English Reporters Reject “Flop” Story

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30056, 14 February 1963, Page 14

English Reporters Reject “Flop” Story

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, February 13. Three London newspapers today rejected suggestions that there was a lack of enthusiasm for the current Royal tour of Australia and New Zealand.

The “Daily Mirror” said it looked as though the new-style tour was going to be a success. Under the headline, “Forget the Fuddy-duddies,” “The Royal tour goes well,” its correspondent, Anne Lloyd-Williams, wrote from Wellington.

“Anything can happen, but it looks as if the Queen’s new-look kind of Royal tour is going to be a success,” said her report.

“It hasn’t gone down well with everyone and already some fuddy-duddies are forecasting disaster for toe tour, for the Monarchy and almost for the Commonwealth. Attendance was fairly thin at the Royal Horse show last Friday. The fuddy-duddies seized on that.

“Friday wasn’t a public holiday. But still, all the horsey people were there and you should have seen the crowds on toe route. “The theatre wasn’t full for the gala opera performance. But New Zealand —which has a strong strain of Scottish blood—hasn’t enough millionaires or snobs to pay 15 gns to watch an opera from behind a Queen in the shadows. They preferred to mob the car in the street instead. ..."

The “Guardian” correspondent wrote: “Surging crowds wherever the Queen has gone in Wellington made nonsense of reports published abroad of waning interest among New Zealanders.” But toe correspondent said that “as on any tour, this short visit has suffered from heavy-handed planning.” An example was the choice of a “typical family home” that the Royal couple visited in a

Wellington suburb yesterday. It had turned out that to. family had not long emigrated from Scotland and th. house was furnished in a style toe Queen could see any time she visited Scotland. The correspondent said: “Nor was the n.w 3.8 litre Jaguar parked outside th* door typical of a New Zealand home. Even more unhappily, the family vitited appeared to resent th. natural intereat of reporters.” The “Daily Mail" correspondent. Vincent Mufchrone, reported the Queen was “having a boM” on the tour. “Short ot spelling it out, I cannot more plainly refute the snide hinting by some news agencies that thia Royal tour is a bit of a flop. . . .

"If I hear one more suntanned subject moaning that toe Queen looks pale, wan and tired, I swear I’ll deport him to an English winter.”

Mulchrone said it was not true that the crowd, greeting the Queen were not as big a. they might be, nor th* welcome as great. The crowds, thick enough in the towns, had been more dtaperaed.

“As for affection, I have never seen it more patently and movingly expressed," he said.

He added that an "uneasy current” arising from the Common Miarket negotiations wee running benertb th. tour.