I had no grandparents to speak of. On my father’s side, I vaguely remember being taken into a bedroom when I was three or four years old to visit an old man lying in bed with his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open. To this day I haven’t a clue as to whether or not he was alive, but I was told to kiss him before being ushered back out of the room. I didn’t see him again.
There was never any mention of my paternal grandmother.
I didn’t fare much better on my mother’s side. Her mother, Else, had walked out on her father when she was just 13-years-old. Else had met another man who had seen the writing on the wall in Nazi Germany and secured exit permits for both of them. With no hesitation they married and left Germany to begin a new life together in Argentina. My mother never saw her again.
My mother’s father, Josef, managed to secure exit permits for my mother and her brother Harry. He escorted them both to London to ensure that they were safely settled in the city before returning to Germany to wind up his business. To escape being arrested, he slept at the home of various non-Jewish friends before he was betrayed, captured and put on a train bound for a concentration camp. He never made it. Knowing all too well what lay in store he was forced to make an unimaginable choice. As the train traveled at full speed, he climbed out of the carriage and jumped onto the rails below, killing himself. My mother and her brother were all that was left of the family she once knew.
I recall little of either the day or the conversation that ensued when the news came that my father had died, but other discussions were now underway, chiefly about what the family was going to do with me. With my mother gone from my life, I was technically an orphan, and though I had two uncles, it seemed neither was in a position to look after me. Uncle Fritz was fit and well, but barely had space in his flat to house his own little family, and my other uncle, Eric, was no more of a well man than my father had been as he suffered from what we today know as motor neurone disease. The nature of his illness meant that his health was only going to deteriorate, and it was decided that, in the short term at least, the best thing would be to pack me off to a boarding school.
I was dispatched to the newly established Holme Grange Preparatory School in Wokingham just days after the news that my father wasn’t coming home. It was early January 1947, one of the coldest winters on record. The weather was in tune with the way I was feeling. I was not quite six-and-a-half years old, and it’s difficult to describe just how desolate I felt. My Uncle Eric was charged with taking me to school, and I remember standing with him at Waterloo station, feeling a powerful urge to just abandon my newly acquired trunk and run away, but an hour and a half later, my fate was sealed.
The school was a converted Grade II listed former manor house – a large red brick pile built in 1883 by the architect Norman Shaw. It had an imposing and very grand wooden front door, the like of which I had never seen before. We arrived from the station by taxi, and were met on the steps by Mr Gordon-Walker.
After a cold and rather perfunctory greeting I was simply passed into the hands of a senior boy called Asher. Uncle Eric was dismissed with an obligatory farewell by my new headmaster, and that was that. The deed was done. My welcome to the school was over in the space of ten minutes, and I burst into floods of tears.
It was grim. The snow began falling not long after I arrived there, but there was no childish excitement in my heart. It was bitterly cold and there was no heating – a situation made all the worse by post-war food and fuel shortages. The headmaster was a stickler for fresh air, so fresh air we got. The freezing dormitories were even chillier due to the constant arctic blast, which made the starched sheets we slept between feel like icy slabs. I cried my eyes out the first night and for many nights afterwards. I just couldn’t stop, which was perhaps apt, because it became readily apparent that there would be much more to cry about over the coming weeks and months.
Should anyone be sent to boarding school at six? Not in my opinion. But it wasn’t just my age that made the experience so horrible. Like many schools of its kind, the regime, which was probably billed as ‘character-building’ at the time, was brutal in its cruelty. Along with most new boys, I was bullied mercilessly, not least because at this stage I spoke English with a clipped German accent. Given the recent global events this inevitably made me a target. I was also fairly scrawny. Many of the youngest and smallest boys were bullied, which was only to be expected in an institution run by a hard-drinking headmaster who presided over a school with physical punishment woven into its very fabric. I was soon to learn one didn’t need to do anything terribly wrong to feel the sting of a cane. Indeed, he told me within a day of my tearful arrival that all the boys’ parents and guardians had given him permission to use the cane whenever he felt like it. Looking back I doubt that was true, but he certainly seemed to feel like it a lot.
