by Pamela Hicks
The Queen and Prince Philip arrived and I took over from Alice. The programme was intense and, of course, run with military precision by Lady Foot, who had produced a forty-three-page booklet of timings, instructions and endless lists of the people we were due to meet. She seemed to have memorised everything by heart and later, when Alice took out her booklet to check someone’s name, Lady Foot looked at her aghast, exclaiming, ‘What! You don’t know it?’
As we drove through the streets of Kingston it was as if the whole of Jamaica had turned out to greet the Queen and Prince Philip. I travelled in the second open car with the governor and Lady Foot, and the one word you could hear being passed from mouth to mouth was ‘Sweet!’, ‘Sweet!’ The men, it had to be said, were somewhat less excited than the women, who jumped up and down, dancing round and round in circles. I hoped the Queen would be able to see some of Jamaica’s natural beauty – the banana groves, the endless sugar cane covered in pink flowers, the tall, slender royal palms – as the streets of Kingston had been festooned with so much royal bunting, it was impossible to see what anything really looked like. At a rally for over forty thousand schoolchildren, I stood next to the immensely tall Chief Minister Bustamante – known as Busta – and as I opened my mouth to remark on how proud he must be, he turned to me and with a huge smile exclaimed, ‘We are unbeatable!’
The rest of the Jamaican tour was enjoyable and faultlessly precise in its organisation and logistics. Even Lady Foot, however, could not have anticipated the scenario at our last event – an inspection of a guard of honour in Port Royal. When it was over, as the Queen was making her way to the barge, a man ducked out from under the barrier and threw his white jacket on the ground before her. Actually it missed one of the numerous puddles on the ground but, entering into the spirit, the Queen went to step on it when Brigadier Jackson, the garrison commander, dragged it out of the way and hurled the man back into the arms of the police. Later, we were astonished to hear that the man, Warren Kidd, had been arrested on charges of lunacy. However we later learned that he had been found sane by a doctor and was subsequently released.
By the time we came to leave I was looking forward to a few days off, as Alice was due to take over duties in Panama. I also wanted to stay on board Gothic as she went through the canal. Alice was struck down by heart palpitations, however, and I had to resign myself to being on duty throughout Panama, a prospect not lightened by the fact that Mike Cowan was the equerry. He appeared to rely on me for an understanding of the royal duties and protocol, unlike Johnny, whose experience I had been able to rely on during our stay in Jamaica.
Panama proved to be quite a trial, the crowds behaving very differently from those in Jamaica. As we drove through the spacious streets of Cristóbal, an unenthusiastic group of Americans stood around looking as if they would rather be anywhere else, but then as we left the Canal Zone and entered the city of Colón, a large crowd of people appeared, yelling itself hoarse, and intent, it seemed, on thrusting themselves into our car. We were being accompanied on foot by some rather overweight policemen who walked at such a slow pace that this soon became an invitation for the crowds to break rank and swarm around our vehicles. With much hooting of horns, our drivers tried to increase their speed, and the fat policemen broke into a run, their hands feverishly clutching their revolvers. One policeman decided to take out a vicious-looking whip and began to lay into the crowd. By this point Michael and I had become separated from the Queen and Prince Philip’s car by a sea of bodies. It was rather frightening and we were particularly concerned for the safety of those who kept running into the path of our car. The drivers narrowly managed to avoid running anybody down, however, and we decamped outside the town hall – unnerved, and hot and bothered by the unpleasant humidity.
A band played something that might have been ‘God Save the Queen’ and, with far more gusto, the Panamanian national anthem, then on the steps of the town hall the mayor presented the Queen with a gold key to the city. Where was Lady Foot when we needed her? As we fought our way past ranks of girl guides, I went to take the key from the Queen and for the first time she seemed quite lost and bewildered. Not wishing to impale myself on the bayonets of the soldiers, I found myself climbing over a row of parked motorcycles and in so doing getting oil all over a very smart new dress. The industrious Miss Bramford certainly had her work cut out that evening. Meanwhile, Johnny Althorp had became entangled in the band. Each time he tried to escape the trombone players extended their slides and trapped him.
We drove back out of Colón to the Canal Zone, where American outriders accompanied us some thirty miles to a lock in the canal. The vegetation was deep green, thick and swampy, and the atmosphere oppressive, and I couldn’t help thinking of the thousands of lives sacrificed for the building of the canal. Having watched a Panamanian ship go through the lock, we were taken for lunch with the governor, who expressed surprise that we hadn’t already sailed on Gothic along the canal, as this was by far the best way to see it. We bit our lips to stop ourselves pointing out that it was his wretched lunch party that was preventing us from doing so. After the reception, we were thankfully able to return to Gothic, hoping for the merest glimpse as she passed through the canal. It turned out, however, that we were not allowed up on deck because it was a Sunday and we hadn’t yet been to church. The American bishop, Gooden, insisted on coming on board and holding a service below deck, in the day cabin. We got our revenge by looking out of the window the whole time.
