‘Veni, Vidi, Vocab’: the story behind my Pocket GCSE Latin Etymological Lexicon by Caroline K. Mackenzie

When in Rome… Photo © Caroline K. Mackenzie

I have a confession to make: although I loved Latin at school, I didn’t enjoy learning vocab. In fact, I usually left it to the last minute and would end up revising while on the school bus on the morning of a test. [Note to any Latin pupils who may be reading this - this is not a good idea!] Fortunately, I had a lovely teacher who encouraged me and eventually I looked forward to discovering new Latin words and the access they gave me to some amazing Latin literature, such as Virgil and Ovid.

Years later (after a Classics degree and a decade as a lawyer in which I regularly used Latin), I found my true vocation (or ‘calling’, as ‘voco’ means ‘I call’). I became a Latin and Greek teacher. Vocab was something I taught (and still teach) each day. Some of my pupils found the long lists of words at the back of textbooks rather daunting. Together we created some fun ways to approach these lists. One idea was to think of an English derivative from the Latin, e.g. ‘dormio’ (I sleep) gives us ‘dormitory’ and ‘dormouse’. Likewise, ‘nox, noctis’ (night) gives us ‘nocturnal’ and when combined with ‘ambulo’ (I walk) produces ‘noctambulation’. That’s a great word for ‘sleepwalking’!

‘insula’ illustration © Amanda Short

‘insula’ in Latin means an island or a block of flats. It gives us words such as ‘insular’, ‘insulate’ and ‘peninsular’ 

Some pupils drew pictures in their vocab books to help them memorise tricky words. So when I decided to write a Latin vocab book I asked the artist Amanda Short to create 20 special illustrations to help bring the book to life. Amanda (whose name appropriately derives from ‘amo’ (I love) !) carefully researched Roman life and mythology before producing her beautiful designs. Of these, if asked to choose a favourite I am tempted to say the ‘tandem’ one as it is so ingenious and witty [see my earlier blog on my first Latin Lexicon: http://the-history-girls.blogspot.com/2020/09/a-latin-lexicon-by-caroline-k-mackenzie.html ]; another contender is the ‘insula’ illustration which cleverly depicts two different meanings in one image. However, the gorgeous dormouse (for ‘dormio’, mentioned above) steals the show for cuteness!

‘dormio’ illustration © Amanda Short

Bloomsbury and I wanted to create a book that would help students and teachers whichever GCSE syllabus they are following, so we have included every word on each of the vocab lists for the two exam boards. The book includes notes to help explain some grammar and a glossary of Latin words and phrases in common use. Some of these appear in this blog, such as ‘e.g.’. Also, I couldn’t resist this more unusual one: ‘quidnunc’. It refers to an inquisitive, gossiping person - the Latin literally means ‘what now?’.

The word entries are spread out with lined spaces next to each one for readers to add their own notes or more derivatives. I hope students will really enjoy the Lexicon and that it makes learning vocab a fun and fascinating part of their Latin studies. Of course, the book is not just for GCSE pupils - it may also be useful for anyone interested in languages and etymology generally. It could be your secret weapon when tackling the daily crossword or even playing Scrabble. Did you know you can even buy a Latin version of Scrabble?

Latin Scrabble, anyone? Photo © Caroline K. Mackenzie

As its name suggests, the Pocket GCSE Latin Etymological Lexicon is small enough to fit into a schoolbag - so it can even be read on the school bus. However, for any GCSE pupils still reading this, a caveat: unlike I did, don’t leave it until the last minute! When it comes to learning your Latin vocab, don’t delay: seize the day. As the Romans would say, ‘carpe diem!’

Pocket GCSE Latin Etymological Lexicon by Caroline K. Mackenzie is now available to order from the Bloomsbury website:

https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/pocket-gcse-latin-etymological-lexicon-9781350320758/

With thanks to: everyone at Bloomsbury Academic, Amanda Short, Professor Paul Cartledge, Dr John Taylor, Caroline Lawrence and Dr Daisy Dunn.

Twitter: @carolinetutor
www.carolinetutor.co.uk

www.amandashortdesign.com

Post Scriptum

Given the historic events of this week following the sad death of Queen Elizabeth II, it seems only fitting to conclude this post with the following addendum. 

The Lexicon happened to be published on the day that Queen Elizabeth II died. When someone contacted me to say their copy had strangely fallen open on page 107, I looked at the entries on that page to check the significance. I shall let the page speak for itself (‘res ipsa loquitur’).

Extract from Pocket GCSE Latin Etymological Lexicon

The Queen and I by Adèle Geras

The recent wedding of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle has prompted me to write this post: a frank confession of my practically life-long interest in, and admiration for the Royal Family. I speak not as a Monarchist, but rather as a FAN. And when I say 'fan' I mean someone who has followed the dramas that have gone on in the House of Windsor since before the Coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953.

I began to be interested in the fortunes of the Princesses,  Lillibet and Margaret Rose, as I thought of them, in about 1952. I was living in Jesselton, North Borneo at the time and in that year I was 8 years old. My enduring love of newsprint and magazines dates from those days too: happy hours turning the pages of the Illustrated London News, which took some time to get to us, 'somewhere East of Suez' but which was a huge treat whenever I looked at it. My father used to get tissue-paper-thin air-mail copies of the New Statesman and Nation, as the Staggers was called back then, so we were very well-informed. We also had the Pathé News before each film was shown at the cinema. No television, of course...

