In conversation: royal correspondent Robert Hardman
By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - 0 Comments
She’s been on the throne for 60 years, yet in Our Queen, royal author Robert Hardman argues that she’s changed the monarchy more than any sovereign in recent times. Although the monarchy may have once been a stuffy, ossified institution inside and out, Hardman explores its unseen young, vibrant side. The author has gone behind the green baize door for an intimate, fascinating exploration of how Queen Elizabeth II remoulded an ancient institution so that it fits into this increasingly hectic modern era. Gone are the gentleman amateurs who ran the royal household and in are professionals.
Q: You’ve been following the royal family for a long time. With so many topics available on the Windsors, why did you want to write this particular book?
A: I’ve been a royal correspondent for 10 years and subsequently I’ve written documentaries and features, so I’ve seen a lot of the monarchy as an institution. Every time I’ve had a look behind the scenes there was a sense that things were changing. Superficially it’s a traditional institution, but behind the scenes it’s not. Does she lead it from the top? Is it a hidebound old court or is it rather a quirky interesting, surprisingly modern organization?
Q: Which one is it?
A: It’s both. It still has guys in Georgian frock coats with titles like the yeoman of the glass china pantry, but you look up close and the guy’s got an ear piece. It’s ancient and modern.
Then look at the way finances have changed. The cost of the institution in 1990 was about 65 million pounds a year and now it’s about 31 million pounds a year. That’s pretty substantial.
You look at the way they interact with us, the public—the guest list at events. Twenty years ago, guests for a garden party could only bring along a spouse and any unmarried daughter aged between 16 and 25. Now you can bring your significant other, civil partner, whatever.
It’s relaxed in areas that needed relaxing but it hasn’t made the mistake of being populist. A recurring theme throughout the book is what I call the royal paradox, which is we want the royal family to be just like us but at the same time we want them to be completely different.
Q: How stuck in the mud was it back in the 1980s?
A: The court hadn’t changed much since 1888—if you were there, you were there for life. And that led to complacency. There were no cries for reform in the early days of Charles and Diana. The garden looked rosy but there were some wise old birds who realized that things had to change. For one, the monarchy was running out of money. They had to wake up and smell the coffee and set that process in motion in the mid 80s.
Q: In the book, you mention Lord Airlie, the lord chamberlain who runs the household as the key driver of change when it came to modernizing how the royal household functioned. To what extent was the Queen involved in those decisions?
A: She was consulted every step of the way. It couldn’t have happened without her. It wasn’t a case of them pulling the wool over the eyes of this impressionable, gullible lady. Lord Airlie actually went to her in the mid 80s and said, “I need to have executive responsibility. I need to do what lord chamberlains don’t normally do: I need to get in there and throw my weight around, and bring in some people who won’t necessarily go down so well.
The Queen not only agreed to that but she had to bash off some fairly retrenched forces of conservatism, notably her dear beloved mother, who could not abide any of this stuff.
From what I can gather, she’s always been open to suggestions, and much more open to suggestions and new innovation now than in the earlier days.
Q: Isn’t that surprising given her age?
A: Well, yes, exactly. It’s usually the other way around with an organization run by the same person for 60 years, you’d expect it to have stagnated to the point of ossification by now.
It’s completely different now. I got sent an invitation to some jubilee thing, and until a few years ago, to RSVP you had to write a formal letter, “Mr. Robert Hardman presents his compliments to the master of the household…” and now there’s an email reply in it, “Are you coming or not, and oh and by the way, are you a vegan?”
Q: They got lucky by starting the changes in the 80s, didn’t they?
A: That was a godsend, because when things started to go really wrong in the mid 90s, most of the reforms, in terms of the finances, management and the general attitude had been addressed.
Although it looked as though there was a sudden shocking crisis in 1992—and it was a crisis, you had a series of domestic dramas, media dramas, the fire at Windsor Castle: it was a ghastly year—when the monarchy got itself into that situation, it was far better prepared to deal with it. They had sorted out a formula for sorting out the tax situation.