I coped with it, only just, but there was a glimmer of hope as I approached my seventh birthday. News came that I had never expected to hear. I was finally to be reunited with my mother.
CHAPTER 3
Outward Bound
August 1988
I had been in my new job for just under a month when another equally unexpected piece of news came my way. Just as 40 years previously I had been summoned to meet my mother, so I was now being called upon to meet the Queen at her Scottish retreat, Balmoral Castle.
Her Majesty departs for her favourite home in late July every year and returns to London mid-October. I was surprised that she had extended the invitation for me to join her there.
As head of state, she was ultimately my boss, but as my duties didn’t relate to her specifically it had never occurred to me that I might be invited for any sort of audience.
I’d met the Queen before. During the course of my work as a royal correspondent, I had encountered her at press receptions on three previous occasions in Jordan, China and Australia, so she certainly knew who I was. But this was something very different indeed.
‘You’ll fly up there,’ Robin Janvrin informed me, ‘and you’ll be picked up by a suite car. Make sure you pack for all eventualities.’
I didn’t know exactly how to prepare, but three weeks later I caught a flight from Heathrow to Aberdeen, carrying everything I thought I might conceivably need: my dinner jacket – formal dining was always a black-tie affair for the Royal Family – some casual clothes, some appropriate footwear and my trusty Barbour jacket, leaving my jeans, trainers and T-shirts at home.
It was just as well I brought the Barbour. As we descended into Aberdeen, the low charcoal skies performed entirely to expectation, dumping biblical quantities of rain.
I didn’t care. This was already quite an adventure. Not only had I never been to Balmoral, I had never been to Scotland. For all my globetrotting, I’d not so much as placed a foot on Scottish soil, so as the driver took me on the 75-minute journey from Aberdeen’s Dyce Airport to Balmoral Castle, I had nothing but vague stereotypes to inform me of what to expect – terrible weather, incredible scenery, distilleries, bagpipes and kilts.
As for the Scottish way of life, I was largely in the dark. I knew the daily routine at Balmoral was outdoorsy and informal, but even that didn’t prepare me for what the footman, whose job it was to greet and brief me, told me upon arrival.
‘If you’d like to get changed, Sir,’ – Household guests are always addressed as ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ (rhyming with jam) – ‘and make your way back down within half an hour. I believe you’re going on a picnic.’
The footman read the incredulous look on my face. If a picnic in the pouring rain was a surprise, it was nothing compared to the one that would greet me half an hour later. As I waited in the entrance hall, now duly clothed for the occasion, I became aware of a 5ft 4inch whirlwind who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. She flashed past me, carried on through the open front door and barked ‘come along, then, get in!’
Though I was stunned by the vision I was even more disorientated by the realization that what came na
turally – going around to open the waiting Land Rover’s door for her – wasn’t required here. Indeed, by the time I had obeyed orders and opened the passenger door, she was already in the car, behind the wheel, with the engine running. We set off at quite a lick, arriving at the picnic spot, a small wooden lodge, about 15 minutes later. I was similarly instructed to get out.
The whole scene was surreal. I can’t remember a single thing we had to eat. What I do remember was the incredible informality of it all. Our group included the Queen and me, Prince Philip – to whom I remember chatting about Rhodesia, wildlife and conservation – and Mary Morrison, a lady-in-waiting. The Queen served lunch out of Tupperware, not fine china, and the conversation flowed as readily as the rain.
It was wonderful, free of pomp and ceremony, and it felt like the most natural thing in the world to start clearing the table at the end of the meal.
The Queen joined me in the kitchen inside the wooden lodge. I had already run water and added a squirt of washing-up liquid. With my hands immersed in the suds, I quipped, ‘I’ll wash, you dry.’