In 1989, I wrote a book called The Coronation Picnic about this time and here is a quotation from it, which perfectly describes me: "The scrapbooks lived in the bottom drawer of the chest-of-drawers ...they were Amy's most precious possession. They were filled with photographs  cut from newspapers and magazines, which together recorded the life of the Royal Family. Now, as well as pictures of a smiling Princess Elizabeth on the balcony of Buckingham Palace and a smart young lady in uniform, as well as wedding photographs and portraits of the new baby prince, there were sad pictures of King George VI's funeral, with his mother and his wife and his daughters, all dressed in black."

In Jesselton, we celebrated the Coronation with a Launch Picnic. This meant going to an offshore island called Gaya where we swam and ate and what I remember of it most vividly was that the sea bed was completely visible through fathoms of totally translucent turquoise water, for the whole length of a twenty-minute trip in a motor launch. We went on such a picnic almost  every weekend, but I used the one just before the Coronation  as the background for my ghost story. In real life, there was a party for the children at the Club, featuring lots of cake and lemonade and small sandwiches. A brass band performed on the Padang, or field, which was part of the Club's grounds. The photos and film of the actual Coronation reached us some time later. I was very impressed with the pomp and the ceremony...the music thrilled me, too, and since that day, I've taken a strong interest in every doing of the Royals. It's the Soap Opera to end all soap operas and I regard every 'episode' as doing what the best soaps do: building up layers and layers of knowledge about the main characters and taking in life-changing events and dramas....the death of Diana, Princess of Wales was one such moment, and the most obvious, but every little scandal or tragedy or piece of celebration is grist to my mill. 

My opinion of individual members of the Royal Family changes over the years, according to how they're behaving, but certain things remain forever as they were. I fell in love with Prince Philip when I was 8 and none of his very obvious character flaws, and not even his rather disastrous decisions when it came to educating his eldest son, let alone his 'gaffes' have done anything to put me off him. I think he's very, very handsome and gallant and very good to the Queen. They are still, after more than 70 years of marriage, happy together. The compromises each has had to make along the way is their business, but there can be no doubt of their mutual devotion. 

The Queen is admirable. My friends and I knew, back when we were very young, that Margaret was the naughty one and Elizabeth the dutiful, good one. I was at boarding school during the Peter Townsend affair and we thought the whole thing terribly romantic and sad too.  We've learned a lot lately about what Margaret was really like but she was always touched with a kind of glamour for me because of her love of the arts, especially ballet.

One thing, though, has changed completely. I look at photographs from the 50s and see how lovely the young Elizabeth was. She had been a kind of frumpish figure in my eyes but now I can see that I was quite wrong and she was always the prettier of the sisters and even though not as outwardly glamorous as Margaret, beautiful and serene and yes, well-dressed for most occasions.

And so to weddings. On the day that Prince Charles married Diana Spencer, my daughters had the day off school and we watched the whole event on TV.   My elder daughter was 10 and the younger was 4 or so and I can report that this wedding did not turn either of them into followers of the Royal Soap Opera, though Younger Daughter did enjoy watching the latest Royal Wedding.  Everyone was  given mugs, or coins (I can no longer remember which!)  and the whole day had the feel of a holiday. I was 37. I can remember cringing at the awful interview when the couple became engaged,  with Prince Charles looking most uncomfortable and saying memorably, horribly: "Whatever love means". I could see that this marriage was not going to be plain sailing. I had mixed feelings about Diana Spencer. I felt sorry for her. I hoped she'd be okay,  but as the years went on (with happy interludes for the births of the two princes, William and Harry) the whole world, thanks to television and the  Press, watched as the Soap Opera went into a kind of hideous spiral culminating in the tragic death of a very pretty, glamorous,  kind but deeply troubled woman. The funeral was terribly sad, and no one who saw it can forget those two young boys walking behind the coffin. The designers of Soap Operas could hardly have hoped for a Narrative Arc more perfect than both Diana's sons finding what seems to be genuine happiness in their own marriages.   I also like the Lesser Narrative Arc which seems to have ensured the closeness of the brothers. 

Above is the Royal Wedding that's closest to my heart. Charles and Camilla are the least loved, I think, in the family, but I have a lot of time for the Duchess of Cornwall. When she and Charles were married I heaved a sigh of relief. They were meant for one another, and ought to have got together decades earlier. (See Duke of Edinburgh's mistakes.) They love one another. They've loved one another since they were very young indeed.  Also, I like Camilla for a silly reason: of all the members of the Royal Family, she's the one who reads. I sent her a copy of my novel 'Made in Heaven'  which has a whole section in it about her wedding to Charles, and her secretary wrote  me a lovely letter back saying thank you. Ask any writer: a thank you letter, especially one on headed notepaper, is a very rare thing indeed.  When this happened, I suggested in an email to Susan Hill that Camilla was just being polite and would never read it and Susan assured me she would. "She's a real reader," Susan said and they know one another, so I believe her.  I also admire the fact that she seems a good step-mother. It can't have been easy to make up for a loss like that suffered by William and Harry but they and Camilla get on well now, I believe and that's to the  credit of everyone.