Q: There is a new deal regarding the financing of the monarchy. Now it will get a share of the annual profits from the Crown Estate, the extensive Crown property that belongs to the reigning monarchy “in right of the Crown.” Now instead of all the profits going to the government’s coffers, 15 per cent will fund the monarchy. Do you think it’s a good deal?
A: I think it’s clever. Firstly as a historical precedent, in the old days before 1760, the monarchy took in all this money [from the Crown Estate] and used it to run itself. Now it’s going back to that system but instead of taking all the money, it’s taking 15 per cent. It always seemed slightly unhealthy that the monarchy had to go on bended knee to Parliament. It looked like it was begging for more cash and more handouts.
From 1990 to 2010 the Civil List, which is an annual allowance from the state to the monarch for being the monarch, that figure was fixed at 7.9 million pounds every year. They built up a surplus, so that when it came up for renewal in 2000, the government said “oh, you don’t need a pay rise, you can have that fixed rate for another 10 years.” They preserved this cash pot, made savings and for 20 years got by on the same budget.
At the end of that, instead of anyone going around and saying, “well done,” there was shouting in Parliament, “Oh my God, they want a pay rise! How absolutely disgraceful. How can they possibly justify that!” No one pointed out that in the same period that they’d been on the same allowance, from 1990 to 2010, an MP’s salary had more than trebled.
Q: When she came in 2010 for a visit to Canada, more than 100,000 people crammed onto Parliament Hill to see her on Canada Day. A normal July 1 gets around 40,000 to the Hill. The reason heard over and over was, “Well, it’s because it’s her!”
Are you seeing that now?
A: I think that’s been the big change with this jubilee. It’s very much about her. Maybe for the last 20 to 30 years it was the younger members of the family who had all the glamour around them, whether it was Diana, or Prince Charles or, more recently, the duke and duchess of Cambridge. But this is all about her. It’s as if Britain’s woken up and said, “God, you know what? She’s quite extraordinary. We’re quite lucky to have her. Let’s have a party!”
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Charles & Camilla to meet Rob Ford: what could go wrong?
By Patricia Treble - Monday, May 21, 2012 at 11:18 AM - 0 Comments
Paul Chiasson/CP
Canadian Heritage just released its detailed Ontario itinerary of Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla’s four day royal tour of Canada for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.
The first event in Toronto for the pair will be watching the massive Victoria Day fireworks display at Ashbridge’s Bay. While 60,000-plus Torontonians get there by roads, the royal couple will arrive by RCMP launch. Smart move. Traffic is notoriously horrid.
And it’s at this event that tour organizers have cleverly dealt with the “problem named Rob.”
2110 Their Royal Highnesses arrive at Ashbridge’s Bay and are greeted by the Premier of Ontario, the Honourable Dalton McGuinty, M.P.P., and Mrs. Terri McGuinty.
The Premier presents the Mayor of Toronto, His Worship Rob Ford and Mrs. Renata Ford.
Meeting the controversial mayor at dusk, at a deafening event that doesn’t allow idle chit chat–”We just love bicycles, don’t you?”–neatly contains a potential nightmare scenario of having him go royally rogue in front of the world’s media.
It’s the play of the day.
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A meal fit for queens, kings, sovereigns and potentates
By Patricia Treble - Friday, May 18, 2012 at 12:50 PM - 0 Comments
John Stillwell/AP (See below for the list of attendees.)
She’s got a national anthem that asks God to save her, lives amid priceless treasures and is so widely known that when people in, say, Mali, talk about the Queen, everyone knows there is only one sovereign: Her Majesty Elizabeth II. She inhabits a rarified world unknown to all but a few, so it was only fitting that just 22–some related to her in ways only genealogists can decipher, and good friends–gathered on Friday at Windsor Castle for a lunch to celebrate her 60 years on the throne. King Harald V kissed her on both cheeks and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands threw out her arms before greeting her fellow sovereign. Some have long been out of power (King Constantine of Greece), while others lead tiny statelets (Prince Albert of Monaco), but they all belong to the most exclusive club in the world. Protocol officials must have gone mad trying to figure out who sat where, but that didn’t seem to matter for the invitees as kings mingled freely with queens, grand dukes, ruling princes and emirs.
