KING GEORGE V.

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21708, 15 February 1936, Page 16

KING GEORGE V.

A JUBILEE MEMORY

*By JOHN MOFFETT.) To win through to the West End of London from the Thames-side dockland is a social revolution. Your journey traverses the face of modern industrial civilisation, though it takes less than an hour by clocktime. But it happens that one makes the transit when London, from the westernmost end to the easternmost extremity, is united in a celebration that is m the widest sense communal—the'last great pubr - lie act of homage, save the sad one so recently concluded, to an English king. ... , That is why, in the narrow and decrepit purlieus of Canning Town, as in the glazed and glaring thoroughfares of Piccadilly, the banners and the bunting are out, and every face has a look eager and interested. The lights and decorations in the West End are magnificent, if you can see them through the press of buses and humanity; but the slum streets, lined across with strings of twopenny flags, with stained, garish lithographs of royalty propped in every, mean window, are immensely, pathetically the more memorable. Here the dry humour of plain Cockney London finds its outlet. “Gawd Bless Em,” says one streamer, which takes no pains to conceal that its components were previously a faded bedspread and a sheet. “Loyal but Lousyanother amateur banner burgeons in a crumbling street. And at night West meets East in the dignified centre of the Empire , metropolis. One’s ‘first evening in London one watches couples dancing in Trafalgar square. There is jazzing on the broad steps of the Nelson column, and promiscuous fireworks explode around the formtains, Impromptu, spontaneous singing bursts, now here, now there, from the milling crowds; inept accprdeon players mingle their wheezy harmonies With those of the community, choristers, and -loving lads and lasses hug each other on the vantage points provided by Landseer's lions. Only those senile, drooling specimens of jaded wild life are unmoved by the noise of high hilarity about them—they, and the policemen. For the police, in jubilee week, pursue their course clam and unruffled, marking disorderliness only when it \ is vicious or obstructive. All London is in the streets early and late, all London, supported by who knows how many thousand country cousins, dominion relatives; American admirers, and foreign visitors. They stare at the flood-lit buildings, chatter in the restaurants, crowd’out the pubs, the buses, the taxis, and the tubes. The People ~ And very much of London—a tenth of the population by number. It is said—is with one at the Palace gates on Jubilee Saturday. From a little before 9 o'clock till some time after 11, all London stands with one before the white, shining face of the King’s home. The- front ranks of us are .pressed against the high, wrought-iron railings. ’' the rearguard is wedged around the semi-circular space bn which the Queen Victoria memorial risfe&* It is* impossible to move, • except, W ' .shuffle ‘ With the crowds ! ini tb&sb * curious' ripplings that occur wheri humanity is sp neatly packed? ~it is 1 an affront to one’s neighbours - to breathe deeply, and to reach to the' pocket for a cigarette or handkerchief would be a not worthcontemplating. Yet movement , is not entirely beyond us. From time to time the Palace sentries, whose bearskins end bayonets may be -j glimpsed against the building’s white facade, spring to attention, turn sharply left and right, and commence., a brisk pacing of the pavement fronting the Palace rails. Miraculously the spectators contrive a narrow’ pathway, down which the guardsmen stride, as easily and smartly as if no crowd existed, whose anxious noses brush the scarlet sleeves as they pass. From time to time, also, . a woman moans, sags against j the shoulder of her escort or an embarrassed stranger. Again the dense thousands, by some extraordinary act of compression, make a way for St. John Afnbtflance men. - The shallow steps.,of the Queen Victoria memorial resemble, in the words Of the press, an emergency'dressing station, where dozenaf of faint-' ing and crushed Jubilee casualties receive attention.' ‘An ambulance car comes at intervals, clanging an arduous passage, and'* carries Off the more • battered celebrants. Five hundred people, said the press, are treated this night by the glare of of the floodlights, in the harsh Shadows cast by the sculptured figures of Truth, Justice; Courage, and Constancy. Though one accepts, London newspaper report with reservations, the estimate probably is correct. In a radius of perhaps 40 persons immediately about one. two women collapse, and . sore carried away, and others survive a temporary weakness, to raise their voices again in the. long soars and falls, fades; echoes, and renews itself hour after hour among the people; “We want the King!” “We want the King!” You have heard the low roar of sound that comes from a sports ground during an exciting Rugby game. Multiply your spectators Id or 20-fold, till their number makes more than half a million, and for their inarticulate and individual cries substitute one peremptory salute. From point to point in the throng this night the demand is raised, backed by a dozen voices,, swelling and roaring into the still, warin'air as a hundred thousand voices join the declaration. - . * Everybody is in excellent ; humour, even if pinioned andv halfsuffocated. As the volume of the shouting wanes, there is the parlour humorist to yell “Gahm ahn Guvnor!” or enquire. with facetious familiarity, “Where’s’ George?” And a laugh is his reward. But then the steady,, rhythmic chant rise's again: “We Want the King!” All eyes, are fixed constantly on the glaring, blank face, of the Palace, as his Majesty’s loyal subjects wait; vocal but patient* for’a sigh from him. , *. >■ ■ ■ The King . . At last he comes. ‘ A small, dark figure is seen: on the central balcony. It stands there, Immobile for a long minute, while silence, then an excited murmur, then a. roar of, sound vibrates in the air. The Queen, in a cloak of ermine, moves forward from the shadow," remains at her husband’s elbow, white that mighty, chaotic cheer rolls on. Then tee .small, remote figure acknowledges; the homage of ’ his people. On auch an occasion King * c > ! t ''V- , A r L O *■

George V. might arm itr stiff salute; ne stood rigid to his head; no inappropriateness Stretched his arms m - Any of these served, but his better. . . S'&aBKKM In unaffected moving as he himsell the King-Emperor to the hoarse-voiced, his subjects, as one friends across, a riverty : ;/»M|MBB inimitable of in his hand he held a liar object—a bowler So one saw the receive the tribute and the tableau- remama infinitely touchmg, memory of the the jiihilep-