I'm a bit ambivalent about Prince Charles but he's made a beautiful garden at Highgrove and his Duchy brand makes very nice lemon shortbread biscuits. His sons seem to love him and to love Camilla as well.  This, in Soap Terms, counts as a very happy Narrative Arc.

The media, I feel, might try and get us to take sides in the matter of which Duchess we like the best. Will we be Team Kate or Team Meghan? The Duchess of Cambridge is my local duchess, so to speak, and I really enjoyed her wedding to Prince William, with highlights such as Pippa Middleton's derriere, and so on. 

I continue to think she's lovely and I'm not among the detractors who mock her as 'norm core'. She always looks elegant and pretty and seems to be managing her life in the public eye with admirable reticence. I also like the look of her daughter, Charlotte, who is going to be, I predict, a Handful in the nicest possible way. She's already a Star Waver and seeker of the camera lens...that's going to be fun to follow as she grows up. Her parents have kept her away from the Press's attentions most effectively so far, but the decades will roll on and little princesses grow up...so do little princes. That's going to be very interesting to watch.

And so to Meghan Markle, who has brought something new and wonderful to the story. She's from Showbiz Royalty which has arguably more clout than our own variety. She's beautiful, talented and seems intelligent too. She's brilliant at interviews and knows how to present herself to the media in ways that our own un-show-biz Royals can only envy. I loved her in Suits and see no reason why she won't be just as good in this new part. She's taken it on for life, but I think she'll enjoy it and what the Wedding on May 19th showed an audience of billions round the world is this: Charles may not know what love means, but his son has no doubts whatsoever. He's madly in love and so is Meghan and that feeling between them made May 19th an occasion for the whole nation to rejoice. The Soap Opera Gods outdid themselves on that day. Everything looked wonderful, everything went exactly as it ought to have done. The whole congregation loved the service and so did we. Beautiful music, beautiful flowers, beautiful guests of both sexes, wonderful exchanges between members of the family and above all, Charles being kind and courteous to Meghan's mother who was there by herself. She was there alone because Meghan's family.....but that's a whole other soap opera, which may or may not become featured in the Windsor story.

Also, the press will watch every outfit the Duchess of Sussex wears and the eagle eyes of the gossip columnists will be fixed on her waistline...watch this space for news of another pregnancy. The story goes on and on...

Buckingham Palace Summer Opening - Royal Gifts by Imogen Robertson

Royal Gifts
22 July - 1 October 2017
The State Rooms, Buckingham Palace

Cover of Royal Gifts

Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017

So picture this: I’m broke, standing in the Buckingham Palace gift pavilion and looking for a present for my husband. I’m broke because I’m a novelist, at the Palace because I’ve just had a curator tour of the Royal Gifts Exhibition in the State Rooms, and looking for a present for Ned out of guilt, because while he’s slaving away at his desk, the Queen just gave me a cake. Ok, what I mean by that is one of the nice PR people from the palace gave me a café voucher for a pastry, but it was a very fine millefeuille which is Ned’s favourite and had a crown on it, so it counts. The Queen gave me a cake.

Not a Royal Gift

I don’t think I’m going to top it today, but the best present I’ve ever given my husband is a black glazed terracotta dipping cup, made in Apulia around 300 BCE. We fill it with terrifying spirits and pass it round the table at the end of dinner parties. It’s beautiful, but very simple, valuable, but no so valuable we have to lock it away. What makes it special is its age. It was there being a cup doing cuppy things when Christ was born, when the Vikings sacked Lindisfarne, when Caxton set up the first printing press in London and when the internet blinked into life. To Ned and me it symbolises hospitality, simplicity, change and continuity. It’s a sign of shared values. It says I know you, and you and I think the same things are important. Sometimes a cup is not just a cup.

We all assign value to objects through an uneasy and shifting dialogue between prevalent cultural values and our individual and shared histories. As a result gifts are never just themselves, they are a bundle of associations, allusions and suggestions. They say this is what I think about you, and often, this is what I want you to think about me. A gift is a message. Which is probably why I normally exchange strong drink with most of my writer friends and my mother often gives me cleaning products. 

With this is mind, looking at the gifts given to the Queen over the course of her long reign and from all over the world provides a fascinating series of snapshots of the relationships between nations and peoples and I found a huge amount to enjoy in the eclectic mix of items on display. They are grouped geographically by the giver, and there’s also a section devoted to gifts from the UK. A lot of the gifts are exemplars of local arts and crafts, such as the magnificent beaded throne given by Nigeria and made by the Yoruba people. The throne was one of my favourite pieces in the exhibition. It's strangely lovely, such skilled work and full of its own particular symbolism. 

From Bermuda comes a oil painting by Graham Foster of the wreck of the Sea Venture in 1609. Everyone survived the wreck, so it's not commemorating a tragedy, but evoking a shared maritime history. The Mexican tree of life is the product of different cultural cross-currents and also an affectionate portrait of the Queen herself, who features in a natty yellow ensemble in the centre of it. Some gifts are startling in their simplicity, such as the prayer shawl blessed by the Dali Lama from Tibet, others seem rather driven by affection such as the map of New Zealand presented by their girl guides, with an accompanying book signed by every girl guide in the country. There are also some unconventional treasures on show whose values are rather like that of the relics exchanged between medieval monarchs. A bone is just a bone, but when its the thigh bone of a saint it’s a worthy gift. A scrap of cloth is not valuable in itself, but when it is the Union Flag badge worn in space by Major Tim Peake it becomes something fitting to give to a monarch whose reign began before we’d climbed Everest. 