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Abreast From the West paddles for the Queen
By Patricia Treble - Monday, May 7, 2012 at 5:36 PM - 0 Comments
When the email arrived in Leanne Jacobsen’s inbox offering a position in a dragon boat crew for the the Thames Jubilee flotilla, the experienced paddler didn’t hesitate. She signed up on the spot. “It’s an amazing opportunity,” the West Vancouver, B.C., resident recounts, “and something we’ll remember our whole lives.” On June 3, she and 13 other paddlers from the Vancouver area, all dressed in red-and-white shirts adorned with maple leaves will use a borrowed English dragon boat to take part in one of the most spectacular events of the central four-day Diamond Jubilee weekend in June.
Named ‘Abreast From the West’ because they are all breast cancer survivors—Jacobsen signed up on the 10th anniversary of her treatment—the newly formed crew will be the only all-Canadian boat among 1,000 vessels.
It won’t be a relaxing Sunday jaunt on the Thames River. While a typical dragon boat race is a 500-m sprint, this extravaganza, made up of everything from kayaks and tall ships to the Queen and her family sitting on a custom built royal barge, will last around 22 gruelling kilometres from staging areas to the finale. Just to add to the pressure, they’ve been told their vessel will be “at the front of the pack, just behind the barge holding the bell [specially commissioned to peal during the event] and just ahead of the royal barge,” Jacobsen says.
The Abreast From the West odyssey started last year when Heather Trenholm, the team’s captain, heard about the Thames flotilla while dragon boating in Malaysia. She put in an application online and on Dec. 31 she got the much-coveted invitation. She immediately sent out emails asking for volunteers. It didn’t take long to fill all the positions with experienced dragon boaters from the area. Their ages range from the mid forties to early seventies.
Right now they are building up their endurance on the Fraser River, practicing two times with their own teams and then once a week with the Thames crew. Jacobsen says it’s unlikely they’ll get a training run on a waterway known for its strong currents and eddies, since they’ll arrive a few days before the event. (They are paying their own way over.)
But they have figured out one, very important, manoeuvre: how to take pictures of the big event. “We’ve done drills with each of us having a sit out time of two to three minutes per bench to take photos,” Jacobsen explains. “This is definitely on our agenda.”
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How Leah McLaren nearly crossed the TMI line with the Queen
By Patricia Treble - Friday, May 4, 2012 at 2:29 PM - 0 Comments
Leah McLaren just landed on the front page of the Spectator with a tale of how the Queen nearly got an earful from her in response to a regally innocuous and unmistakably British “How do you do?” at a Buckingham Palace reception. The Canadian London correspondent had just found out she was pregnant and had to restrain herself from crossing the “Too Much Information” line with Her Maj.
On the way home she burst into tears.
“I wasn’t crying because of the baby — in fact I was delighted to be pregnant — I was crying because I was having a child with a Englishman who was firmly committed to England. And that meant I could never go home.”
And with this, McLaren has come full circle. For ten years ago, she made waves with another Spectator piece, one tellingly titled: “The tragic ineptitude of the English male.” Back then, she now writes:
“I concluded as a result that most British males were borderline alcoholic, fearful of women, socially and emotionally retarded and, because of the archaic boarding school system (I confined my dating to a small west London sample), probably repressed homosexuals as well.”
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The Queen’s “mission” for Daniel Craig
By Patricia Treble - Thursday, May 3, 2012 at 12:50 PM - 0 Comments
AP
It’s kind of unbelievable to read reports in the British press that Queen Elizabeth II, a woman who fulfills her job and duty with utmost diligence, has agreed to be filmed bestowing a “knighthood” on a fictional character for the world to see. Though let’s be clear–this isn’t just any old personality but James Bond, her most loyal and swashbuckling civil servant—albeit one with a licence to kill—who saves her realm with dizzying regularity and loves being “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.”
