The Queen Mother (52 page)
Authors: William Shawcross
It had been intended that the New Zealand leg of the tour would be less demanding than that which awaited them in Australia. However, the long days of public exposure in New Zealand were exhausting for both of them. Their welcome was ecstatic – and endless. Engagements were piled upon each other; as the Duke wrote to his mother, ‘these tours are always arranged by the Ministers whose one & only idea is more votes, and they see to it that we go to all the small towns in their constituencies.’
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New Zealand had only a small police force of about a thousand men and there was no way they could keep control as the enthusiastic crowds stormed their visitors. In many places, their car (often roofless despite the rain) could scarcely move for the throngs that pressed around them. At one civic welcome the Duchess chose to carry, instead of the official bouquet, a posy of wild flowers tossed at her by a child at the roadside, bearing the message ‘God bless the wee baby Princess’.
The
New Zealand Herald
noticed that the Duchess ‘smiled her way into the hearts of the people’. This smile was even said to have touched a man who was well known as an active communist agitator in Auckland. On the second day of the visit he met Joseph Coates, the Prime Minister, and said to him, ‘I’ve done with this —– Communism.’ Coates asked why such a sudden conversion had taken place and the man replied, ‘Why, they’re human! Yesterday I was in the crowd with the wife and one of the children waved his hand, and I’m blessed if the Duchess didn’t wave back and smile right into my face, not two yards away. I’ll never say a word against them again. I’ve done with it for good and all.’ Coates relayed this story to Sir Charles Fergusson who, in turn, sent it on to the King. The tale was retold by John
Wheeler-Bennett, King George VI’s biographer, who used the incident to illustrate his argument that ‘the vivid charm of the Duchess of York was a very real factor in the success of the tour. A more responsive personality than the Duke, she was able to complement his greater shyness by a radiance which carried all before it. “She shines and warms like sunlight,” a young Scotsman wrote of her at this time.’
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The Duke too rose to the challenge of the trip, if in a less demonstrative manner. His clearly sincere interest in the country and in the views of its people won him affection. His love of riding, fishing and shooting endeared him to a population which was dedicated to the sporting ethic. Both he and his wife were moved by the evidence of fidelity to the Crown that their visit produced. The Duchess wrote to Queen Mary, ‘The marvellous loyalty of the people of N.Z. is quite amazing, and any mention of “the King and Queen”, “the Mother Country”, “The Empire” or “Home” or any other expression brings out such very genuine and whole hearted cheers that it gives one quite a lump in the throat.’
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Perhaps because of their forced parting from their daughter, both of them expressed a particular interest in children and their welfare. The Duke coined a phrase which he used often – ‘Take care of the children and the country will take care of itself.’
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They liked what they saw of the antipodean approach to children. The Duchess was able to analyse it for the Queen.
The children are so well looked after here – so different to England, in that they come first in
everything
. They are taught to be loyal to the Crown before anything, and then they are taught to be well & healthy & clean. Everywhere that we have been, we have been intensely struck by the appearance of the children. Apparently the teachers are very good, and they have to take most stupendous oaths of loyalty to the Crown before they are allowed to teach. Considering that it is the Crown that keeps the Empire together, I think it is a pity they are not more particular about teachers at home.
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New Zealand was the home of Sir Truby King, the doyen of mothercraft and babycare in the first half of the twentieth century.
*
The Duchess of York already had a strong interest in his work and she had now the opportunity of directly supporting it. On 7 March, in Wellington, she opened the Karitane Home for babies and the training of nurses. She also visited Truby King at home and wrote to Queen Mary about his ‘most amazing work in lowering the death rate for babies. I hope that it will really spread in England, tho’ of course his ideas will have to be adapted to suit conditions in England.’
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With her new-formed enthusiasm, she described to her sister May how strong and healthy and good-looking the New Zealand children appeared. ‘Not like your puny, pale, small delicate & hideous children,’ she jokingly added, the badinage masking her desperate homesickness.