Of course, I am, as all the visitors are, also bringing my own ideas of meaning to these gifts, but that is the pleasure of these objects, they are extra chips of glass in the historical kaleidoscope and seeing them together is a fascinating way to shake up and reexamine what we are trying to say to each other.

The exhibition is perhaps overshadowed by the State Rooms themselves, but then I doubt many people would pay £23 entry fee just to see the gifts. I've never been to this part of the Palace before, so was distracted by the Vermeer and Van Dykes, the chandeliers and thrones, not to mention the 1980s gas fires in the ornate marble fireplaces. The gifts do make for a very interesting addition to the tour though, and the setting only emphasises the variety and varied aesthetic pleasures of the gifts displayed. 

So what did I get Ned? Well it had to be relatively cheap, and fun, but I didn’t think he’d really appreciate a stuffed Corgi. I wanted something Royal, but something about us too, so I got him this. He says he likes it.

www.imogenrobertson.com

King Charles III and the Importance of Writing Things Down by Catherine Hokin

“But now I’ll rise to how things have to be.

The Queen is dead; Long live the King — that’s me.”

 Tim Piggot-Smith as King Charles, BBC 

"Mike Bartlett's play is a reminder that, even for Republicans, the Queen's death will loom large." This was the Guardian's comment on Bartlett's 'foreboding' play King Charles III, screened just a few days after a twitter melt-down over a Buckingham Palace press-statement so shrouded in anticipation that the Sun 'newspaper's' website pre-empted the news of Prince Philip's retirement with the announcement of his death. Sometimes you can't help but long for the days when even discussing a royal demise was treason and punished as such.

If you haven't had a chance to see the play (airing on the BBC in the UK and Masterpiece in the US), it is a remarkable thing. Written in blank verse to deliberately underline its Shakespearean-style machinations and betrayals, the play concerns the accession of Prince Charles and the consequent constitutional crisis which develops as he tries to find more meaning than mummery in his role. It is plausibly-played and, since it was written in 2014, seems to have found new layers of meaning as revelations have broken over the 'black-spider memos' and the two princes have spoken publicly about the toll their mother's death has taken. 

 The House comes tumbling down, BBC

Without giving too much away, the plot hinges on the United Kingdom's lack of a constitution and the ramifications of that 

if a monarch decides not to play ball. The moment when the Commons realises how powerless they really are against the heavy knock on the chamber door is chilling and was not helped for me by my American husband's response to my horrified outrage: 'that's what you get if you base your country on a gentlemen's agreement.' Given the amount of stick he's taken over Trump and the idiocy of our failure to actually enshrine the "set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed [which] make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is” in writing, I had to suck it up. 

 Sophia of Hanover

Constitutional monarchy (where the monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a democratically-derived constitution) has its roots in the Magna Carta and was enshrined following the 1688 'Glorious Revolution' and the 1701 Act of Settlement which passed the crown to the family of Sophia, Electress of Hanover. In Europe, 
Napoleon Bonaparte is considered as the first constitutional monarch as he proclaimed himself as an embodiment of the nation, rather than as a divinely-appointed ruler in contrast to the Divine Right following French Kings before him. The role of the British monarch is understood as a ceremonial and politically neutral one: the current Queen holds weekly (closed and undocumented) meetings with the Prime Minister and can suggest/advise on policy matters and she gives the royal assent to bills and to the appointing of prime ministers but, since the passing of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act in 2011, she can no longer use the royal prerogative to dissolve parliament.

Ah, the royal prerogative - a strange and wonderful beast sometimes exercised by ministers (it was used by Margaret Thatcher to go war over the Falklands) and still available to the monarch (although, obviously, we can trust them not to do anything silly with it). The royal prerogative has been described as a notoriously difficult concept to define adequately (Select Committee on Public Administration, 16 March 2004) and originates in the time of King Alfred as the personal power of the monarch as gifted by God. Curbing the extent of this prerogative in favour of a democratic voice has been a central theme throughout British history and tracing the efforts to stop the monarch dissolving the parliaments trying to stop the monarch is like watching a wonderful game of historical cat and mouse.

 Political Cartoon 1832

The last monarch to physically march into parliament and dissolve it was William IV in 1831. William IV succeeded his brother George IV to the throne on 26th June 1830 at the age of 64. At that time the death of a monarch required a general election: Lord Grey was elected, began trying to push electoral reform through, was defeated and went to the King to ask him to dissolve parliament so it could be better built with his supporters. The descriptions of the King marching into parliament, putting on his crown as he went are astonishing: The Times said it was "utterly impossible to describe the scene ... The violent tones and gestures of noble Lords ... astonished the spectators, and affected the ladies who were present with visible alarm." Lord Londonderry was seen brandishing a whip, threatening to thrash government supporters and had to be forcibly restrained, violent riots erupted and the King's carriage was pelted with rubbish. Bartlett uses this episode as the precedent to Charles's actions in the play and and the spreading shock is palpable.

