PRINCE’S TRIALS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20331, 14 June 1934, Page 5

PRINCE’S TRIALS.

Dogged by Officials and Photographers. CEREMONY MUST GO ON. Describing the return journey ol the Prince of Wales from Brussels, where he had attended the funeral of King Albert, Hannen Swaffer, of the London “Daily Herald,” writes: — Who would be the Prince of Wales, if he could choose? They never give him any peace. . . As I got to the Nord station in Brussels a motor car drove up. It was the Prince. Off came the hats. Officials bowed. The Prince had to engage in talk with the stationmaster and all sorts of folk. Cameramen dashed about. Flashlights went off. The poor Prince, who had just had two day’s of ceremonies of all kinds, including a long funeral and an accession ceremony, was surely entitled, by then, to a •little privacy. No! It was an official visit. In the train he got some peace. At Ostend more photographers met him and had to take the same old pictures. More officials! More bowing! Then he had to inspect the guard of honour from the destroyer sent to escort him. As he couldn’t be seen home by the aeroplanes, he had to be guarded —- from what—by a warship. A Democratic Prince. We all know that, if he could, he would end this sort of thing. He loves to escape. . . . Well, the destroyer followed us all the way, through the fog. The Prince hid himself, with liis equerry, in a cabin, still guarded, though, by a seaman, who shooed off everyone who went up that end of the deck. Then, at Dover, an admiral and a high military officer were waiting. More bowing. More polite talk with officialdom. Yet the Prince had been away for two days. There were no camera men, this time.

But there were four or five photographers at Victoria. “I’ll expose just one,” said one of them. Why? The Prince had just the same face as when he went away, two days before.

At Victoria, a detective was waiting and a place was raifed off on the platform. More officials were in attendance.

The Belgian Ambassador, I assumed him to be, was there with secretaries More bowing. More polite talk. . . Then . . . the Prince escaped. He got into his car and dashed out of the station into the London streets. There they lost him. When I passed the palace his car was inside the railings. He had gone, apparently, to see his parents, to tell them the" story of the funeral and the new King’s speech. Well, in London, the Prince is safe. He can lose himself. He can go round in his car on his own quite comfortably — yes, even go to “the pictures” without any fuss.