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But there was a consolation. Farming in New Zealand and the promise of new life and prosperity in Australia had drawn several generations of Scotsmen to settle there. Everywhere the Duchess went she was approached by kindly, welcoming people, many no less homesick than she, whose families had been tenants of her father’s, or who were the sort of people she would, as a girl, have encountered in Dundee or Montrose. She knew instinctively how to deal with her countrymen and women from north of the border. Out of the woodwork appeared people more intimately connected with the past. ‘I saw Mr Parker here!! I danced with him. He proposed to me during the war, but I don’t believe I ever answered him,’ the Duchess recounted to her sister.
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The New Zealand and Australian press both served a strongly matriarchal society. Women longed for details of the fashions brought from London by the Duchess, and whether the King liked it or not as he read the reports, her soft and feminine style was reported at length. ‘The Duchess of York … was in periwinkle blue flowered georgette, draped at one side, worn under a beautiful wrap shot in blue and gold, with a heavy collar of squirrel fur lined with blue velvet in the same tone and a small hat turned up from the face in periwinkle blue.’ And again, ‘The Duchess of York was lovely in palest pink ninon encrusted with diamante and with a draping of tulle from the shoulder caught with a diamond and emerald pendant, with ropes of pearls.’
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The Duke was beginning to feel that it was his wife they wanted to see, not him; she tried to assure him that it was not so. ‘All the sentimental
twaddle they write about me is obviously absurd – they always like a bit of romance, & the baby too helps the women to get silly – horribly silly.’
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The demands of the tour were so intense that it was hard to ensure that they had any free time. On their first Sunday morning, deferring worship until the evening at a Maori church, they motored to the Green and Blue Lake. The Duchess found the hot springs and geysers at Rotorua somewhat alarming – she told Queen Mary, ‘I expect we saw much the same things that you did in 1901. I must say I hated walking round the geysers, although I was so interested, thinking that every moment we would all disappear through a thin crust into the unknown!’
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More welcome was a weekend fishing trip. In the Bay of Islands, the Duke caught a 150-pound shark and the Duchess had ‘considerable success with a snapper’.
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On another happy fishing break they were the guests of the New Zealand government at the Kowhai fishing camp at Tokaanu, which they loved. ‘The most marvellous camp I have ever seen,’ the Duke wrote in his tour diary. ‘All tents beautifully furnished & fitted up with electric light & a water supply even in the lavatories.’ Nothing was caught to equal the Duke’s shark, but the Duchess had a small triumph. ‘I found Elizabeth playing an 8 lb trout which she landed, & was highly delighted. Her first trout in her life,’ the Duke recorded.
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It was the first of many in a long life of happy fishing. Looking less than regal, but clutching her rod, she smiles with pleasure out of the photographs.
In his rather dry report back to the King, Lord Cavan praised the Duke for his new confidence and said that the Duchess ‘has been quite splendid; she never appears to be tired’.
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Alas, he was wrong. Taylor Darbyshire’s account of the trip,
The Royal Tour of the Duke and Duchess of York
, describes how, at this point, the exhaustion of the long days of public exposure finally defeated her. ‘The pace set, necessarily, was rather fast, and the combined exertion of sitting erect all day smiling – as only the Duchess can smile – at all the spectators at the roadside, or meeting the local dignitaries at the half-dozen towns which were passed through, proved too much.’
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It was thought that dust from the roads might have settled on her throat, and she was too exhausted to resist it having a toxic effect. At root, the programme was far too crowded and she was completely exhausted.
By the evening of 9 March she had a temperature of 102 degrees
and her tonsils were inflamed. There was alarm among the party; Surgeon Commander White, the medical officer in
Renown
, advised her that it was impossible for her to continue in this condition. She bowed to his advice. Her illness was a serious blow for the Duke. His staff knew that he could be ‘nervy’ and snap when he was tired
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– and this happened more often when his wife was not around to soothe him. Sure that she was the major attraction for the eager crowds, his first thought was to cancel the remainder of the tour, to the South Island of New Zealand.