The scene is reportedly part of a spectacular opening ceremony being created for the London Olympics. Danny Boyle (Trainspotting) is the event’s artistic director. And he and Daniel Craig, the latest Bond beefcake, have both been filming at Buckingham Palace recently. The speculation is that the scene will include the Queen giving Bond a mission to open the Games, which he apparently does via a parachute. “Daniel Craig was here in black tie one morning in early April,” says a source to the Evening Standard. “Judi Dench [who plays M, the head of MI-6] was also here, and the talk of the Palace was that Bond was going to be knighted that morning.”
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Jean Chrétien lends the Queen a helping hand
By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, May 1, 2012 at 12:50 PM - 0 Comments
In 1982 Jean Chretien, as Attorney General, signs the proclamation patriating Canada's Constitution, as Queen Elizabeth II watches (Ron Poling/CP)
What do you get someone who’s been on the throne for 60 years, has palaces and castles filled with priceless treasures and who has dedicated her life to service? Commonwealth leaders wisely avoided a silver tea set and instead opted to create the Queen Elizabeth Diamond Jubilee Trust. Along with partner charities and organizations, it promises to deliver “iconic projects” that are “a fitting and enduring tribute to Her Majesty The Queen.” Its “investments aim to make a real and enduring impact on the lives of those who live within the Commonwealth, across all generations and geographical boundaries.” The focus, says Prime Minister Stephen Harper, will be on “combatting curable diseases and promoting education and culture.”
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A toast to the Queen, times sixteen
By Patricia Treble - Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 1:58 PM - 0 Comments
London is awash with Diamond Jubilee swag of all shapes and sizes—Fortnum & Mason is selling DJ marmalade for $11.25 and a DJ picnic hamper for $190—so it’s not surprising that famous restaurants have realized there is money, and a lot of it, to be made from the event. Rules, the venerable British restaurant that claims to be the oldest in London (it was started in 1798), has created a special cocktail menu with a clever Diamond Jubilee twist. Each of the 16 creations is tailored to one of the 16 nations that still retain the Queen as head of state. Suffice it to say that the drinks are a tad on the exotic side, given most of her remaining realms are located close to the Equator.
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London smackdown: Diamond Jubilee vs. Summer Olympics
By Patricia Treble - Sunday, April 22, 2012 at 4:54 PM - 0 Comments
Eleanor Farmer/AP
After eight days in Britain’s capital I’ve discovered three things:
1. The city has never looked better. It gleams. Well, maybe not shiny in a Las Vegas artificial way but cleaner and more polished than I’ve ever seen it. And I’ve been there more than a dozen times in the last few decades. The museums have all been refurbished, buildings have been spruced up and there are more pedestrianized areas than ever before. I knew things had changed when I went for a tea in the crypt of St. Martins in the Field at Trafalgar Square–home to the cheapest cafe in that expensive area. Yup, it has a fancy new round glass elevator and a slick new look.
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Diamond Jubilee procession: who’s in, who’s out
By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, April 17, 2012 at 2:01 PM - 0 Comments
Anonymous/AP
Sometimes what isn’t said (or seen) can be more telling than what is. In Soviet days, for example, it was a person’s position at the annual May Day parade and other important events that indicated who was on the way up and who was on the way down–they even retroactively deleted those who’d lost favour.
Similar rules apply to the royal family today. On Tuesday the royal press office released more details for the Diamond Jubilee procession on June 5, which is the culmination of four days of celebrations.
Buckingham Palace today published details of The Queen’s processional route from Westminster Hall, the Palace of Westminster, to Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, 5th June.
The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh, The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Henry of Wales will travel by carriages following a Diamond Jubilee lunch at Westminster Hall, to be given for The Queen by the Livery.
The three carriages will leave New Palace Yard and process up Whitehall, to Trafalgar Square, through Admiralty Arch and down the Mall, through the Centre Gates at Buckingham Palace.
