FLOWER SELLER PAYS TRIBUTE TO A QUEEN
Every day that Queen Maud of Norway was in London she walked along Bond Street with her dog. As she arrived at a certain corner, tubby William Woodall, fifty-five-year-dld flow-er-seller, would hastily place his tray of violets and gardenias on the pavement, snatch off his cap, select three of his best gardenias, and pin them to the Queen’s lapel. For ten years Woodall sold flowers to the Queen, says The Daily Express. Shortly after she met him she sent a lady-in-waiting to ask for his name and address.
Every Christmas since then a hamper has arrived at the little house behind Paddington Station where the flower-seller lives. In it was a joint, a Christmas pudding, tea, butter, sweets, and presents for the children. On a card was written: “With best wishes for a merry Christmas from the Queen of Norway.” While the 29,150-ton battleship Royal Oak, escorted by four destroyers, carried across the North Sea the body of Queen Maud, in a passenger boat going the same way was a box of white gardenias addressed to the Royal Palace at Oslo—the last tribute of a London flower-seller whom the Queen befriended.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ST19390114.2.126
Bibliographic details
Southland Times, Issue 23716, 14 January 1939, Page 15
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198FLOWER SELLER PAYS TRIBUTE TO A QUEEN Southland Times, Issue 23716, 14 January 1939, Page 15
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