Could this happen again and art play itself out as history? It would be a risky move and the Windsors are nothing if not brilliant at survival. However, the extent of royal prerogative remains unclear and suspension and summoning seems still to be within the monarch's power even if dissolving is not. The current Queen is very adapt at keeping her feelings hidden despite the media looking for constant hints - the speculation over her attitude to Scottish independence stirred up a hornet's nest - but Charles is certainly a lesser-known, or perhaps too well-known, quantity. For outsiders and republicans like me whose interest in a royal family is purely historic, the relationship between Britain and its its royal family is a curious one. A lot of its 'loyalty' (as Bartlett uses in his play) seems to be tied up with the Queen herself - perhaps, given that 83% of us have spent our whole lives with her as Queen and she has kept well away from controversy, there is an inbred sense of trust. However, when the news blackout and the twitter-storm really does herald the big sea-change, I wonder how many of us will come to regret that those rather ambiguous powers were recorded as starkly as the black-edged announcement. We can't say we weren't warned...

The Queen of Tonga by Janie Hampton

Here’s a story to cheer you up on a miserable cold day at the end of January. On a June afternoon in 1953, a golden coach was pulled through the crowded streets of London in the pouring rain by eight grey horses.

The pouring rain did not dampen coronation spirits

A procession of soldiers, military bands, generals on horseback, bagpipers and foreign monarchs in horse-drawn carriages wound through central London on a five-mile route from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace. Hundreds of thousands of people had been waiting all night and most of the day in the rain. Considering it was June, with the trees in full leaf and the days so long, the weather was cold and miserable. When it wasn’t damp, it was drizzling; and when not drizzling, it poured. But the crowds remained upbeat and excited. After the dark years of the Second World War and the austerity that followed it, at last there was a reason to celebrate. They had been waiting for this day for over a year: the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. ‘It was all organised by the Duke of Norfolk,’ said 12 year old Jane Roberts. ‘He had a face like a miserable dog.' The route was lined with policemen in capes, naval cadets, and soldiers from around the world, wearing the medals they had won in the war. As the procession made its stately way towards the palace, the roar of applause cascaded down the streets like a Mexican wave at a sports ground. The children cheered the Canadian Mounties in their red uniforms on their sleek dark horses. Scottish people cheered the bagpipers, with their swinging kilts. Older people cheered Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, stately and courageous, sitting in a glass coach with her glamorous daughter Princess Margaret. Others cheered the Life Guards in their pointed helmets with white plumes and shining brass breastplates. They all marched in unison to the thumping beat of the military bands playing ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and the Victorian marching song, ‘We’re the soldiers of the Queen, m’lud’. But the strongest image that remains with everybody who was there that day is not of the beautiful young woman in the golden coach. The loudest and longest applause was for a monarch nobody had seen before, a woman of over six feet in height and 300 pounds in weight. Waving and smiling enthusiastically from her open carriage, her dark skin glistening in the rain, was the large and joyful Queen of Tonga, 
‘We heard the roar of the crowds from a mile away,’ said Enid Brown, who had come down from Birmingham with her sister Joyce. ‘We thought it must be for our new queen. The sound like the roar of a storm, it made my spine tingle. When the black carriage appeared we could see why. There was the usual pair of lovely black horses pulling. All the other carriages had their hoods up and you couldn’t really see who was inside. But this one was different alright. The top was down and there was this big lady. When we saw her, oh how we cheered! It was her joyful disdain of the pelting rain. You could see she wasn’t going to let a small thing like that ruin the day. We didn’t know who she was, but we still loved her.’

Queen Salote Mafile‘o Pilolevu Tupou III  of Tonga

Word went round the crowd that she was the Queen of Tonga. 'Who’d ever heard of Tonga? Some said it was in Africa, others said it was in the Pacific Ocean,'said Enid Brown, 'Some said she had come in a canoe. Well wherever it was, it was her spirit, her style, that won us all over,'
  Queen Salote of Tonga was one of 129 heads of state who had come to London to witness the coronation of Elizabeth II. Her landau carriage, with facing seats over a dropped footwell and hinged soft folding top, was driven by two old coachmen in top hats and velvet coats. Bringing up the rear was an escort of four mounted military police. She had insisted on keeping the hood of her carriage down, so that she could see the crowds, and they could see her. The 53-year-old Queen was dressed in gold and crimson robes, topped off by a golden tiara with a tall, red feather. She laughed and waved, and the people laughed and waved back, and she became the star of the day.
   The Kingdom of Tonga is an archipelago of nearly two hundred islands between New Zealand and Hawaii, scattered over five hundred miles in the Southern Pacific Ocean, with only fifty-five thousand inhabitants. First settled in 800 BC, with the same royal family since 1600, it was named the ‘Friendly Islands’ by Captain James Cook after his first visit in 1773. In 1900 Tonga became a British Protectorate but remained a monarchy. As well as ruling, Queen Salote Mafile‘o Pilolevu Tupou III wrote songs, love poems and lakalaka – the traditional Tongan dance performed en masse with synchronised arm movements.

Queen Salote was six foot two inches tall, part of a royal dynasty far older than the British monarchy.