Notice what isn’t there? It’s any mention of the rest of the royal family. And that means they’ve been officially relegated to a secondary role. If recent events are any indication, they’ll be moved hither and yon in a bus, the most plebian of transportation options. Well, at least it won’t be a fleet of Boris bikes.
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The Crown jewels: best bling in the world
By Patricia Treble - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 at 1:36 PM - 0 Comments
Toby Melville/AP
Given the imminent Diamond Jubilee celebration, it seems only fair that the most dazzling treasures of the Crown are getting some new digs. The Tower of London just unveiled new displays for the Crown jewels, all the better to show off their sensational bling.
Just to be clear, while Queen Elizabeth II has a dizzying collection of tiaras, necklaces and brooches, the Crown jewels belong to the Crown as an entity, not Elizabeth II personally. So while she can do what she likes with her personal jewellery, the Queen can’t touch the Crown jewels.
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Camilla gets an official thumbs up from the Queen
By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 at 2:06 PM - 0 Comments
Leon Neal/AP
It was the shortest of announcements, but for experts in divining shifts and currents in the relationships between royals, it was a huge pronouncement:
The Queen has been pleased to make the following appointment to the Royal Victorian Order:
To be a Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO)
HRH The Duchess of Cornwall.It is an acknowledgement, handed out on the seventh wedding anniversary of Prince Charles and Camilla, that the duchess of Cornwall is no longer seen as “that woman” who broke up Charles and Diana. There was no doubt the Queen had been cool towards Camilla, given the harm her adulterous relationship with Charles had on the monarchy. Elizabeth II, because she’s head of the Church of England, didn’t even attend their 2005 civil wedding. Yet the Queen realized that, for her son, Camilla was a non-negotiable part of his life. So she hosted the wedding reception at Windsor Castle and Camilla got a fittingly prominent role at state visits and other high profile events. And just in February, Camilla and her own daughter-in-law, Kate, joined the Queen on a rare—and colour-coordinated—visit to Fortnum & Mason.
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Why the Queen loves Maundy Thursday
By Patricia Treble - Thursday, April 5, 2012 at 7:10 PM - 0 Comments
Arthur Edwards/AP
It’s a “must attend” engagement on the Queen’s calendar—and the only time Prince Philip will voluntarily carry a posy of flowers—yet most people have never heard of Maundy Thursday. It’s the only occasion, which commemorates the Last Supper, when the sovereign “serves” her people.
In medieval times, the monarch would wash the feet of his subjects, just as Jesus did for his apostles that day. (The fragrant flowers in the posy were to keep the rank aromas at bay.) The Queen, however, has exchanged cleaning smelly feet for handing out purses filled with specially minted coins to 86 men and 86 women (representing the Queen’s age.) Each of the 172 recipients will receive both a white purse containing 86p in Maundy coins and a red purse containing £5 coin and a 50p piece. The coins, which have grown in heft as the has Queen aged, are now so heavy that the tradition of the Yeoman Warders carrying gold platters filled with the purses on their heads has to be abandoned. The Crown jeweller actually feared that as the Warders awkwardly lifted the priceless trays, they would snap under the weight. So, for the rest of her reign, they’ll have to hold the platters out in front.
The Queen, a deeply religious woman, has actually expanded the role of Maundy Thursday. What was once just a repetitive service at Westminster Abbey in London is now a road show. Each year she travels to a different cathedral in Britain for the service and the elderly recipients of the purses are from that diocese. Still, the service returns to Westminster Abbey once a decade. And this year, there were more changes than usual, which should come as no surprise considering it’s the Diamond Jubilee: the recipients came from each of Britain’s 44 Anglican dioceses and, on a more personal level, the Queen and Philip were joined by their granddaughter Princess Beatrice at the beautiful minster in the historic centre of York.
