Her Majesty

by Robert Hardman

  They had come to stay on the shores of the O’Shannassy Reservoir in Victoria where the Metropolitan Board of Works had placed an executive chalet at their disposal. The lake had been freshly stocked with fish. The authorities had shipped in extra supplies of koala bears in case the resident population should prove reclusive. The Queen and Prince Philip had just two engagements over the weekend – a trip to church and a brief session with a camera crew which was in the course of filming Australia’s first full-length colour feature film, The Queen in Australia (it would play to packed cinemas for months after her departure). On this particular Sunday afternoon, the Queen was due to be filmed looking at some kangaroos and as many koalas as could be found. Senior cameraman Loch Townsend had already arrived with his deputy, Frank Bagnall, and a sound recordist. They were starting to look at their watches. The afternoon light was fading. ‘Christ, when are they bloody well coming?’ muttered Townsend, at which point the door of the chalet flew open. Bagnall followed his professional instincts and turned on his camera. But what happened next was not in the script. Out dashed Prince Philip, with a pair of tennis shoes and a tennis racquet flying after him. Next came the Queen herself, shouting at the Prince to stop running and ordering him back. And still the camera kept on turning. Eventually, as Townsend later recalled, the Queen ‘dragged’ her husband back into the chalet and the door was slammed.

  If the camera crew were wondering what to do next, they did not have long to wait. Angrier than a wounded buffalo, Commander Colville suddenly charged into view. Here was a man who thought it such a grave affront to royal privacy to film the Queen being driven through the gates of Balmoral that he had banned the BBC from doing so. On this occasion, he was Vesuvius in human form. Loch Townsend was a brave filmmaker who had been in action with his camera during the Second World War, but he was not about to enter mortal combat with the man British journalists knew as ‘The Abominable “No” Man’ – or, simply, ‘Sunshine’. Townsend, by his own admission, surrendered on the spot: ‘I said: “Calm down.” I went up to Frank and I started unscrewing the back magazine and he said: “What are you doing?” I said: “Exposing the film, Frank. You may have finished using your balls but I’ve still got work for mine.” I’ll never forget saying that. And anyway, I unscrewed it. There was about three hundred feet of film … and I said: “Commander, I have a present for you. You might like to give it to Her Majesty.”’ Colville disappeared with the film and, soon afterwards, a member of staff emerged with beer and sandwiches for the crew. It was not long before the Queen reappeared herself, calm, serene – and very grateful. ‘I said who I was and introduced Don and Frank,’ Townsend recalled. ‘And she said: “Oh thank you very much. I’m sorry for that little interlude but, as you know, it happens in every marriage. Now, what would you like me to do?”’

  Townsend is no longer alive. He described this episode in detail to a resourceful historian writing a doctoral thesis called The Glittering Thread for Sydney’s University of Technology in 1996. Though never published, it remains an extraordinary record of the mayhem of the 1954 tour. Its author, Dr Jane Connors, who went on to become a senior executive in Australian national radio, interviewed Townsend twice about his experience. We shall never know the real background to the row, but what comes through loud and clear is the dynamic between the monarchy and the media at the start of the reign. This was a tour during which a government delegation arrived at the Australian Daily Mirror demanding the surrender of a photograph of the Duke of Edinburgh with a drink in his hand. Yet within ten years, the Queen would be lampooned on British national television; within fifteen, she would have allowed cameras to film a family barbecue. Forty years after Loch Townsend was surrendering his film on pain of arrest, the heir to the throne would be screened around the world discussing the breakdown of his marriage. A year later, Diana, Princess of Wales, would be doing the same. By 2010, the Queen would be admitting television cameras to film Masterchef in the Palace kitchens and Time Team in the Palace gardens while the engagement of her eldest granddaughter would command the following headline in the Yorkshire Post: ‘QUEEN’S GRANDDAUGHTER TO WED EX-FISH AND CHIP FRYER FROM OTLEY’.

  For all her instinctive conservatism, this sovereign has steered the monarchy through more transition than any in modern times. And nowhere has that change been more dramatic or more painful than in the monarchy’s dealings with the press. At the start of the reign, the media was an occupational hazard which had to be endured, much like rain at Royal Ascot. At the dawn of the Diamond Jubilee, it is regarded as a necessary tool for the business of reigning. On the basis of ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’, the monarchy now produces online films about itself.