That evening we had an official dinner at the presidential palace, followed by a reception elsewhere. Michael and I were nervous, not at all happy if the Queen and Prince Philip were out of our sight, and when they were driven off from the palace after dinner, leaving us behind, Michael pushed me into a luxurious limousine, pointed in anguish at the Queen’s departing car and commanded the driver to ‘Follow that car’. The chauffeur protested that the car we had jumped into belonged to the president of the Legislative Assembly, but Michael was insistent. Later, at the reception, I found myself sitting next to the president of the Assembly, who said mutinously, ‘You stole my car.’ I offered profuse apologies and muttered something about not knowing it was his car. But he had not finished and a twinkle appeared in his eye. ‘You stole my car, so I stole the Foreign Minister’s car. The Foreign Minister stole the Chancellor’s car and the Chancellor had to hail a taxi.’ The Chancellor, it appeared, was not one to bear a grudge lightly and, white with rage, sat in stony silence for the rest of the evening, refusing to speak to anyone.
It was a joy to set sail in Gothic knowing we had sixteen days at sea before we reached Fiji. It was good to have the Queen and Prince Philip on board, and we became gloriously busy, not achieving a great deal, but enjoying ourselves immensely. We soon all became addicted to deck croquet, the outcome of which depended on how much the ship was rolling and how recently the decks had been washed down. We had played quite sedately on our journey out to Jamaica but now that he was here, Prince Philip was having none of that, introducing us instead to deck hockey ‘minus rules’. Within thirty seconds of the first game, the Exchange Telegraph correspondent was flat on his back and was still having medical treatment after we arrived in New Zealand. By the time we reached Fiji there were four sprained ankles, four seriously crushed fingers and countless minor injuries, but as Prince Philip always managed to come out quite unscathed, the games continued until the day we came ashore. Commander Derek Steele-Perkins, the Queen’s doctor, was the referee, but the only time he ever blew the whistle was at the end of a period, and he invariably turned a completely deaf medical ear to the screams of agony when someone was hit harder than usual. I had been a keen player on our way out from England, winning the championship partnered by Gothic’s first officer, Andy Anderson, but I now decided it would be much safer to be an enthusiastic onlooker.
On 4 December we crossed the Equator. Alice and I had thought we were going to get away without a ‘Crossing the Line’ ceremony, but with Prince Phili
p on board this was unlikely. Wildly enthused, he set about establishing his court, appointing his King Neptune, Queen Ariadne and other members of the court. The victims were Alice and me, two of the Wrens, and a few of the female clerks. The court was held on a platform erected above the swimming pool on the forward deck. The ship’s officers and all of our party lined the rails overlooking it and the sailors, marines, cooks and stewards packed the deck surrounding the platform. To make matters worse, Godfrey Talbot was recording the proceedings for the BBC, John Turner and his newsreel cameras were suspended above us and the Times photographer was clearly visible among the crowd. The ceremony got off to a good start when Neptune fell into the pool and the public prosecutor announced that he was in his element. The charges were read and I was accused of being late for breakfast, having for a father a Sea Lord and admiral not appointed by King Neptune, being a disturbing influence in the ship and reminding the prosecutor of one of his favourite mermaids. I was made to sit in a chair and given something to hold by Prince Philip while lather was slapped all over me. I was so busy squirming around to avoid the various horrors that it was some time before I realised I was holding an enormous wet fish, the greatest horror of all. Prince Philip said: ‘You don’t mind going in backwards, do you?’, and all of a sudden tipped the chair, flinging me backwards into the pool. As I surfaced, ‘the bears’, all arrayed in soggy skirts, grabbed me and, having been assured I was all right, promptly ducked me under again. The same had happened to Alice and everyone watching had been so convinced that we would have our necks broken that all the other victims were merely thrown into the pool sideways. The fact that most of the victims couldn’t swim just added to the general excitement. When it was over a free-for-all broke out among the court, all of whom ended up in the pool, together with pots of paint, beef bones, cabbages, my fish and the various robes that King Neptune had discarded. Having been aghast at the idea of the ceremony, I actually ended up having enormous fun, but the Queen hated every minute of it because from where she was sitting it really did look as if we were all going to drown.
Our arrival in Fiji could not have been livelier. Coming into Suva harbour, we were surrounded by a number of brightly decorated little yachts, and then, to my huge delight, a dozen outriggers appeared, each sailed by a crew of Fijians in grass skirts. I had never seen canoes such as these before, each one having been cut from a single log with the outrigger secured by lashings of coconut fibre. I was told that most of them had sailed from the Lau group of islands, some two hundred miles away. When we had anchored, five chiefs from Bau and Rewa came on board the Gothic to perform the ‘Cavuikelekele’, an invitation to land. I was on deck when Conolly received them. He introduced me but then expected me to cope. The men were enormous, and their skirts and upper clothing of bark cloth and leaves made them seem even more so. They appeared to speak no English, so after brightly gesticulating towards the outriggers and various points in the harbour with appreciative and enquiring noises, I finally succumbed to silence. I was startled when some minutes later the largest of them fixed me with a steely look and said: ‘The chiefs would like to sit. They are not accustomed to standing.’ Unable to decide whether we had committed a serious breach of etiquette or whether they were protesting against the physical exertion, Conolly and I looked at each other in panic. There were no available chairs, the main deck was already packed with spectators and press, the band was still on parade and people were tearing round in all directions in the remaining few minutes before the Queen and Prince Philip and the governor and his wife were due to come up on deck. Conolly finally indicated a portion of the deck where only the people coming down from the upper deck would trip over them, and they squatted there quite happily.