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Remembering the dark start of another jubilee
By Patricia Treble - Friday, March 30, 2012 at 3:40 PM - 0 Comments
Alastair Grant Pool/AP
As Diamond Jubilee celebrations gather steam—enormous crowds (above) turned out on Thursday to see the Queen and Prince Philip in London—there was a pause on Friday to remember the deaths 10 years ago of the two lynchpins of Elizabeth II’s life, which made for a very dark start to the Queen’s Golden Jubilee of 2002. Only three days after the 50th anniversary of her accession, the Queen’s sister Princess Margaret died on Feb. 9 after succumbing to the latest in a series of strokes that had forced her from the public’s eye. And then on March 30, Easter Saturday, while the Queen was riding in Great Windsor Park, she was informed her mother was dying. She rushed to her bedside at the nearby Royal Lodge and was there, with Margaret’s children David and Sarah, when the last empress of India died. The BBC announced the news, making headlines of its own when executives told Peter Sissons, the on-air presenter, not to wear a black tie. “Don’t go overboard,” the weekend editor explained. “She’s a very old woman who had to go sometime.”
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Kensington Palace: royal rip-off to must-see tourist attraction
By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, March 27, 2012 at 4:43 PM - 0 Comments
Photograph courtesy of Historic Royal Palaces
Neglect is nothing new to Kensington Palace. For centuries it’s gone through phases of being ignored, then gussied up only to sink back into its backwater position, albeit one with one of the poshest addresses in London. Now, a huge renovation of the palace’s public spaces has transformed it from one of the biggest tourist rip-offs in London to one of the hottest tickets in town.
Originally the earl of Nottingham’s mansion, Kensington Palace became a royal residence after William III bought the starter home in 1689 and set his favourite architect, Christopher Wren, loose. The result was a residence fit for a sovereign, complete with royal apartments, state rooms and even an exclusive chapel. However, by George II’s reign, it had fallen on hard times. Half the building was shuttered and the rest was in disrepair. His son George III spent much of his time at his other London residence, St. James’s Palace—not to mention a stint at Kew Palace, locked up. In the meantime, relations moved into Kensington Palace; as with every family, there are always members looking for a nice crib. One was his son, the duke of Kent.
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I’m stumped: what comes after a Diamond Jubilee?
By Patricia Treble - Wednesday, March 21, 2012 at 5:51 PM - 0 Comments
CP Images
Okay, we’re less than two months into the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, which celebrates her 60 years on the throne, but already I’m thinking ahead. Not to the first weekend in June, when all eyes turn to London, which will host a huge concert outside Buckingham Palace, a 1,000-vessel flotilla on the Thames and, finally, the parade to St. Paul’s for the service of Thanksgiving—with the Queen and Prince Philip
likely in the Gold State Coach that is so old and jerky that occupants are reportedly advised to take Gravol to avoid sea sicknessUPDATED: travelling in the 1902 state landau. I’m not even thinking of September 2015, when Elizabeth Alexandra Mary will surpass Queen Victoria to become the longest ever reigning monarch.No, I’m thinking of what comes after all that. There has been a natural progression in jubilees. The silver one was in 1977, to mark her first 25 years as Queen, the golden anniversary in 2002 for 50 years and now, 10 years later (let’s face it, by the time you get beyond the 50th anniversary, you’ve earned the right to speed up the rate of celebrations) we’ve arrived at the Diamond Jubilee. The Queen has obviously inherited her mother’s longevity genes. And given that Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother lived to 101, there’s every chance we’ll be celebrating another jubilee. As Martin Charteris, a former private secretary to Elizabeth II, once commented, she is “as tough as a yak.”
