God save the Queen, from duff advisers

The Queen has instructed her lawyers to take action over the way a BBC programme trailer misrepresented her by suggesting she had stormed out of a photo shoot. – Sunday Telegraph

Reportedly the richest woman in the world – and how would we know, anyway, because she is not required to disclose her private wealth? – the Queen (described by BBC World Service as ‘Britain’s Queen Elizabeth’, to avoid confusion with all the others) wants for almost nothing.

All those houses, the royal flight, the cars, servants, coaches, the Brigade of Guards and Beefeaters, personal bodyguards, police escorts, aides and ladies in waiting, the crown jewels… the ability to close roads if she wants to make a trip out of doors. Her own train…

So what’s the qualifier in the intro? Why ‘almost’ nothing?

Because the one thing HM has been deprived of throughout most of her reign has been good advice.

Far worse, she was the recipient of a great deal of really bad advice. Worst of all, she was persuaded to accept it.

I think I can even put my finger on the pivotal event.

The Family invited TV cameras to record the Royal Year and at one stage – this was in 1969 – we saw them setting up a barbecue at Sandringham. Prince Philip had trouble lighting the thing and millions of other dads (and mums) watching his attempts to get the charcoal going smiled happily and said: ‘There you are. They’re just like us.’

And from that moment it was all downhill.

Because the whole point, the raison d’etre of the Royal Family is that they are not supposed to be like us.

They are supposed to be different.

It’s fine if we, the subjects, wish that we could be more like them. But suddenly the Royals had got the plot wrong. They are supposed to be the role models. The plebs sitting in front of the telly are not.

It’s certainly true that the first couple of decades of the last century suggested to their wise counsellors that some change was necessary if their heads were to continue to wear crowns.

The Queen Mother was still in her teens when the Family (she wasn’t yet a member of it) saw its cousins, Kaiser Bill and the Romanoffs, toppled in Germany and Russia, and the crowned heads of Austria, Turkey and Italy – all of them leaders of great empires – overthrown.

They reacted gently at Windsor. They allowed Prince Albert, Duke of York, to marry a commoner, daughter of an Earl, but a break from the stuffy tradition of finding and marrying suitable princesses from Europe who were, in any case, literally a dying breed. Fresh blood, but it was no big deal, really, for Bertie was not destined to be King: his elder brother had been reared for that job.

But, here’s the thing: big brother wanted to marry a divorcee. The Church of England, in those days, took the ‘til death do us part’ bit of the marriage vows seriously and did not allow divorced people to marry in church. As presumptive head of that church the potential King Edward had to choose between love and duty, and he chose love.

But that was not the beginning of the end, yet.

The Family recovered quickly with the coronation of Bertie as King George VI – apparently to his horror, because he had not been trained for the job and was basically a very shy man. But he had Princess Elizabeth at his side, and everybody loved her anyway, not least because she had been the first Royal ever seen to break into a smile.

They understood standards, however. And, diffidently or not, the new Royal couple took it all in their stride. They knew their duty, which is what took them out into the capital to console and encourage the victims of World War II bombing. When, a year and ten days into the war, Buckingham Palace received its first direct hit (there were nine, while they were living in it), the then Queen said: ‘I’m almost glad that we’ve been bombed. It means that I can go out and look those people in the East End in the face.’

Years later, now widowed and The Queen Mother, she told her daughter Margaret Rose that she could not marry a divorced man unless – like her uncle before her – she renounced her Royal status. Princess Margaret said she would choose duty over love, which may possibly have been out of respect for her mother (who presumably hated the thought of another divorce dilemma within the Family), although some critics suggested she chose only to stick with the money and the trappings.

Throughout this period little was known about the inner workings of life behind those high walls and gates. Photographs were taken by appointment and by arrangement. Nobody hid in the bushes around Sandringham to snatch pictures of the Family at leisure through the prying lens of a long tom. Indeed, royal photographs were so rare that many royalists of a now lost generation cut them out of newspapers and magazines and kept scrapbooks. It was all about respect and mystery.

‘The Queen sits on the lavatory, just like you and me,’ said the anti-monarchists. That may have been true, and was possibly why many people described the smallest room in any house as the throne room. But if she did, it was difficult to imagine, even if you wanted to.

Just before the 60s ended there was a strange stab at recreating the pomp and ceremony that made the Royal Family both a political and an economic (in terms of tourism) asset. Prince Charles, aged 20 but looking like a 12-year-old, was ‘invested’ as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle. Princess Margaret’s second spousal choice, a photographer by trade, was appointed Constable of the Castle and put in charge of the Ruritanian theatrical set-up that looked as if it owed more to Gilbert and Sullivan than to traditions that started with James II. It was overwhelmingly silly, with the new Prince pledging:

‘I, Charles, Prince of Wales, do become your liege man of life and limb and of earthly worship and faith and truth I will bear unto you to live and die against all manner of folks.’

But this was all too late anyway for somebody – and Prince Philip (described recently by a colleague as ‘the most upwardly mobile Greek since Icarus’) is widely suspected as the culprit – had already decided it was time for the family, in the vernacular of the 1960s, to ‘get with it’.