The welcoming ceremony was spectacular. The Queen sat on a small platform in the middle of the deck, the governor and Prince Philip on either side of her, with the Fijian intercedent – the matanivanua – squatting at her feet. The chiefs came towards her on their knees, not without some difficulty as their skirts kept getting in the way, and when the other chiefs stopped, the most senior came forward and presented a whale’s tooth hung with sinnet cord. The Queen accepted this tabua – the most highly prized article of traditional Fijian property – and passed it to the matanivanua, who made a formal speech of acceptance on her behalf. The senior chief then backed away to rejoin the others, and after three or four slow, hollow claps with cupped palms, they all backed away, still on their knees.
This was all carried out in silence as the Fijians considered it disrespectful to make any noise during formal ceremonies. We learned quickly that although the Fijians often looked very fierce, everything they did was carried out with enormous dignity. This also meant that Fijian obeisance rituals were very long. At one point Prince Philip tried shaking hands while the chiefs were sitting down, having done their three claps to the Queen, to avoid them having to repeat the ritual all over again to him, but he merely put them off their stride so that they had to start counting their claps all over again.
Two days later we took off in a flying boat bound for Tonga, arriving two and a half hours later, at noon, to find that Tonga time was nicely original, being twenty minutes ahead of Fiji time and twelve hours and twenty minutes ahead of GMT. Tonga interested me – I was astonished to read in the brief that there was no fresh running water anywhere on the islands, but it was admirable to think that there was one hundred per cent literacy among the population owing to compulsory education. We were off to the small town of Nuku’alofa, as guests of Queen Salote, whose father, King George II, had placed Tonga under British protection in 1900 while maintaining its status as a self-governing state. Although Britain controlled the country’s finances, it was otherwise completely independent, a typical greeting to outsiders being ‘Tonga is still Tonga!’
Queen Salote had endeared herself to the British during the coronation, and it was easy to see why she was so loved by her people. She was held in great respect, as a leader, an orator, a poet and a composer, her songs sung on even the most remote islands. She embodied the spirit of Tonga, where song and dance were part of the everyday life of the people. She understood her subjects and astonishingly knew most of them personally – they numbered around fifty thousand. A special respectful language was used to address the Queen; another was used for people of chiefly rank, and the ordinary language was spoken only between people of equal rank. Salote was regarded as the ultimate authority on all questions of rank, precedence and custom, having an outstanding knowledge of Tongan genealogies. It was an extremely stratified society – your status was determined at birth and your achievements could do little to alter it, yet the social position of women was extremely high, sisters always outranking brothers within the family, the person deciding important questions such as marriage being the father’s sister. It was forbidden to pass in front of a person of higher rank, and because Tongans had to ensure that their heads were at a lower height than anyone of greater rank, we often saw people rushing about bent double. It was fortunate that Salote was so tall and that her sons were only a couple of inches shorter. Her sons were remarkably robust young men, each weighing over twenty-four stone – your weight and bearing being a sign of how well off and high up the social scale you were.
It was a noisy arrival. The Queen’s first engagement was to inspect the Royal Guard drawn up on the wharf. The route was packed, and for a while each group cheered on a single long-drawn-out note, and as the pitch for each group was different, the effect was harmonious. The controlled cheering soon deteriorated into shrill yelling, however, which was deafening, and it continued without break until we reached the palace.
The palace was a small wooden house painted white with a dark red corrugated-iron roof. A large and sumptuous bathroom had been specially installed for the visit. Queen Salote and her entire family had moved out so that the Queen, Prince Philip, Mike Cowan and I could stay there. They had left the many members of staff, however. My room was tiny, a walled-off passage bu
t with a particularly comfortable bed. The fact that two sides of the room were composed entirely of windows made dressing and undressing difficult. Each window had tiny net curtains attached and you could either shut the windows and die of heat or open them and change in view of the whole of Nuku’alofa. As the garden was very small and the wall separating us from the street and neighbouring buildings was only three feet high, everyone had congregated just beneath my room, cheering and waving whenever I went into it. They thought it great fun when I brushed my hair, so I opted for the heat, changing and sleeping in a hermetically sealed oven.
A feast was given for an astonishing seven hundred people, all seated cross-legged on cushions. The food was bountiful – roast suckling pig, crayfish, yams, chicken, breadfruit, watermelons, pineapples and coconut – the freshest and most delicious food we had eaten so far on the tour. There were no implements of any kind and small girls dressed in white knelt near by waving little fly whisks every time the insects tried to settle on our food. The Tongan serving women carved out endless and generous portions of food and handed them over on leaves. I was soon surrounded by a mountain of leaves and hardly knew whether to be embarrassed or proud. The Queen gallantly did the best her small appetite would allow and was able to spin it out for some time, knowing that as the person of highest rank, when she stopped eating everyone else would also have to put down their leaves.