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The Queen’s speech
By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 5:27 PM - 0 Comments
Ben Stansall/AP
The Queen is a pro when it comes to public speaking. After all, she’s given umpteen speeches since she was a child during the Second World War. And every year she utters a bland government-prepared speech from the throne. Yet there is something especially moving about talking in her own words before members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, especially in historic Westminster Hall—the oldest parliamentary building, and the site of the official lying in state for both her parents. She was there on Tuesday to look at their Diamond Jubilee tribute to her—a stained glass window. Here is her speech:
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Kate’s sporty, and competitive, side
By Patricia Treble - Thursday, March 15, 2012 at 2:55 PM - 0 Comments
Chris Jackson/AP
No one doubts that the duchess of Cambridge is just as competitive an athlete as her sister Pippa is, especially after Thursday’s exhibition with the British Olympic teams. Ditching conservative dresses for a pair of tight coral jeans—and then worrying that they clashed against the Astroturf—and an official Olympic sweatshirt, she showed off her field hockey skills during an engagement with the country’s top athletes at the Olympic Park as their “Team GB” ambassador.
Kate fired shots at the goal until she finally nailed one, telling everyone, “Wow, that was no pressure then! I was determined to keep on going until I scored.”
She’s played for years, having been team captain at Marlborough College. The duchess recounted that experience to squad members: “I used to play at school and I remember my muscles at the beginning of the season were agony. I was striker so you had to get the timing exactly right, well that was the idea. I played on the left wing. I really enjoyed it.” She did, however, confess to being a bit jittery at playing in front of a phalanx of cameras, saying, “I haven’t played since I stopped so I am really nervous now.”
That evening she retreated to her usual monotone (boring) style—a plain grey frock by Orla Kiely—to indulge in another passion, art. She visited the Dulwich art gallery with her father and mother-in-law—otherwise known as Prince Charles and Camilla, duchess of Cornwall—to meet the students involved in the Great Art Quest, which is supported by Charles’s foundation.
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Harry gets emotional about his tour, and his gran
By Patricia Treble - Monday, March 12, 2012 at 10:53 AM - 0 Comments
Silvia Izquierdo/AP
Members of the royal family don’t tend to talk about their emotions, especially during a royal tour. But then again, there’s never been anyone like Prince Harry, and his fun-filled, informal visit to the Caribbean and Brazil. At the end of his 10-day tour, Harry summed his trip up in a way only he could: “I’m absolutely exhausted but the warmth of the reception that we’ve received from every single country that we’ve been to—including Brazil—has been utterly amazing. I personally had no idea how much influence the Queen has on all these countries. And to me that’s been very humbling, and I was actually quite choked up at times seeing the way that they’ve celebrated her 60 years. She’s thousands of miles away to some of these countries and yet they celebrated her in the way they did, and made me feel as one of them, so I couldn’t thank them more.”
“You can’t sit there with a stiff upper lip and crossed arms and not get involved,” the prince said. ”We knew from the start that these countries were going to be fantastic fun. I’ve never taken myself too seriously and I hope everyone back home has seen it as it is but I’ve had an amazing time —I’ve had a gas.”
Near the end, he revealed he’d talked about the visit with his grandmother before he left Britain. “We had a great chat. She said: ‘You enjoy it, I hope you do me proud.’ It was a typical grandmother to grandson chat.”
Harry also added, “My family is the same as any other family when it comes to humor behind closed doors, though I’d like think I was funnier than my grandmother.”
One can only wait and wonder what he has up his sleeves for the London Summer Olympics. Maybe a rematch with Usain Bolt?
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Harry hits the beach and wears a brotherly mask, literally
By Patricia Treble - Sunday, March 11, 2012 at 6:13 PM - 0 Comments
On the last leg of his first solo royal tour, Prince Harry showed more of his relaxed, humorous nature to denizens of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In a day spent largely on sports activities, he donned a face mask of his older brother, William, for a charity run. He also hit the beach, teaching kids the wonderfully strange rules of rugby; a sport just starting to take off in Latin America. And then, he got a lesson himself in Rio’s most famous past time—beach volleyball. Alas, photographers’ dreams of the ultimate photo op was for naught: the female players were far more covered up than they usually are in professional tournaments.