     John Douglas was an army officer on duty on The Mall. ‘I had a splendid view of all the procession. The loudest cheer was not for Queen Elizabeth but for the Queen of Tonga. This very large lady was in an open carriage despite the torrential rain and waving furiously at the crowds, who admired her fortitude.’ For many people it was the first time they had seen foreigners other than American GIs in the war. Cross-cultural tolerance was required in all directions. The Sheiks from the British Protectorate of Qatar thought it perfectly proper to bring their personal African slaves. Nobody had thought to tell them that slavery had been abolished in Britain a hundred and fifty years earlier.
       On his small black and white television at home, the playwright Noel Coward and his companion were watching the procession. Perched opposite the Queen of Tonga in her carriage was the diminutive Sultan of Kelantan in Malaysia, husband to three wives and father of twenty-three children. Coward’s friend asked him, ‘And who is that sitting in Queen Salote’s carriage?’ ‘Luncheon,’ he replied.

When singing The Queen of Tonga, the author of this blog drinks coffee from this coronation mug

 Jack Fishman, editor of the Sunday newspaper The Empire News, wrote a popular song about that rainy day in June, with a lilting ‘calypso’ rhythm and catchy tune. Sung by Edmundo Ros, ‘The Queen of Tonga’, soon caught on and was being whistled all over the country.
In the pacific Islands of Tonga,
They make their people stronger,
Oh it can rain or storm or squall,
But they don’t feel nothin’ at all.
Chorus: Oh! The Queen of Tonga Cross’d the ocean from far away.
Oh! The Queen of Tonga Came to Britain for Co-ro-nat-ion Day.
And when the people saw her on that torrential morn,
She captured all before her, took ev’ryone by storm.
 In every heart will always live longer,
That reign-in’ Queen of Tonga.

Elizabeth II’s 90th Birthday by Janie Hampton

On April 21st Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Head of the Commonwealth and Defender of the Faith, will be 90 years old.
When Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary of York was born in 1926, her handsome and popular 32-year-old uncle, the Prince of Wales (later the Duke of Windsor), was heir to the throne. His younger brother, Elizabeth’s father, the Duke of York, enjoyed the traditional pursuits of a country gentleman, such as shooting pheasants and dancing Scottish reels. He took his daughter fox-hunting on her pony ‘Peggy’ when she was four years old. His favourite dog was a Labrador called ‘Stiffy’. Little ‘Lilibet’ called her adored grandfather, King George V, ‘Grandpa England’.

Princess Elizabeth aged 3 

George V died in 1936 and when Edward VIII abdicated a year later, Elizabeth’s shy father became King George VI and she became ‘Heir Presumptive’. Never ‘Heir Apparent’, because there was always the possibility that her father would produce a legitimate son who would automatically take precedence over any older sisters. The 10-year-old girl watched her father’s coronation in Westminster Abbey with quiet dignity and reserve.

Aged 7, painted by Philip de Laszlo

The Girl Guides Association has always been across
the road from Buckingham Palace

Princess Elizabeth had the finest private tutors in the country, headed by the vice-provost of Eton College. She studied constitution, American history, the Commonwealth, French and German. She was made to stand for many of her lessons, so that she would get used to the long hours on her feet watching regiments march past. She visited museums, factories, the Bank of England, the House of Commons and the Royal Courts of Justice – to see for herself how her country worked.

 

Marion Crawford, the royal governess, was determined that her charges, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, should live normal lives, and their parents wanted them to be members of the community. ‘Just how difficult this is to achieve, if you live in a palace, is hard to explain,’ wrote ‘Crawfie’. ‘A glass curtain seems to come down between you and the outer world, however hard a struggle is made to avoid it.’

In 1937 Miss Crawford suggested that the princesses become Girl Guides, so that they could understand the lives of ordinary children, and maybe even meet some. Their aunt, the Princess Royal, was President of the Girl Guides Association and recommended they meet the formidable Miss Violet Synge, who had driven ambulances during the First World War. She was appalled at the idea. ‘One of my greatest difficulties,’ wrote Crawfie, ‘was to get people to realise that these two little girls wanted only to be treated as any other normal and healthy little girls of their own ages.’ Nevertheless, the 1st Buckingham Palace Guide Company of twenty Guides was born and Miss Synge became its first Captain (and later Guide Commissioner for England).

Girl Guides Princess Elizabeth & Princess Margaret sent a message to other
Guides by carrier pigeon on Thinking Day, February 22, 1943.

The Company, made up of daughters of court officials and palace employees, met in the summerhouse in the palace garden. The King made one stipulation. ‘I’ll stand anything,’ he said, ‘but I won’t have them wear those hideous long black stockings. Reminds me too much of my youth.’ So the Palace Guides wore knee-length beige socks, an innovation soon adopted by Guides everywhere. Some of the new recruits didn’t quite understand the point about Guides and the purpose of uniform, and arrived in party frocks with white gloves, accompanied by their nannies who wanted to stay and watch. ‘We soon put a stop to all that,’ said Miss Crawford.

After the Blitz began over London in 1940, many people thought that the two princesses should be evacuated to the safety of Canada. But their parents were adamant that the Royal Family would stick together and bear the same risks as other British families. However, unlike most British families, they had a spare castle, and the girls and their governess moved to Windsor, where they remained until the end of the war. Despite this seclusion, the princesses were encouraged to perform, and Elizabeth played Principal Boy, in powdered wig and breeches, in pantomimes of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Aladdin. At a fundraising concert in Windsor Castle, she led the singing of rounds, sea shanties and Negro spirituals.

