Her Majesty (48 page)

This arm of the business is run jointly by the government and the Monarch. The government decides who gets which honours, via a network of civil servants and committees. Then the Queen delivers, assisted by the grandly named Central Chancery of the Orders of Knighthood. It is actually a small team based in the lower half of a Georgian house inside St James’s Palace. The atmosphere is part Dickensian, part National Lottery. Most people who come into contact with this place will have just received one of the most memorable surprises of their life – an invitation to receive an honour from the Queen. But they may also be confused by the fact that they are joining a club with old and complicated codes and privileges. A medal is not the same as a badge, a decoration is not the same as an honour, a ribbon is not the same as a collar. Everyone joining an Order of Chivalry, from MBE upwards, will receive both a badge and a signed Royal Warrant of Appointment – effectively a proof of ownership. Understandably, people have questions and Rachel Wells, the Central Chancery’s Assistant Secretary for more than thirty years, has heard most of them before. As ever, there are worries about what to wear for an investiture. This place may be the last link with the age of chivalry but it must still move with the times. So, ladies’ trouser suits have finally been accepted (without great enthusiasm, it must be said). Fancy dress, however, is actively discouraged. Palace staff did not conceal their dismay in 2010 when a Leicestershire milkman arrived to receive an MBE – for community services – dressed in a ‘cow suit’. Several
gallantry decorations were being presented on the same morning, including a posthumous George Medal. It was a crass and insensitive stunt, but it could have been worse. ‘We did persuade him to remove his tail,’ says the Secretary of the Central Chancery, Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Matheson. His staff have come to expect the unexpected, including people who fail to turn up at all. ‘We recently had a chap coming from Kent and his sat nav sent him to Croydon,’ says Rachel Wells. ‘He rang up in quite a state saying, “I’m lost in Croydon.” We got him another date.’

Then there are those who accept an award only to send it back again. The Insignia Clerk, Jeremy Bagwell-Purefoy, has a strongroom full of every conceivable medal from across the royal spectrum. He has shelves of OBEs, Garter regalia worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, a handful of Imperial Service Orders (an old colonial honour which the Queen still awards in Papua New Guinea) and the last two examples of the longdormant Order of St Patrick. He also has an entire cabinet full of insignia returned to the Queen in protest throughout her reign. There are hundreds of medals from Second World War veterans who wanted to register their disgust at the 1971 state visit accorded to the wartime Emperor of Japan. Also here is the MBE given to the late John Lennon in 1965. The musician handed it back in 1969 in protest at British foreign policy. But he never stopped being John Lennon MBE. Similarly, the vault contains the MBE given to the journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in 2001. Two years later, she made a very public show of sending it back in protest against both the Iraq War and the monarchy. She also remains an MBE. Once appointed, you enter the register and there you remain. ‘You can’t resign, I’m afraid,’ says Matheson. ‘But you can change your mind about the insignia and we always say: “If you want it back, just let us know.”’

That is the last thing on anyone’s mind as four hundred people in their finest dresses, suits and uniforms ascend the Grand Staircase at Windsor Castle. There is an atmosphere of gleeful nervousness. It is a sign of the times that most of the men are in lounge suits rather than morning dress. Major Alan Denman, the Castle Superintendent, has a team of staff to steer people through the labyrinth that is the castle. Beneath the soaring displays of spotless armour, chambers full of ancient weaponry, medieval coats of arms and even the bullet which killed Lord Nelson, they feel part of a ritual stretching back down the centuries. It is not the moment to point out that this ceremony dates back as far as 2008 when the Queen finally decided to introduce investitures at Windsor. Before then, they had always been in London, with the occasional ceremony in Edinburgh and Cardiff. Here, once more, is an innovation which
has just been introduced with so little fuss that everyone imagines it stretches back to the Normans. It is actually a subtle way of making life easier for the Queen without scaling back her duties. Now in her mideighties, the Queen is keen to spend a little longer ‘at home’ in Windsor, so the occasional investiture is shifted from Buckingham Palace to the castle. ‘The private secretaries are being very clever in lightening the workload without it becoming too apparent,’ explains Sir Malcolm Ross. ‘The Queen is still going to do as many investitures as she can – but why make her come to London on a Tuesday morning when she could be at Windsor? It’s just as much fun for the guests – more fun, perhaps – and it means that the Queen doesn’t have to slog up to London with everything that goes with it.’