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South Island was expected to be harder – the mining communities were thought unlikely to be so welcoming. ‘It is a political tragedy that the Duchess could not go to Westport to soften the hard miners,’ wrote Lord Cavan.
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The prospect of tackling them alone was daunting for the Duke. But he decided that duty demanded that he do it, and so he did.
‘Next day’s journey began under saddened circumstances. The Duchess had so identified herself with the life and spirits of the party that everybody felt that some savour had gone out of the tour,’ wrote Darbyshire.
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But the Duke’s spirit in shouldering the rest of the tour alone was much admired, and he earned unexpected ovations from the miners of South Island. In country districts people ‘thronged about him with a gladness and a sympathetic loyalty that was the warmer for their appreciation of his coming to them at the cost of a certain self-sacrifice’.
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Harry Batterbee commented to Lord Stamfordham that the Duke’s journey was politically important ‘& did a great deal of good in encouraging the conservative as opposed to the bolshevist element’.
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The crowds at last convinced him that it was for him they cheered, not just his wife.
The Duchess, meanwhile, rested in the less than luxurious Commercial Hotel in Nelson. After three days’ total rest she was well enough to sail in
Renown
back to Wellington where she convalesced at Government House under the care of Commander White. She finally met Lady Alice Fergusson, the wife of the Governor General, who had been ill and unable to receive the Duke and Duchess on their arrival in New Zealand. The two invalids recuperated in deckchairs in the sunshine.
During this enforced separation she and her husband exchanged letters which testify to their feelings for each other. She told him that everyone had been very kind to her in Nelson – ‘the baker sent me bread, the bookseller books, the ladies cakes & flowers, the fruiterer
pears and grapes’. It was wonderful but not quite enough – ‘all I wanted really was a nice comforting kiss from you.’ She knew how much easier it was for them to work as a pair: ‘when you tackle the Mayor, I can tackle the Mayoress!’ But she thought the way he carried on was marvellous and she tried to reassure him that she was not the only focus of attention. ‘Darling when you are feeling very depressed and tired, remember what wonderful work you are doing. They all loved you in N Island, and quite rightly.’ She feared that she had shown the weakness of her sex. ‘I never dreamt that I would be such a failure, but no doubt women are
not
made for the life we were leading, or men either if it comes to that … Well darling, I do pray that you will get through this nightmare of a programme, and I shall
only
look forward to the moment when I shall see you again. I send you all my love and hundreds of kisses & several hugs.’
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The Duke replied from Christchurch. ‘My own little darling E, I have just received your darling letter which has spurred me on to greater efforts. Millions and millions of thanks for it you darling; it is just what I wanted & nothing could have given me greater help and encouragement.’ He agreed that the work was too much for one person alone and he missed her terribly every day. But it was only a week to go before they met again; meanwhile she should not worry about him, but should just ‘have a real rest and get the throat strong again’.
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From Wellington the Duchess also wrote to her sister May. ‘The programme here was simply ghastly, & I stuck it for 16 days, & then suddenly cracked. It’s really not a suitable life for women & we are having fearful trouble to keep the Australian programme down. They cannot believe that we are made of flesh and blood … so if you see me coming home old & haggard & ugly, don’t be surprised!’
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Back in London, the King was both sympathetic and concerned. The real goal – Australia – was still ahead and for this the Duchess must recover her strength.
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He hoped, he wrote to the Duke, ‘that she will arrive in Australia quite fresh & well. If you find she is getting tired, she must do less, otherwise she will get ill again. You have certainly been through a strenuous time.’ The couple were finally reunited on board
Renown
off Bluff, a desolate place on the southern tip of South Island. The weather was so bad that day that the official embarkation plans had to be scrapped and the Duke was taken out to the ship in the harbour tug, the only vessel which could stand the high
seas caused by a north-westerly gale against the tide. In squalls of wind and rain, his wife watched as he tried to board. She reported to Lady Alice Fergusson, ‘I was glad to be on board when I saw my husband being thrown (literally) from the bridge of the tug on to our quarterdeck at Bluff. It looked most unpleasant, but he did not seem to mind much.’
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