Aged only 15, Elizabeth addressed the children of Britain on the wireless. She told them that she sympathised with those who had been evacuated, as she too was often separated from her parents (though the King and Queen made it back to Windsor Castle most nights). ‘When peace comes, remember it will be for us, the children of today, to make the world of tomorrow a better and happier place. My whole life shall be devoted to your service, but I shall not have the strength to carry out this resolution unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do,’ she announced in her clear, piping voice.

Like these Kent Guides, Princess Elizabeth
learned to cook on a camp fire.

In 1942, Princess Elizabeth, like any other 16-year-old girl, went along to the Labour Exchange in Windsor to register for National Service. She had by then attained Guide proficiency badges vital for her future career as a modern monarch: Swimmer, Dancer, Horsewoman, Child Nurse, Needlewoman and Interpreter. The last was especially useful for a queen: she could identify over fifty flags, including the Royal Standard, and tell foreigners where to find the main ports of Britain, the value of British money, and advise about local hotels, buses and cafés.

A year later, she became a Sea Ranger and learnt how to sail, cook in cramped quarters and re-leather rowing oars. ‘Slit trenches had been dug for the camp by the Grenadier Guards and air raid drill was taken by Company Sergeant Major of the Grenadiers,’ stated The Guider magazine. Her Majesty the Queen had tea in the camp and was taken out in a rowing boat, coxed by her daughter. Round the campfire, Princess Elizabeth sang shanties and took part in a sketch called ‘Mein Kamp’.

For her 18th birthday, the Girl Guides Association gave the princess a tent, a sleeping bag and a rucksack containing a looking glass, an ‘oil-silk sponge-bag’ and an aluminium egg cup.

By June 1945, press censorship of the weather had been lifted, and The Guider revealed that Princess Elizabeth made a speech in the pouring rain, to five thousand Girl Guides in Wales.

That same year Elizabeth was commissioned into the Auxiliary Territorial Service (later the Women’s Royal Army Corps) and was posted to the ‘No. 1 Mechanical Transport Training Centre’. Already a Colonel in the Grenadier Guards, Second-Subaltern Elizabeth Windsor (No. 230873) studied military law and learned how to drive and maintain cars, lorries and ambulances. The report on her performance by the Royal Corps of Transport Officers stated: ‘Extremely quick to learn, she is not rash, and drives with consideration and thought for others on the road, and with every care for her car.’

At 90 years old, and after 64 years on the throne, she still drives her Land Rover herself.

Happy Birthday, Lilibet!

Janie Hampton is the author of ‘Rationing & Revelry – the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II 1953’, available as a Kindle Single.  © Janie Hampton 

"A ROYAL WELCOME" at Buckingham Palace. By Penny Dolan

Once I heard a writer talk about finding the right word for the “thing you’d drink from” for an exact historical setting. “Goblet” seemed too grand, “beaker” sounded too ancient and “glass” did not fit the time or the object. “Cup” was the word finally chosen. This always struck me as a clear example of how, in historical fiction, the right word is needed for small objects as much as for the grandest items, However, I’m sure that every correct term is known by those involved with the meal that I‘m writing about today.

One sunny morning this summer, I walked through London’s Green Park, heading for Buckingham Palace. I’d been invited, along with a small group of bloggers, to visit the annual Summer Opening of the State Apartments.This year’s theme, “A Royal Welcome”, was an interpretation for the public of all that was involved in welcoming visiting Members of State to an official State Banquet, set within the impressive state rooms where these meetings usually take place.

From the side gates, we were led towards the Grand Entrance where the Australian State coach, horseless, was a reminder that Ambassadors and similar visitors would not be arriving on foot. We went up a few carpeted steps before pausing in an opulently gloomy space, observed by stern, stony-eyed busts. Ahead rose the Grand Staircase, that leads all visitors – us included – suitably slowly towards the brightness of the State Apartments above. The dark and light created a moment of architectural drama that must have an impact on anyone approaching an audience with Her Majesty.

The Throne Room, at the head of the stairs, was dedicated to Investitures and Honours, displayed documents, looping videos and portraits of the many people honoured by the Queen during her long reign. Then we were led into the main part of the exhibition: the preparations for a State Banquet, always held on first night of any official State Visit. The matter of who is being invited is diplomatically planned and negotiated between officials at the Government and the Palace, often over three years or more, and the purpose is the development of good trade and political relations between the prestigious visitors and Britain. This was a useful thought to bear in mind when the hard work and careful preparations were shown within the next cases.

The Office, the first display showed some of the administration involved to make sure the 170 guests, particularly the Guests of Honour, feel as much at their ease as possible. We saw the cupboard of thick files, each bearing the name of a state or country, as well as the writing desk where invitations are prepared by hand and, on a table nearby, the deep wooden tray filled with invitations, and the small booklets also sent to each individual guest.

Inside the booklet, along with general notes and the night’s menu, is the seating plan. A red dot marks the guest’s own seat, and the plan would also show the names of those seated nearby. In addition, the administrative staff also check that each guest knows enough of any foreign language to converse with their neighbours and - if not a first visit - that the guest is seated so they can meet a different group of people, widening the spread of the relationships. This intense planning perfectly illustrated that the evening is about trade and diplomatic relations, not principally about being with friends in the everyday sense. Though no doubt pleasant, a State Banquet was starting to feel like royal work.