The Queen’s Gentlemen Ushers are out in force again, discreetly breaking up the arrivals into different groups. The guests are steered to the Waterloo Chamber to take their seats in front of the royal dais and look at the paintings for half an hour. The recipients are led off to the side for a rehearsal and a calming glass of Sandringham apple juice. The King’s Dining Room has some of the most famous pictures in the world on the wall, including Van Dyck’s triple-portrait of Charles I. But no one is admiring the art. They are all listening to Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Ford, the Comptroller – the Royal Household’s Master of Ceremonies. And they are rapidly discovering why the Queen employs ex-Forces people for this sort of job. A crack team of retired accountants would not be quite the same. It is all very warm and welcoming but it is also done with crisp military precision. Ford places his key staff around the room to replicate their positions in the Waterloo Chamber and runs through the process as if addressing his troops on the eve of battle: ‘Jonathan Spencer, here, will check your name. Ahead of him, at an angle, is Group Captain Hugh Rolfe, here, who is your last safe port of call… Jonathan will ask you to go forward and forward you go until you come alongside Hugh. Get nice and close in, your shoulder against his chest so that he can whisper words of encouragement…’ The banter produces a few smiles but most people are too busy paying attention. One man takes notes. Ford continues: ‘When you hear your surname announced, it is the trigger to move. And forward you go three or four paces and turn and face the Queen. Gentlemen, a neck bow, not from the waist, just the neck. Ladies, a little curtsey. It doesn’t matter which leg it comes off…’At which point, this six foot four bear of a man, a Guards officer for twenty-five years and fully dressed in ceremonial kit and spurs, proceeds to give a demonstration curtsey. By now, everyone is chuckling. ‘Forward you go to the point that your toes are almost at the edge of the
platform on which the Queen is standing. Please do
not
climb on to the platform …’

He offers specific instructions to today’s two new knights – ‘Down on your right knee, the Queen will touch your right shoulder, then your left shoulder; there’s no “Arise, Sir Hero” or anything like that’ – and explains how everyone knows when their time is up. ‘It comes to an end when the Queen offers you her hand. Take it, shake it, remember to give it back and then walk backwards three or four paces to where you started. Gentlemen, make a bow, ladies, give a curtsey. Turn right and Commodore Lawrie Hopkins, here, will be marking your exit route …’

The Gentlemen Ushers are not just signposts. ‘We also try to stop runaways,’ explains Group Captain Rolfe. ‘You do get people who are so overcome that they go the wrong way or try to walk out before they have received their award.’ The recipients form a queue, divided up by decoration and sex. Men and women receive different versions of the same award; a man’s CBE, for example, goes over the neck on a ribbon while a lady’s comes as a badge. In the Waterloo Chamber, all stand as the Queen arrives, accompanied by two Gurkha orderlies, a tradition established by Queen Victoria. The band up in the balcony plays the National Anthem after which the Queen utters her only public pronouncement of the entire morning: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, please be seated.’

First up are the knights. Lieutenant General Sir William Rollo has no problems with the drill and has found the investiture far less stressful than the journey getting here – ‘stuck in traffic with bits falling off my uniform’. The orchestra – all from the Bands of the Household Cavalry – immediately start playing a selection of Handel and Schubert plus a spot of ‘Edelweiss’ to lighten the atmosphere. There will no clapping or cheering, though. The guests have been gently requested to desist. It’s fine clapping the first few recipients but how does Number 99 in the queue feel when the audience runs out of applause?

And then begins a rhythmic pageantry so seamless that no one notices it. Before each name is announced, the Insignia Clerk, Jeremy BagwellPurefoy, passes the requisite gong on a tray to his boss, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Matheson, who checks it and places it on a cushion held by the Queen’s Deputy Master of the Household, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Richards, who presents it to the Queen. The Lord Steward, the Earl of Dalhousie, reads out the name and, as the recipient steps forward, the Queen’s equerry, Wing Commander Andrew Calame, whispers a quick reminder in the Queen’s ear. She has already read today’s full list along with a summary of every citation. ‘She underlines the bit she wants the equerry to repeat in her ear,’ explains Sir Malcolm Ross. ‘That triggers
her memory so there isn’t a wasted question, no “Where have you come from?”’ So Calame whispers away like a theatrical prompt: ‘… father of three … dentist for thirty years … met Prince of Wales in 1983 …’ These are not all conversation points. But the Queen genuinely likes to put faces to names and stories. Sometimes, it can be quite a story. In March 2010, Marion Andrews came to London from Australia to collect an MBE on behalf of her late father. He had been awarded it in 1946 for wartime service in Burma but, amid the post-war chaos, the letter went astray. When his daughter discovered the oversight sixty-four years later, the Queen was delighted to make amends.

