce unforeseen results. The aim of their parent: was to make the early days of their sons as little differen as possible in the circumstances from those of othe youngsters. Born on December 14, 1895, only eighteei months after the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Y'ork spen his earliest years in close association with him. Whei they emerged from the nursery, they shared the same tuto: in the person of Mr. H. P. Hansell, formerly a master a Rossall and Ludgrove, who prepared them for entrance t< the Royal Naval College. They had as their French teacher Mons. G. Hua, who had instructed their father when he wai at sea in H.M.s. Britannia; and they studied singing unde: Mr. Cecil J. Sharp, well known for his researches in folk son°". In summer there was ci-icket with the boys of thei] own age at Windsor, and in winter football at Sandringham and their autumn days at Balmoral initiated them early ii the use of rod and gun, though neither of them has evei developed the expertness of their father.

' OYALTY has always been sure of a very cordial and loyal welcome from New Zealand. I I iirt* Away back in 1869 Auckland had its first visit from a member of the Royal Family, ' j & 1/ Y the Duke of Edinburgh, grand uncle of the Duke we greet to-day. Then, after a lapse : f of over thirty years, we had our second visit—no less personages than our present King j I and Queen, who in 1901 were Duke and Duchess of York. New Zealand is a long way j i from Buckingham Palace, and the Duke of Edinburgh's tour of the world was a great undertaking. j I To-day world travel is getting nearer to the title of Jules Verne's fanciful novel, and during the last !. j quarter of a century we have had no less than three Royal visits—the first from the King and Queen, , j the second from the Prince of Wales, and the third from the present Duke and Duchess or \ork. So j J that although we are the "farthest flung" of the outposts of Empire, as the poetically-minded love j I to express it, we are wonderfully near the heart of the Empire, and these welcome visits from members ] I of the Royal House have done more than anything eise to foster that personal loyalty to the Throne, ' j which is one of the characteristics of the people of British stock. j [ ' j

THEIR ROYAL HICHNESSES, THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF YORK.

'■ It -was on Deeside, at the annual Braeinur gathering, that I first I saw the two young Princes, little lads in full Highland array —dark t green tunics, kilts of Royal Stuart tartan, gaily-diced hose; and > silver buckled shoes. The cinema photograhper, more of a novelty > than he is now, was striving hard for a good view of the Royal party. ; The vigilant eye of the late King Edward saw his difficulty, and, taking one of the boys in each hand, he descended the steps of the i Royal pavilion so that the photographer might have a fair target. ; Since then both the Prince of Wales and the Duke have become l familiar with the whir of the cinema camera. Those days at Balmoral, where the Royal Family has the maximum of seclusion, : were perhaps the happiest in the "boyhood of the Duke, for he wns > free to roam the woods and hills on foot or astride his pony, and the , bracing air—somewhat too bracing, perhaps, in late October, was a > tonic for a constitution never over-robust. It must have been a marked change when, with his elder brother, he was transferred to the milder air of the naval training college at Osborne, in the Isle ot • Wight. , He is plucky—he once brought down two burly stokers in a i football match, with himself underneath. He is agile. He kiio.vs how to take his own line over country. He is an excellent dancer, who often drops in with the Duchess to one or other of the celebrated

dance clubs or restaurants for supper and a few l'«>.\lr<«ir-. He kr«>«how and when to drop formality—one memorable instance wa- whni. at the Guards' Parade on a sweltering Bank Holiday, he invi:-d the crowd to climb the ropes shutting off the enclosure and i'ml wels there. It was the Duke who conceived the idea of those remarkable summer camps at Littlestoue Aerodrome, New Hoinncy. where public schoolboys and boys of the working class sleep, play and eat tujrethi-r —one of many activities directed towards " cementinp that fellowship between individuals in all walks of industry, irropectiw of class or occupation, which is the backbone of our Imperial progress" (to use the Duke's own phrases). The present visit is His Royal Highnos' greate.-t adventure. He represents in his person the Crown, which is the link binding the component parts of the Empire more closely tiia.n any written bond—for it is a thing of sentiment, a thing o£ the heart. His greatest task will be the opening of the Federal Parliament at Canberra, where the rejoicings, will be on a mo>t extensive scale, and where an influx of lifty thousand people is anticipated fur the great event.