It would be work certainly for the Kitchen. Victorian copper pans, regularly re-lined, hung gleaming from a rack, alongside a set of chef’s whites with embroidered insignia. Although four courses are traditionally served (fish, meat, pudding and fruit) the kitchen table on show concentrated on the third course, with a display of recipes and moulds used for the creation of a chocolate bombe, the State Banquet favourite. 

 

There was also a charming tray of delicate sugar-work orchids, “national” flowers used to personalise the banquet of a visiting President. There were also rows of chocolate buttons, moulded and gilded to match the real buttons on the palace livery.  Would any of those embossed buttons be taken home discreetly as treats for children?

The Wine Cellar display hinted at bottles stored somewhere within the palace walls, as well as the glassware. With four wines served at the meal, almost seven hundred delicate glasses must be inspected beforehand for breaks or splintered edges. What I would call the crockery and cutlery came next: the golden plates, almost like those in a fairy tale, must be counted out. True gold is soft, so the plates are really made of silver-gilt. The gilt cutlery too, must be counted out, as well as the china plates and dishes used for the other three courses. With so many guests, no single set is sufficient for the entire table, so a variety of plates, cutlery and glassware will be used for the meal. The exhibition showed a pretty blue Georgian dining service, along with the huge wooden storage chests that keeps it safe when not in use. I could not help thinking of old tales of travelling royalty and their long baggage trains.

 

The Queen herself will obviously look her best at such events, so "A Royal Welcome" included a display based on the work of her own dressmaker, Angela Kelly, as well as three examples of designer gowns worn by Her Majesty during her long reign.  

(Further on, in the Music Room, there was a display about the work of the Royal Garden Parties, where our guide explained that Her Majesty often dresses in a single “block of colour” for such events, which made identification and photographs much easier. Of course, I’d seen that the Queen dressed like that, but I hadn’t truly appreciated quite why.) 

At last, we came to the huge Ball Room where an enormous u-shaped table was shown in full banqueting glory, spread with place settings, flowers and ornate decoration. Tiny dots of lights shone down over each place, instead of the usual candles, to make sure there was no danger of fire during the long hours of this public exhibition. However, one end of the table had been left as it would be at the start of preparation, with the measuring rule still across the white cloth, and places still to be laid (rather like a bad “Downtown Abbey” staffing moment, although in a most superior situation.)  The white napkins are folded into a neat “dutch bonnet” pattern so they sit easily on the plate and also so they can be moved discreetly if there are sudden changes in guest numbers. When seated for the Banquet, the Queen and her State Visitors face the huge pipe organ once housed in Brighton’s Royal Pavilion but – no doubt thankfully – dinner music will be provided by the Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra or other musicians, and be pieces by Elgar, Gershwin, Debussy, or even themes from the Harry Potter movies.

In all the rooms of “A Royal Welcome”, there were short video loops showing all the various staff at their work in more detail. On one of the three screens in the Ballroom was the moment when the Queen’s Piper and his band greet the start of the State Banquet, followed by the procession of wonderfully synchronised waiting staff. all in scarlet jackets, each allocated to a set group of diners. A discreet “traffic light” system regulates the serving around the table, or so I heard, as it would certainly be difficult to see the head of the table from either foot. There was also a short, clever time-lapse video, showing the whole process of table preparation, banquet and clearing away all within three minutes. 



How briefly all the Royal Party and guests seemed to be sitting there! You can find a version on the Royal Welcome website, too.

After leaving the Ballroom, we were led into the State Dining Room. This is where, on a long polished table, the exchanged State Gifts are displayed for viewing, along with all those previously received. (Someone whispered that, during a long ago state visit, there was some embarrassment when a second chess set was received for display.)

On show we saw gifts such as elegant Japanese porcelain and a delicate gilt temple from Indonesia, but what a surprise the Queen must have had when she received this traditional Tree of Life plaque from Mexico: the heavily coloured ornate surface was covered in tiny images of her own self and her life as a monarch.

What did I feel at the end of “A Royal Welcome”, after all the magnificence and the life size Georgian portraits and the bright chandeliers and gilded ceilings and walls?

I admit I felt respect for all that the Palace staff that keep this great enterprise running.

Also, knowing that the original Banquet shadowed for “A Royal Welcome” was only one of many the Queen must have sat through during her long reign - now the longest of any British Monarch - I felt a sense of the work this must be for Her Majesty as well : to be always the centre of such events even when you felt unwell or unwilling, and with so much history and tradition constantly around you and your duty that must be done.   

 Not, I felt, a life many would long for.

Finally, as with achy feet, I eyed the golden sofas and single footstool in the White Drawing Room, I ended up hoping that the Queen’s private rooms give her and her family a place to relax comfortably when they are away from “the shop”, and free of “the function of promoting peace, good relations and trade.” 

Many thanks to Buckingham Palace Press Office for inviting me, as one of the History Girls, to visit this year’s “A Royal Welcome”.  There are still ten days to go before this year’s showing finally ends on 27th September 2015. Each year has a different theme, and last year’s exhibition, “A Royal Childhood”, was visited by History Girl Sue Purkiss.  Quite how, I wonder, will Buckingham Palace celebrate 2016?

Penny Dolan

A Boy Called MOUSE, pub Bloomsbury.