Courtesy of the telegraph.co.uk
Courtesy of dailymail.co,uk
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Kate’s supporting role to the real Windsor star
By Patricia Treble - Friday, March 9, 2012 at 10:52 AM - 0 Comments
Oli Scarff/AP
It was clear Kate was determined not to be the centre of attention from the moment the royal party arrived at St. Pancras station in London on Thursday. Her clothes were dark and unobtrusive, leaving the focus solely on Kate’s travelling companion—the Queen, who was officially starting her Diamond Jubilee tour of Britain. Kate even wore her hair pulled back under a hat, avoiding the inevitable photo op when she battles for control of her tresses as they get whipped by the wind. That meant all attention was on the Queen, aided by her bright pink outfit, in Leicester, leaving Prince Philip in his customary back-up role and Kate chatting with local officials.
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Meet Prince Harry’s keeper, who also helped crush ‘News of the World’
By Patricia Treble - Wednesday, March 7, 2012 at 12:41 PM - 0 Comments
Prince Harry racing (and cheating against) Usain Bolt on a track. Harry showing off his dance moves to a Bob Marley tune. William and Kate competing in a dragon boat race in Prince Edward Island. Kate spending a solo Valentine’s Day visiting a children’s hospital in Liverpool. While the young Windsors deserve kudos for their relaxed, fresh new take on royal engagements, accolades should also be showered on the man who’s a step or two behind them: Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton. As private secretary to William, Kate and Harry, the 51-year-old former army officer has one of the most important jobs in the royal bureaucracy that surrounds the Windsors; after all, his charges are the future of the monarchy. Nothing happens on a public outing that hasn’t been vetted by him.
Hired in 2005 to be the private secretary to William and Harry, he is a former captain in the SAS, Britain’s legendary special forces regiment. He served in the first Gulf War and spent two years battling Colombian drug lords. After leaving the SAS he worked for Kroll Risk Management, the huge security firm. And he’s not just all action: he graduated from the exclusive school of Eton, where William and Harry were also educated, and did a stint at Clarence House as an equerry to their great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
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Andrew Marr gets royals talking in ‘Diamond Queen’
By Patricia Treble - Monday, March 5, 2012 at 3:32 PM - 0 Comments
Peter Bregg/CP
Tonight at 10 p.m. ET, CBC Newsworld airs part one of Diamond Queen, a three-part series that looks at the monarch’s life and reign. It’s part of an avalanche of books, TV specials and exhibitions or special events marking the 60th anniversary of Elizabeth II’s ascent to the throne. Most are forgettable attempts to cash in on the celebration, but some are worth watching.
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Kate, Camilla and the Queen out for tea at Fortum & Mason
By Patricia Treble - Thursday, March 1, 2012 at 1:49 PM - 0 Comments
It is so rare for Queen Elizabeth II to take family with her on a public engagement that the BBC World Service broke into its newscast to go live with the coverage of the arrival of the monarch, her daughter-in-law Camilla, and her granddaughter-in-law Kate at Fortum & Mason, the exclusive London department store. They were there to unveil a plaque marking the revitalization of the area (has anyone counted how many times the Queen has whipped back the curtains on those markers in the last 60 years?), meet servicemen involved in sending gifts to troops overseas, and have tea with the store’s staff and owners, the British branch of the Weston family.
From the Telegraph:
Two things stood out: Continue…
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Three amigos, house of Windsor edition
By Patricia Treble - Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at 3:48 PM - 0 Comments
Camilla and Kate en route to the Horse Guards Parade, Akira Suemori/AP
It may have only been a small notice in the Court Circular, a record of all duties by Britain’s royal family, but it caused editors and photographers to block off the date on their calendars, for it has the making of a photo-op unlike any other in recent royal history; on March 1, the Queen, Camilla, duchess of Cornwall and Kate, duchess of Cambridge will visit Fortnum & Mason, one of London’s most exclusive department stores, where the Queen will unveil a plaque marking the regeneration of Piccadilly.
So three generations of Windsors, aged respectively 85, 64 and 30, will be out and about together. And given Fortnum and Mason has a fabulous restaurant, there is speculation that they will have tea; an historic tea for a Queen and two future queens. Continue…