‘No,’ she said in a quiet but firm voice. ‘I’ll wash, you dry.’
Picking up a tea towel, I dried my hands and duly did as I was told. It was an extraordinary start to an unforgettable 24 hours.
After the picnic it was back to the ‘big house’ to change clothes and head out for a walk. The Queen, a country woman at heart and at her happiest at Balmoral, set a cracking pace. We spent more than an hour traversing a two-mile stretch alongside Loch Muik, the corgis at our feet. She would stop every so often to clear the leaves or stones that blocked the flow of water from some of the many streams that ran into the Loch. We passed Glas-Allt Shiel, a large cottage built as a holiday home by Queen Victoria in 1860. She used it often during widowhood, and the Queen told me it was still occasionally used by her family.
Upon our return to the Castle, the footman informed me that tea would be served in the dining room at 4 o’clock. As only the Queen and Prince Philip were in residence, I simply expected a cuppa with a biscuit or two. How wrong I was. The dining table was fully laid for a sit-down tea. The Queen sat at one end of the table and Prince Philip at the other. The lady-in-waiting, the private secretary, the equerry and the deputy master of the household filled the remaining seats, and I was told to sit on the Queen’s left.
There were no servants; this was a private affair and everyone had to fend for themselves, although the Queen did pour my tea. The walk had left me ravenous and the plates of sandwiches looked delicious, as did the array of cakes and biscuits. I politely held back, nibbling on a couple of rectangular egg and cucumber sandwiches and a slice of fruit cake. We chatted easily, while at our feet the corgis jockeyed for position in the hope that someone would miss their mouth. For fear of being bitten, I moved my feet only to hear a loud yelp. Oh dear, I thought. The Queen looked at me.
‘Was that you?’
I don’t know why it flashed into my mind, but I thought of Miss Piggy from The Muppet Show, and was about to say ‘Moi?’ I thought better of it, and respectfully said, ‘No, Your Majesty, not me.’
I doubt she believed me, but she knew full well that the dogs could be a bit of a nuisance. After tea, we all went our separate ways. I went for another walk along the River Dee, which flowed through the estate. I was reminded of the photos taken of my new charges, the Prince and Princess of Wales, in that very same spot seven years earlier. Having just returned from their honeymoon aboard Britannia, they were so happy as they posed for the world’s media.
While daytime was casual at Balmoral, black-tie was required for dinner. I returned to my room to find that my shirt and dinner suit had been neatly pressed and hung in the wardrobe. My bowtie, black shoes and socks had also been laid out.
Unlike the free-for-all nature of afternoon tea, there was a formal seating plan for dinner. Again, the Queen and Prince Philip sat at either end of the dining table, and I returned to my seat on the Queen’s left. The corgis were noticeably absent. Dinner lasted exactly 75 minutes before we adjourned for coffee in the drawing room. It was there that I took my leave and said goodbye to the Queen and Prince Philip, as I would be returning to London early the next day.
My brief visit to Balmoral was very special. The Queen was a marvellous host, especially given that I was one of her employees. It is customary for senior people joining the royal household to receive an audience with the Queen, their ultimate boss. Such meetings can take place at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. That I was granted a 24-hour dine-and-sleep audience at her Scottish retreat was a gift I will never forget.
*
I had been no less excited in the summer of 1947, when told I was going to see my mother. Did she feel the same way about seeing me? I didn’t know.
Being not quite seven years old, I had no idea how she would react upon being reunited or, indeed, how I would react to seeing her. In hindsight, I suspect our reunion was mostly down to the continual pressure placed on her by my aunt and uncles, who must have felt it a pretty poor state of affairs that they were left with the responsibility of her only child.
None of this occurred to me; I was only pleased and grateful that I was going to see her. My Aunt Ruth took me to a tea lounge just off Oxford Street in London, of which there were many back in those days. When I saw my mother I was struck by how young and beautiful she was.
