KING EDWARD’S COURAGE

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 March 1930, Page 10

KING EDWARD’S COURAGE

Reminiscences of sir f. treves

The “Dorset Year Book” includes a contribution by Mr Newman Flower, who relates hiow Sir Frederick Treves had sent him a manuscript of his reminiscences. “Before long I was aware that I was reading the finest book of reminiscences I had read for many years,” says Mr Flower. “The material about Ring Edward’s operation alone showed h’im a great figure of courage, a man who fought his 'doctors to go to his Coronation, and so keep faith with the British'people. If ever the heroisin of a, British’ King was revealed it was revealed in that manuscript. King Edward had hidden his' malady in order that the public’ should not be alarmed. The doctors, the nurses'-went to Wind-sor-numbered and not by name, so that the arrival of these medical men should’ not be known. Treves was ‘Nurd'ber Six,’ and he used to go to Windsor in a tweed cap and a tweed suit, and get off at a station before Windsor and walk the rest of the way. These were the instructions of a King to spare his people an iota of anxiety regarding the Coronation. When 1 read the manuscript I realised the pluck of the King, who, against the advice of his doctors, came to London bowing in agony to the crowds that applauded him. I knew that these words of Treves’s would show what a figure of courage the King had been. Then one morning my telephone rang violently. Answering it, 1 heard Treves’s voice at the other end. He said, ‘Bring the manuscript at once’ (to a certain bank) .1 met him there. Ho snatched the manuscript out of my hands greedily. ‘What are you going to do with it?’ I asked. ‘lt shall never bo published,’ he answered, and locked up the manuscript in his private safe. It has never been published and it never will be. Indeed, I believe it has been destroyed long since.”