EMPIRE’S KING & QUEEN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 55, 7 March 1939, Page 5

EMPIRE’S KING & QUEEN

They Arc Extremely Bus) People

i r pUE King and Queen of England are I i extremely busy people. Their I schedule is invariably drawn up months . in advance, and the important engage- i ments are made a year ahead, states an i overseas Editional Review. But. it is not true that all private life is denied I them. Tn that, respect they are more j fortunate than the President, of the ' United States and his famliy. A normal day for King George VI. begins at 7.30 or 8 o clock. His first activity is a brisk walk through the gardens of Buckingham Palace. or whatever other royal residence he is I using. Then he usually breakfasts • alone —a British breakfast of fried kidneys, sausage, eggs and a specially . strong Ceylon tea. By 9.30 he is at his j desk. The first two hours of the morning are spent with his secretaries. Such I mail as must come tn his attention is j then read and answered. Sometimes , State papers must he read during the • morning. At 11.30 the audiences start. First, though, the King must change to formal morning dress. Fifteen minutes is . usually given to each visitor; they are all. needless to say, persons of great, importance. The King takes particular care to receive any Indian prince, who may be in London; their fealty < and that of their countless subjects are not diminished by such attention on the : part, of the Emperor of India. It is luncheon time when the audiences have ended. The King changes ; •back to a lounge suit. He eats with ; the Queen and the two little princesses; there are rarely visitors for lunch. After lunch he exercises again. Some- ■ times he knocks a golf ball around the grounds of the palace. He often plays tennis or merely walks briskly for an hour or two. After that a great batch of State papers is placed before him. He studies them very carefully. He is serious about his job and determined to learn quietly all he can about the affairs of his Government, without intruding as far as Edward VIII. did into the actual administrative departments. Under the pressure of unexpected responsibilities. George VI. has made great strides since his plodding inarticulate days as the Duke of York; the stimulating effect of sudden change has revealed new facets in his character. After he has perused the State papers, tea is served. Again it is usually private, with members of the royal family or with intimate friends. But there are no friends so intimate that they fail to address the King and Queen as “Sir" and “Madam." This formality is never relaxed. Only relatives may call them “Bertie" and “Elizabeth.” Dinner, too. is private. The little girls, meanwhile, have gone to bed. Roast grouse is a favourite dish of His Majesty. His favourite wine is a vintage champagne, extremely dry. But he is definitely absteminous. The Queen's day is also busy. She likes to sleep rather later than her

I husband and has breakfast in her mom. j I Then she. too. is closeted with secretaries * • who give her information about the i : day's duties and about forthcoming I I engagements. The Queen’s activities, I ' naturally, are more social than those ■ nf the King. It is a rare day when she i must not. attend some bazaar, some j charity performance or in some way ' exhibit herself tn the people. Public ; appearances are really her chief state I function, and the way Ihe Queen con- ' ducts herself at these has been in a • large measure responsible for Ihe i rapid acceleration nf Their Majesties’ I popularity. It. is not. that Queen Elizabeth is out- i ; standingly regal. It is that, she has a j i gift, for appearing m enjoy herself at. | ■ the actually dull and repetitious June- | I lions she must attend. More than that, j she conveys the impression that it. is , all very new and delightful to her. I When some scrubbed and starched English child presents her with a bunch of flowers- and some child does at every • affair—-Queen Elizabeth still manages tn look perfectly astonished and treI mcndously pleased. And she is beyond any doubt at all •an intelligent, woman. The statement iof the United States Ambassador. Joseph P. Kennedy, that she is “one of the most brilliant women T have ever I met," may be disco<ited just a little as ' Irish blarney, perhaps, but there is no I doubt, that Ambassador Kennedy, after I his first meeting with the Queen, was | greatly impressed. On the same occasion, or shortly afterwards, the American Ambassador also saw a good deal ‘ of the two princesses. I “The Queen must he a great woman i to have kept those two children as nice ' as they are," Kennedy told his friends at I the time. After dinner King George likes to listen to the radio for an hour or two. Very often, he must work again. For it is after dinner that Cabinet Ministers are usually received at. Buckingham Palace. Then. too. additional State • papers are read. The King and Queen do not stay up ! late. The last duty of each is to write I’ a few lines in personal diaries which both keep. These diaries are carefully locked up when they are not being used. Only the King sees that of the Queen. i she. alone, is allowed to inspect his. ■ Their notations concerning people and ’ ' events are rumoured to be forthwith, j I direct and frank. They will not be | | published, if ever, 'for centuries to ' i come. ! King George is doing things very much as his father did; he is avoiding the spectacular and is never seen at night clubs. He countermanded most* of the changes decreed by his more picturesque brother. Among other things he ordered that the stock of lovebirds at Sandringham, the royal residence in Norfolk, was to be kept at its full complement. King Edward, bored by loveI birds, had allowed' it to lapse. Even : I the late King's stamp collection, valued • at from 1,009,000 to 5,000,000 dollars is

being carefully continued. George VI. has nn interest in stamps, however. An aide does the work and the King rarely, if ever, looks at the collection. As conservative in clothes as King Edward VIII. was daring, he wears the quietest patterns and shades he can find. Once he ordered six suits of identical pattern and cut. He maintains all the traditional pomp and dignity of the King, but he is not fond of ostentation and is always glad when dress parades are over. Even had he known when he married her that some day he would become Britain’s sovereign. George VI. could not have chosen a queen more acceptable to his people than Elizabeth. She has the same virtue of simplicity and traditional conservatism as her husband, and she is doing much to make their reign popular. She is the first, commoner to become Queen of Britain since Catharine Parr become the sixth wife of Henry VIII. in 1543. and the first Scotswoman to he so honoured since Henry I. married Matilda of Scotland in 1100. The King and Queen have known each other since they were children. The King was 25 and she was 20 when they began to be seen together. George V. had already announced that, all his children, except the heir Io the throne, the Prince of Wales, would be permitfed to abandon the old German rule of maTrying only their equals and would be allowed henceforth to choose their consorts from the ranks of the British perrage. On April 26, 1923, the couple were married with elaborate ceremony at Westminster Abbey. At the time Elizabeth little dreamed that one day she would be queen. She devoted herself wholeheartedly to making a home for her husband and to raising a family. Trained by her mother in all the domestic duties of a housewife, she provided a wellmanaged household and still found time to help her husband in the voice exercises he was taking to overcome his handicap of speech. Speaking in public or over the radio still is not easy for the king. It has been suggested tharne might prefer to have his speeches recorded privately on a phonograph disc and then broadcast so that any falter could be corrected in the disc before it. was put on the air. This the King emphatically vetoes. He would not have it said that his voice had to be “canned" before, his subjects could hear it. In 1925 he was forced tn open the Wembley Exhibition. Nervously he approached the microphones. To his horror, not a word came forth when he started. Then a red-faced electrician reached over and snapped on the | switch. The apparatus had been turnIcd off all along. Involuntarily, the | duke gasped with relief. j “The damned thing wasn’t, working!" i he burst out—and his words boomed through the audience. He joined in the laughter, and speaking has never been quite so bad since the incident. . 1 George VI. depends considerably on his wife's sound common sense and most of the decisions he has to make are made by the two of them side by side in their sittingroom at Buckingham Palace. It would be difficult tc find a more ideally mated couple in the Empire. Together they symbolise the happy family to which the average man and woman in Britain aspires.