Hence that bloody barbecue, and photos of them lunching en famille - just like us - to balance the Caernarfon caper. The film, according to Radio Times, ‘covers a typical year in the life of the Queen and her family, and shows for the first time the behind-scenes existence of the Royal Family in both their off-duty moments and official engagements.’

About 30 million people in the UK – in other words, about 60% of the population – watched it, and it is still, after the 1966 World Cup and the funeral of Princess Diana, the most-watched British TV programme ever.

But the problem is, if they are just like us, why do we need them at all? A dozen years earlier it was virtually treason to ask. Malcolm Muggeridge was dropped by the BBC as a Panorama presenter for daring to ask, in the Saturday Evening Post in 1957, Does Britain Really Need a Queen?

Couldn’t we have just had an elected head of state instead? Mrs Thatcher as president (except that Denis had been divorced) or Tony and Cherie Blair (oh no: she’s a Catholic). An English George W Bush perhaps?

Need I say more?

The point is, I think, that we don’t trust politicians. We certainly don’t look up to them. Whether you approve of ‘royalty’ or not, it can be fairly said that they have a role to play. They are not supposed to be corruptible, for a start, and unimaginable and uncountable wealth is surely one way of ensuring that – for who could afford to bribe them, and with what? They are also understood to attract world tourism, something that they appear to achieve successfully for, if it’s pomp and ceremony that turns you on (and most countries don’t have crowned rulers of their own and for most of the rest the crown they have is the Queen’s) Britain is the place to visit.

What does all this cost the British tax-payer? About fourpence a year, each.

And, since we are paying for their duties and their upkeep, does that make us their boss? I ask because, if it does, I want a better sense of responsibility from them.

I expect the heir to the throne to know (to have known) from the start that, like any of his future subjects, if he intends to play away he must do it discreetly; I think it’s fine that Prince Andrew flew in the face of danger in the Falklands, but I didn’t want him to marry a slapper; I don’t want to learn from TV how Fergie files her knickers in drawers marked with post-it labels in a house that resembles South Fork, only without the touch of class; I don’t want Prince Edward (‘Hi, it’s Edward Windsor, here’) cashing in on the family name for commerce; I don’t (didn’t) want any of them to get divorced – there’s no shortage of accommodation if they can’t actually continue to co-habit after marrying and making their vows in front of millions of their subjects; and I don’t want Princess Anne travelling up to town on a supersaver ticket, which is apparently what she does.

Good grief, we’ll have the Queen on a bike, before you can say Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

I did not want the Queen’s children appearing on anything so mind-numbingly stupid as It’s A Royal Knockout in 1987, to show the world that they are just like us, and can get fun out of doing silly things, because I do not (did not) want them to be just like us. It undid, in an evening, any good that two Royal (if ill-fated) weddings had done in 1981 and 1986.

I want them to be different, distant, and mysterious, quietly doing good works and being wheeled out into public view only when necessary for the nation, or for sensible charitable causes, especially charities at home or, at a pinch, within the commonwealth.

So it follows that the Queen’s idea of doing yet another Royal Year for television was just another mistake.

Getting her royal knickers in a twist over a bit of cack-handed publicity-seeking footage suggesting, wrongly, that she stormed out of a picture session is yet another mistake.

Taking advice from the Royal solicitors, and threatening legal action is just the latest dumb idea.

It might be said at this juncture that what the Royals’ favoured firm is most famous for isn’t actions against newspapers (even though it is said they have something of a reputation for being able to apply pressure without necessarily resorting to the courts). It wasn’t divorce, either – although they have a specialist department, their solicitors managed to get the date of the Charles and Diana wedding wrong in the writ they issued: perhaps they were the only people in the realm who didn’t know it).

The firm is highly regarded for expertise on estates, income tax, wills… the sort of stuff you’d expect them to be good at with HM topping their client list.

The people who advise the royals worry me far more than the Family members themselves.

It’s now said that the Queen is pissed off with the idea of the TV film and wants it abandoned.

That would be an excellent plan. And the next thing she should do is sack the people who told her it would be a good idea in the first place.

And if there is footage of her anywhere walking quickly down a corridor with a bog roll in her hand and a copy of The Sporting Life under her arm, can they please keep it to themselves?
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The Queen and I

Tomorrow (August 4) would have been the Queen Mum’s birthday. World War I broke out on her 14th birthday. It’s the sort of information that only those closest to her are aware of, I suppose.

I was in France when she died and learnt about it from the morning paper, which referred to her as ‘la Queen Mum.’

Not la reine mere, or even la reine maman. Such was her popularity, even among the Anglophobe Froggies, that she was The Queen Mum, world-wide.

Long before Diana, she was everybody’s favourite royal.

We had a chat, once. Well, not much of a tete a tete, but we conversed. She was about to board a Royal Flight and the photographers stood respectfully at the foot of the aircraft steps waiting for her to start posing or waving. She beamed, and the shutters clicked. Then her face fell as she looked along the rank of artists-in-light and asked: ‘Where is Mr Wallace?’