  The Queen and her family certainly do not read all the media, nor do they watch it all, believe it all or believe that others believe it all. However, it is hard to dispute the theory propounded by Sir Antony Jay, architect of the modern royal job description, and Sir Bernard Ingham, former Press Secretary to Margaret Thatcher, who have both likened the modern media to an impressionist painting. If you study it up close, it is unreal and distorted. If you stand back and absorb it as a whole, it offers a vivid representation of reality. A senior member of the Household offers a good example. The Crown Estate recently bought a commercial estate in Slough, including a fast-food restaurant. The following day, a national newspaper carried an image of the Queen wearing an imaginary McDonald’s hat and flipping burgers. Nonsense, of course. But not utter nonsense …

  Today, very little happens at Buckingham Palace without the close involvement of the Press Office. It’s a small operation given the amount of coverage generated by the head of state of sixteen countries and her family. The Queen employs ten people to handle media arrangements for herself and the wider Royal Family – a similar operation to, say, the press office for the Rural Payments Agency. Another nine people work at Clarence House and St James’s Palace dealing with the Prince of Wales, the Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry. The entire operation is the same size as that of the press office for the Big Lottery Fund – or roughly half that of the Health and Safety Executive. Mostly in their thirties, the royal team include a former zoologist, a former spokesman for Manchester United, an ex-journalist or two and former press officers from the public and private sectors. The Queen’s three most recent press secretaries have all been women and were previously Civil Service high-fliers all previously worked in government. Both the new incumbent, Ailsa Anderson, and her predecessor, Samantha Cohen, were originally journalists. But unlike most of the public relations industry – whether in politics or in the commercial sector – they inhabit a unique space in which it is almost impossible to use the conventional tools of the trade. They cannot counter a criticism by pointing up a deficiency in a rival because there are no rivals. Spin and the darker arts of the publicist’s trade are out of the question. They are routinely challenged on what their clients regard as ‘private’ matters – by news organisations which view those clients as public property. Yet, compared to the Queen, there isn’t a PR client on the planet who has remained so durable for so long. Brand awareness is never an issue.

  Most people have an entrenched view of most members of the Royal Family, for better or worse, because they have been aware of them for so long. Much of the job is on a loop. The engagements are often the same, year in year out (the only thing which varies at the annual gathering of the Knights of the Garter, for example, is the seating plan for lunch arranged so that no one sits next to the same person more than once a decade). But familiarity must not be allowed to breed contempt. After the nonchalance of the sunlit eighties led on to the hellish media storms of the nineties, there is now a fear bordering on paranoia about complacency. And it is certainly easy to be complacent. Since commissioning a private MORI poll in 1999, Palace officials have tracked British public opinion on the fundamental issue of a monarchy versus an alternative constitutional settlement. The figures have barely budged in mor
e than a decade, aside from a minor increase in support during 2002, the year in which the Queen lost her sister and then her mother shortly before the Golden Jubilee. Through good and bad spells, the overall figure remains stubbornly at 70 per cent in favour, 20 per cent against and 10 per cent unsure. MORI has even tried substituting the word ‘monarchy’ for ‘Royal Family’ to see if the institution commands more or less support than its representatives. But it has made no discernible difference to the answers.

  What the pollsters have determined, however, is that the monarchy’s ‘key driver’ (marketing speak for vital ingredient) is ‘relevance’. It is when people feel that the institution is not relevant to them, that it does not engage with them, that support drops away. And that is why the Master of the Household, Air Vice-Marshal Sir David Walker, and his team of chefs, footmen and doorkeepers are preparing to welcome 350 guests from the clothing industry to Buckingham Palace. The Queen is hosting one of her twice-yearly receptions for a particular strand of national life. On this occasion, it is the turn of the rag trade in all its forms – from haute couture to the Sweaty Betty fitness label to J&M Sewing Service, a Tyneside manufacturer of church garments. The idea is to ‘showcase’ excellence at every level. A team drawn from the Private Secretary’s Office, the Master’s Department and the Press Office have spent months consulting trade bodies, industry pressure groups, industry charities and government departments to ensure an even spread of guests from all over the country. Also here will be both the mainstream and the fashion media. Events like this, if not designed for television, are increasingly organised with the media in mind. BBC News 24 has been broadcasting from inside the Palace all day and will cover the event live. As a former communications director for the RAF, Walker understands the importance of media coverage at every level: ‘You don’t want to do these things and not get noticed. It’s not a case of “Haven’t we done well?” but of making an impact. The fact we’ve held a reception is then picked up by people far and wide who weren’t able to come but say: “At least the Queen has recognised what I do.”’

