JUBILEE INCIDENT

Southland Times, Issue 25342, 22 July 1935, Page 7

JUBILEE INCIDENT

KING TALKS WITH CRIPPLE. In the year of the King’s accession to the throne Edward Knibbs, a London boy, aged twenty, fell from his bicycle in Stepney and broke his spine. Ever since, he has been in the St. George’s-in-the-East Hospital, completely paralysed. Recently, when the King and Queen made their Jubilee drive through the East End, they stopped and talked to him as he lay on his stretcher under the awning which decorated Limehouse Town Hall. His friend, Miss Mary Siders, who comes from Blackheath to take him for walks, was with him.

Every one in the East End knows Teddy Knibbs and his pneumatictyred stretcher. He smiles his way through life as though he had never known pain. When the King and Queen went over to speak to Teddy they saw, pinned on his pillow, a little nine-point star with their own portraits in colour in the centre and a small Union Jack.

“I think it was the Queen who first saw me,” said Teddy proudly to a press representative. “The King came up to the side of my stretcher and stood where I could see him. The Queen stood at the foot.

“ ‘Hello!’ .said the King. ‘I hear you have a photograph of me!’ “ ‘Yes, I have, your Majesty,’ I said. “ ‘How long have you been lying here?’ he asked.

“ ‘I have been on my stretcher just as long as you have been on the throne,’ I said. “Then the Quen said, ‘But surely we have met before?’ ‘Well. We have,’ I said. ‘lt was at the opening of Shadwell Park, thirteen years ago. I was allowed to present a bouquet of sweet peas to you.’ “After the Shadwell Park opening I had a letter from the Quen asking me if I would like to see Buckingham Palace. I was taken in my stretcher, and I saw a lot of it. I shall never forget it.”