Tony Wallace, the Daily Mail resident photographer at London Airport was absent from the usual line-up.

In those days photographers knew their place. And it certainly did not include talking to their betters. They shuffled their feet a bit and re-checked the settings on their lenses, and shook their flash-battery packs, but none of them spoke. It fell to me, the token reporter in the company, the caption writer, to respond.

‘He’s off sick, today, Ma’am,’ I said.

‘Oh dear. I am sorry to hear that. Nothing serious, I hope?’

‘No Ma’am. I believe it’s just a cold.’

‘Then please,’ she asked me, ‘give him my best wishes for a speedy recovery.’

‘Certainly, Ma’am. I will do that.’

I thought our little conversation was getting along swimmingly. I was tempted to tell her that I had recently been at Gibside, in County Durham, where she had spent a significant part of her childhood, and maybe to tell her that the colliery railway wagons still bore the name of her family, which had owned the Bowes Colliery.

She might be pleased to know that, I thought. Then I thought better of it. Maybe next time; it would keep.

After we had exchanged our waves, I hastened back to the press room in Terminal Two and performed my loyal duty, as I had promised my sovereign’s mother – in whose husband’s coronation, I could have told her if the conversation had really got going or the subject had come up, my father had been proud to march.

The message had its desired effect. Tony Wallace made an exceptionally speedy recovery. But first he asked me to phone the Mail picture desk and pretend I didn’t know his home number, and ask them to pass the message from the Queen Mum on to him.

Of course I was delighted to do that.

‘The Queen Mum,’ you say… ‘She asked after Tony Wallace?’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘As you probably know, she thinks the world of him. She was really upset to find he wasn’t there waiting for her this morning. She told me so.’

‘The Queen Mum…’ said the Picture Editor. ‘Asking after Wallace. That is wonderful. Thanks awfully.’

But, as interviews go, not awfully significant, you no doubt reckon.

No? Oh really.

Listen. You will learn something.

When Tony Wallace returned to harness, miraculously cured, he bought me a drink and asked: ‘Do you know the last time the Queen Mum actually spoke to a reporter?’

Of course, I didn’t.

‘In 1923.’

1923… And then me.

‘She made a bit of a faux pas, you see,’ said Tony, ‘and vowed never to speak to a reporter again, about anything, for the rest of her life. She wasn’t even Queen then, of course, just Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon – and a descendant, as you know, of the Thane of Glamis.’

Thane of Glamis... I said yes I knew, but I’d forgotten.

‘She was engaged to the Duke of York and while talking to a reporter during a photo-session for the engagement she referred to him, just a slip of the tongue, I’m sure, as Bertie. Yes: our future King George VI (although of course nobody knew that then)… Bertie! His father, King George V, was furious about what he considered to be lese-majesty – and she was upset that the reporter had dropped her in it, and not amended her quote more formally before publication.

‘So she spoke quite frequently to members of the public, but never to a reporter, after that.

‘All we’ve ever had out of her, since that day, was that smile. Her special smile…

‘But she spoke to you,’ said Tony. ‘...About me!’

So everything we have learnt about her, about her feelings, and even her quotes, we have got from third parties.

Hating her brother-in-law, briefly King Edward VIII, for not sticking to the job he was born into and marrying ‘that woman’, Wallis Simpson, and landing her sensitive, stammering husband with the crown he had never expected to wear, nor been prepared for.

As the last Empress of India (and indeed last empress of anywhere) she apparently believed that Mountbatten gave up India too early and that Britain de-colonised everywhere before the Commonwealth nations were able to cope.

Ringing below stairs and telling her staff: ‘When one of you old queens has a moment, this old queen would like a gin and tonic.’

Of Jimmy Carter: ‘That man was the only person, following the death of my beloved late husband, to have the effrontery to kiss me on the mouth.’

But none of that came from a reporter.

I know she spoke once to Hugh Cudlipp (but he doesn’t count as a reporter), at a Garden Party. She told him she was going to Balmoral that night and – sod security – said that the Royal Train always left Kings Cross but travelled only as far as Doncaster where it stayed overnight in the sidings. Whether this was so that she could have a more comfortable night’s sleep, or so that she could arrive at her destination in daylight for photos, was never satisfactorily established by Cudlipp, to my mind.

Anyway, he’d had a brainwave and sent Jimmy Wallace, the Mirror’s northern circulation boss, to Donny with a set of the first editions. Jimmy found the Royal Train and reached up to hammer on the door. It was opened by a (presumably surprised) lady-in-waiting, in a nightie.

He handed over the bundle of papers and told her they were for Her Majesty, with Mr Cudlipp’s compliments. She told him to wait.

When she returned she said: ‘Her majesty has asked me to thank you, and to ask you to pass on her gratitude to Mr Cudlipp. But she has also asked me to ask you – do you not have a copy of the Sporting Life?’

I wouldn’t have made a mistake like that.

But then, you see, our relationship was rather different.
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