  While Walker’s team have been sorting out the logistics – invitations, champagne, name badges, etc. – the Queen’s Press Secretary and her team have been combing the guest list for interesting case studies to pass on to the press. Sandra Hunt runs Clothing Solutions, a shoestring charity based in an old Yorkshire cotton mill where her team adapt modern clothes for disabled customers. It was an emotional moment when the thick white card arrived with security instructions. ‘When I got the invitation I read it three times and then rang the Palace to check it was real,’ says Hunt. Her two children were so excited that they have insisted on travelling down with her and spending the night in her hotel. The Bradford Telegraph & Argus has already carried a lengthy article about the plucky local charity organiser heading for the Queen’s party. The Palace takes the regional press very seriously. If the Queen spends a day in, say, Bedfordshire, it is unlikely to be covered in the national press. In the Bedfordshire press, there is unlikely to be any other story.

  Given the professional rivalries between all the designers in the Palace state apartments tonight, it is just as well that the Queen has decided to wear an in-house design made by her dresser, Angela Kelly. At the start, there is a reception line so that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh ensure that they have met everyone. She knows quite a few of the guests already. The Duke receives a running commentary. ‘He does my hats,’ the Queen explains as one of her milliners, Philip Somerville, is introduced. Her eyes light up as Marie O’Regan is announced. ‘She used to make my hats,’ says the Queen. ‘She’s retired.’ Along comes Stewart Parvin, one of the current crop of royal dressmakers. ‘Another one of my designers …’ the Queen announces. The Duke is particularly struck by Steve Cochrane, a Middlesbrough fashion retailer, who is still wearing his coat, a nylon mac. ‘Are you expecting it to rain in here?’ asks the Duke. Cochrane roars with laughter and explains it’s from one of his own ranges. It is an odd choice of clothing for a reception at the Palace, perhaps, but no stranger than some other outfits. Nabil El-Nayal, twenty-four, has been invited because he is an award-winning student at the Royal College of Art. He is dressed in a black and white highwayman’s outfit which he describes as his ‘ethereal Elizabeth the First’ look. ‘I only wear black and white,’ he says later. ‘I think there is too much colour in the world.’

  The last person in the greeting line is in jeans, a hoodie and a crumpled tweed jacket. It is the photographer David Bailey. The Queen does not bat an eyelid, welcomes him to the party and moves through to mingle with her guests. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,’ Bailey tells a couple of reporters. ‘I’m not much of a royalist and I haven’t taken a fashion photograph since 1980. So I’m here under false pretences.’ He says he has been to the Palace before, not to take photographs – ‘I’m too risky’ – but to receive a CBE from Prince Charles. ‘I said to him: “I want to get something straight, Prince Charles. I’m not joining. I’m infiltrating.” He laughed a lot.’

  For all the studied indifference, Bailey is thoroughly enjoying himself. And it all makes good copy for the journalists. So, too, does the presence of Elizabeth Emanuel, best known as co-designer of Lady Diana Spencer’s wedding dress in 1981. Even for a former Palace pro, a night like this has been nerve-wracking. ‘I spent all week making something for tonight and then decided an hour before that I wasn’t going to wear any of it,’ says Emanuel. She has gone instead for a favourite black and duck-egg blue jacket and a black dress. The photographers are busy tonight. Many of the guests are used to the camera, including models Sophie Dahl and Yasmin Le Bon. Both describe themselves as ‘massive’ fans of the Queen. ‘I love her style. She’s timeless,’ says Dahl. ‘She wears her outfits, her outfits don’t wear her,’ says Le Bon. ‘She’s comfortable in what she does and she does it in such an elegant way.’ Some guests go even further. ‘You know the Queen doesn’t even have a style,’ declares the Spanish-born, London-based shoe designer Manolo Blahnik. ‘She is just her. She is perfect.’