By this time – I’m not sure how soon it was after she had left my father – she had acquired a new husband, Reg Arbiter, and moved to St John’s Wood. I soon realised that Reg bore a more striking similarity to my headmaster than my late father. He was another one who liked his drink, and most of the time too much of it.
I had become a somewhat rootless child of no fixed abode, my only permanent address being that of my much-despised school. Spending time with my mother felt nothing like I had imagined it would for other normal children. While my school friends would skip off home on what were known as Visiting Sundays, my mother and Reg would take me to elegant pubs and restaurants: The Manor in Bracknell, the Compleat Angler in Marlow, Skindles in Maidenhead and the French Horn in Sonning, to name but a few. All very posh, all very elegant, all very expensive…and all very alien to a boy in short trousers. Here they would linger over a long lunch with the drink flowing while I, bored beyond tears, tried to amuse myself.
When I went to Holme Grange in January 1947 I was known as Richard Presch, my father’s surname, and the name I was born with. By the time I reunited with my mother, she had taken her second husband’s name, and went by Ruth Arbiter. Aged seven and still being bullied by the older boys and caned regularly by the headmaster, I was beginning to develop an independent streak. I was not willing to be the butt of the many cruel jokes any longer. I confronted my mother and explained that it would be very odd and embarrassing for us to have different last names.
‘Well, that’s simple,’ she said. ‘We’ll just tell the headmaster to change it’.
I’m not sure whether Reg was ever consulted, but overnight my name changed from Presch to Arbiter.
I never particularly liked my two given forenames, Richard and Winston. My mother was a great admirer of Winston Churchill, but the only thing I had in common with the famed prime minister is that we both flunked school. My mother said she liked Richard because, when shortened, it became ‘Dickie’. She only addressed me as Richard when I had done something naughty.
I have been known as Dickie Arbiter throughout my life, although official documents all read Richard Winston Arbiter until I was in my 60s, when I finally got around to legally changing my name to Dickie, ditching Richard and Winston once and for all.
Once term ended, I went to live with my mother and Reg in their flat, sleeping on a pull-down bed in their bedroom. Although they were both out almost every night, it was hardly an ideal situation, and it was perhaps a blessing that this second marriage soon floundered. I for one wasn’t sad when I learned that it was over, and that henceforth it would be just
the two of us.
I was particularly happy when, at the start of the summer holidays in 1950, my mother collected me from Waterloo Station and announced that we were heading off to Rapallo, in Italy. I was almost ten years old when she introduced me to the high life – the kind of life my mother seemed to prefer. We travelled from Victoria Station on the boat train, then transferred at Calais to the elegantly named Blue Train, or Rome Express, where we overnighted in grand berths. I have no idea how she afforded it – much less the expensive ruby pendant and matching earrings I remember her buying – but she clearly had sufficient funds to feed her hunger for high-end-living. We were booked into the imposing Excelsior Hotel, where I had my first taste of real Russian caviar. It must have cost an absolute fortune, but I thought it was ghastly.
My mother had a friend there called Gianni. I remember him taking me out alone on his sailing yacht (my mother didn’t go near sail boats) and being adrift at sea until three in the morning due to a lack of wind. No-one had considered the fact that I couldn’t swim.
But I survived, and thrived, even though our arrangements were eccentric. Between that holiday and my leaving Holme Grange in the summer of 1951, I had lived under five or six different roofs. Where my mother lived when I was in school still remains a mystery.
I would have flourished anywhere once I finally left my boarding school, as apart from the sport – the only enjoyable aspect of the curriculum – I was profoundly glad to wave it all goodbye. I was equally miserable for a short time at St Martin in the Fields school in Trafalgar Square; the staff there had some crazy notion that a nice Jewish boy should be confirmed into the Church of England. But once I settled into Clark’s College in Cricklewood, north London – thanks yet again to Uncle Eric – I couldn’t have been happier.
On Duty With the Queen: My Time as a Buckingham Palace Press Secretary Page 3
