Queen Protects Her Hand While Shaking

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30338, 14 January 1964, Page 11

Queen Protects Her Hand While Shaking

(N.ZP.A.-Reuter— Copyright)

LONDON, January 13. The English are reluctant hand-shakers and don't really like it, says a writer in the "Evening Standard” who has been doing a bit of research intn the general approach to hand-shaking by different nations and by prominent individuals of those nations. Mr Lyndon Johnson, the writer thinks, has proved himself the handshakingest president since Theodore Roosevelt, with a vast repertoire of variations. But no-one can touch the Germans. It has been estimated that two Germans working together in an office shake hands 1080 times a year. Recalling that the world handshaking record is held by a young New Zealander, Rodney Bryant, who shook 20,103 hands m seven hours,

the writer suggest that this must have given Mrs Gladys Parker, Mayoress of Blackpool, a twinge. She rfiook a mere 350 hands at a civic reception and spent the next few months with her hapd in plaster. Mrs Parker would have been all right if she had watched how the Queen shakes hands. Hie Queen relaxes her hand and extends her thumb to relieve pressure on the fingers. The result may suggest a lack of warmth, but the Royal hand survives to shake another day. Those who shake hands with the British Prime Minister, Sir Alec Dougas-Home, say he has an “agreeable” and a “genial” handshake. The president of the Board of trade, Mr Edward Heath, has one of the firmest handshakes in the Cabinet. He shakes hands right from

the shoulders which heave the while.

The Minister of Science, Mr Quintin Hogg, shakes hands with a vigorous pumping action. The Minister of Education, Sir Edward Boyle, merely hands you his hand and lets you shake it. Sometimes one feels he needs assistance in holding it up at all. The Home Secretary, Mr Henry Brooke, shakes hands with the utmost wariness, keeping his hand close by him as thought frightened that someone might run off with it The handshake of the Leader of the Opposition. Mr Harold Wilson, is described by a student of such matters as being “podgy, but unmemorable,” while that of the leader of the Liberal Party, Mr Jo Grimond, is positively alarming. His hands are so big that one’s own just disappears inside.