KING GEORGE AT HOME

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21728, 10 March 1936, Page 10

KING GEORGE AT HOME

FONDNESS FOR CHILDREN

WINDSOR LIBRARIAN'S MEMORIES

(FROM OUE OWM CORRESPONDENT.)

LONDON, February 8.

In a broadcast talk to schools Mr O. F. Morshead, librarian at Windsor Castle, recalled some interesting and intimate conversations with King George. He said that travelling to London from Windsor by train and reading King Edward's moving words to the Privy Council, his thoughts went back to the same hour only a week before at Sandringham. "We had been out," he said, "for a walk through those beautiful woodlands, sunny and still, the King on Jock, his little fat white pony, the Queen and some others accompanying him on foot. On our return he dismounted at the garden gates, close by the little church where he is lying at this minute. Jock rubbed his head against his master for the carrots which he knew were coming.

"It happened that I had brought for the King a new acquisition, the orginal handwriting document from which the girl Queen Victoria had read her speech to the Privy Council on the morrow of William IV.'s death. It had strayed into private possession, and now its loyal owner had asked me to offer it to his Majesty. "As we walked back to the House he was telling me of the insupportable emotion with which he had himself confronted the Privy Council when his own turn came; he had been up all night, and could hardly snatch the time next morning to jot down the notes of what he wanted to say. Perfectly devoted to his father, he despaired in his affliction of ever being able to give utterance to his thoughts. Every year the King used to give a prize to some selected candidate from one of the local schools. Mr Morshead told what one of these boys or girls would have said at the microphone.

"I was shown into the King's study quite a small room, and there was the King standing on the hearthrug and shaking hands with me and talking just as if he had known me all his life.

"Presently he took up a Bible, saying that was what he was going to give me, but before doing it he wanted to tell me a story. 'When I was your age,' he said, 'my grandmother—she was Queen Victoria, you know—gave me a Bible and she advised me to read a chapter in it every night. " 'I have always done it, wherever I have been—except, of course, during that bad illness. I couldn't do it then. Now you can do as you like. But if you make that a rule of your life and stick to it, I don't think you will regret it when you come to my age—and you've got a long way to go yet.' And then he laughed his great boyish laugh, and I came away."