The same thing might have happened to Helen Dent who is here to be made a CBE. As she explains in the queue: ‘To be honest, I thought it was just another letter from the Tax Office so I shoved it on a pile and then they rang me two weeks later to see if I was “minded to accept”. I thought it was a joke.’ It’s no joke now as she steps forward to receive her award for her work with her charity, Family Action. ‘Well done,’ says the Queen. ‘You deserve it.’

Some conversations flow more easily than others. ‘What do you do in the rail industry?’ the Queen asks Adrian Shooter as she presents him with his CBE. ‘I’m chairman of Chiltern Railways,’ he replies. The Queen: ‘I suppose that goes through the Chilterns, does it?’

It is all second nature to her, though. As she waits for each CBE to step forward, the Queen instinctively straightens out the pink ribbon, drawing it between her fingers as if untangling a dog lead. There is roughly forty seconds between the announcement of each name. But some recipients seem to get longer. Warrant Officer Class One Barry Dawe of the Royal Marines gets a full one minute and twenty seconds. It is interesting that, afterwards, most recipients imagine that they spoke to the Queen for several minutes. Yet many of them struggle to remember a single word. That’s something which never changes.

Some of today’s guests certainly stand out. An elderly gent called Alan Beavis has dressed in his Scout uniform to receive the OBE for services to the Scouts. Architect George Ferguson, receiving a CBE, is in red tartan trousers. There are all ages here. Fresh-faced Christopher Kealey looks a little young to be receiving the MBE ‘for services to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’. ‘He must be a future Foreign Secretary,’ whispers one lady in the audience. The thirty-year-old is in fact being honoured for his two years as political officer at the British Embassy in Kabul. For some people, it is all quite a challenge. When Nora Schneider comes forward in a wheelchair to receive her MBE for services to the community in Berkshire, the Queen steps down from her dais to pin on
her MBE. Not that there is actual pinning taking place. Recipients wear a hook on their clothes so that the Queen can attach honours quickly and painlessly (unlike Queen Victoria who famously drew blood pinning the first VCs; no one flinched). Mary Tame arrives on the arm of the Queen’s Senior Page, Sergeant Footman Philip Rhodes, to receive her MBE for services to the community in Oxfordshire. Michael Hopper MBE (services to Jobcentre Plus) is assisted by both a stick and the Page of the Chambers, Ray Wheaton. Derek Bartley, seventy-seven, arrives to a wonderfully incongruous double-billing: ‘For services to the Midland Association of Mountaineering and Rhyl Music Club …’ ‘That’s an unusual combination,’ the Queen remarks. ‘Which of the two do you prefer?’ Bartley replies: ‘They’re both wonderful.’

Once the final Queen’s Volunteer Reserves Medal has been dispensed, the National Anthem is played and the Queen walks out through the audience. She is actually going in the opposite direction to her part of the castle but she wants to give all the audience a good view of her after sitting there for so long. Detail is all. Suddenly, the mood changes to the boisterous aftermath of a school prize-giving and graduation rolled into one as the newly honoured are reunited with their families. Queues form to have official photographs taken in the Grand Reception Room. The sense of pride is infectious. One or two wives and mothers are dabbing their eyes, happily cursing their ruined make-up. It has been another great day for the Happy People Business.

There will, though, be one division of the modern monarchy which is, perhaps, not quite so pleased about investitures like this. Because every time Windsor Castle closes its state apartments for a royal event, the Royal Collection is deprived of potential income. Much as the Queen discourages a ‘corporate’ approach to other areas of the monarchy, the Royal Collection has an obligation to be commercial. And Windsor Castle – with a million visitors a year – is its top earner.