Every time I see my father he tells me something that makes me laugh. I saw him last week and he told me about a photograph he bought of ‘The Post Office’ in Bridport, Dorset. A local told him that it that shut in 1901 after the postmistress was receiving a report, via telegraph, of the death of Queen Victoria. At that moment the line was struck by lightning, the postmistress died, and the post office had to close down.
Here’s another royalty related story my father told me. It originally appeared on the Awfully Big Blog Adventure website.
* * * * *
My mother is in hospital, so I went to have lunch with my father. He’s a sprightly and intelligent man, he can string out a tale, and always surprises me. We sat in a very ropey pub in a damp corner of Newport in south Wales. For some reason we began talking about my father’s childhood, and the story of the King coming to Newport. I wanted to rewrite it from my father’s point of view, trying to keep it more or less as how he told it. The year is 1937.
* * * * *
Mother, or Mama as I called her, took me into town to see the King. I was nine, so I assumed it would be some sort of private conference, just me and him. Perhaps he had something to tell me. Of course it wasn’t like that at all. When we got to the centre of Newport, there was a huge crowd, but Mama, bold and obstinate, pushed through them all to the front. And there was His Majesty, about to lay the foundation stone.
Suddenly Mama grew excited.
“The King,” said Mama, “he digs with his left hand.”
It was a grand day. A big cheering crowd. Mama had bought me a flag.
“I knew it,” said Mama.
I could see the King’s head but not the shovel he was holding. I waved my flag.
“You don’t remember, do you?” said Mama.
“I don’t remember what, Mama?”
Someone started speaking, a very loud voice. There was a lot of clapping and cheering. I couldn’t see what was happening and I needed a wee.
We went to the Kardomah. Mama allowed me a lemonade. She sat opposite me with her coffee. The Kardomah was steamy and busy. It was nice.
“You don’t remember any of it, do you?”
“Yes, Mama,” I said. “You told me.” It was in the papers and on the wireless. I repeated her words exactly. She’d said them enough times. “The King is coming to Newport to cut the first sod.”
“I don’t mean the King,” she said. She looked cross. The lemonade wasn’t very fizzy.
She stared past me. Perhaps she was hoping to spot someone she knew. She knows lots of people. She is always stopping to talk about her sciatica.
“I was talking about you, not the King,” she said. “When you started school the teacher wouldn’t let you write with your left hand. Don’t you remember?”
“I think so Mama,” I said.
“You were forced to use your right hand and it made you stammer. You stammered quite badly. We went to see Dr Harris and he said you must be allowed to write with your left hand. He wrote a note to school and straight away your stammering stopped.” Her eyes were getting watery.
“I know Mama.”
“And the same silly people have done that to the King,” she said. She looked cross again.
Cross but with watery eyes. “He’s been forced to use his right hand, but he naturally uses his left.” “Poor King George,” I said.
“But don’t you see?” she said, as much to me as everyone else. “That’s why the King stammers!”