  Many guests are from old family businesses with royal warrants – including Margaret Barbour of Barbour jackets and Douglas and Deirdre Anderson of the fifth-generation royal kiltmakers, Kinloch Anderson. It’s usually Douglas’s brother who gets the big invitations (Sir Eric Anderson, now a Knight of the Thistle, has the distinction of having taught the Prince of Wales at Gordonstoun, Tony Blair at Fettes and David Cameron at Eton). But tonight it is Douglas and Deirdre who find themselves chatting to the Queen about Deirdre’s new national register of tartans, for which she has been awarded the OBE. Needless to say they are both in kilts. ‘Are you advertising?’ jokes the Duke of Edinburgh. Someone who is uncharacteristically nervous tonight is the Daily Telegraph’s vivacious fashion editor, Hilary Alexander. She is a great admirer of the Queen but she is also a respected writer who tells it straight. When she didn’t like the Queen’s ball gown – another Angela Kelly design – at a recent state banquet, she said so in print. If it irked the Queen, there is no sign of it as writer and monarch cheerfully talk fashion. Alexander congratulates the Queen on tonight’s Kelly outfit, a pale gold and soft turquoise silk brocade jacket and matching dress. ‘One doesn’t want to look like everybody else,’ says the Queen. ‘Certainly not,’ replies Alexander. ‘You’re not wearing black!’ The Queen laughs out loud. Eventually, she makes a discreet departure, leaving everyone to carry on enjoying the party until the Household team think it is time to deploy their subtle technique of steering people towards the door without giving the impression that they want them to leave. Sandra Hunt makes the most of her last minutes at the Palace, taking it all in. She will return to Yorkshire, happy in the knowledge that she has received the same royal treatment as, say, Jasper Conran and Bruce Oldfield.

  The following day, there is good coverage in the national and regional press. Most people will simply absorb the message that the Queen has honoured a lot of fashion icons by inviting them for drinks. It wi
ll make no difference to their view on the monarchy but it’s another brushstroke on that broad impressionist canvas of royal relevance. There were no headline-grabbing moments – good ones or bad ones – at the reception. But pictures of famous faces having a nice time with the Queen always brighten up a news page. Hilary Alexander writes that the Queen’s dress ‘was perfectly in tune, both with her own regal signature and with the fashion swing-shift away from the safe LBD [little black dress], as the omnipresent solution to serious dressing-up’. She goes on: ‘A dazzling “sunburst” diamond brooch sparkled on her left shoulder. Up close, her skin is just as luminous. As fashion moments go, this one could not be beaten.’

  ‘Really, there wasn’t a person there last night who wasn’t thrilled to be in Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen,’ Vogue editor, Alexandra Shulman, reports on her website. And, of course, there is the Palace’s own report about the evening. Until a couple of years ago, the Queen’s Press Office was entirely dependent on outside media to cover the monarchy’s movements. Now it’s up with the best of them. While it’s not (yet) in the business of scoops and spoilers and some of the other tricks of the journalist’s trade, the Palace happily embraces the latest media technology to produce its own reports and mini-films. It’s been a steep learning curve. Here was an essentially reactive organisation which, until 2002, still banned emails on security grounds. Back then, the Press Office organised logistics, made very occasional announcements and waited for the phone to ring. Now it is as proactive as any government department, running its own Royal Channel on YouTube and monarchy sites on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. Its weak point, by its own admission, is working out a satisfactory email system with the public. People who write a letter will always get a reply whereas an email address can swiftly be flooded by spam, timewasters and trouble. But the Palace knows it cannot afford to ignore an important chunk of society. No one must forget the ‘key driver’ relevance. ‘We need to have some system for young people when all their correspondence is electronic and they don’t write letters,’ says website editor Emma Goodey. ‘But it has to be thought through.’ For now, public emails to the Palace come via Goodey. She used to run the website for London’s Barbican Arts Centre and never imagined that she would end up as the public’s online go-between with the Sovereign. If she spots a trend – like a sudden rush of questions about garden party hats or a royal anniversary – she will post a page about it on the website. Among the most frequent topics for questions are the Queen’s corgis (they have their own page). But the website also provides some useful feedback on who is interested in the monarchy and why. Of the 2.3 million people from 226 countries who visited the royal website in the first six months of 2010, the British (766,000) were only narrowly ahead of people from the United States (662,000). There was then a marked drop to the Canadians (132,000) and the Germans (103,000) followed by the French (72,000), Australians (65,000) and Italians (42,000). Nearly 70 per cent of them were new visitors, the average time spent on the site was 3.3 minutes and the most popular pages were the traditional ones – those about the Queen, her family and the history of the Palace.