Family Britain, 1951-1957

by David Kynaston

  There things rested until October, when Townsend was due for some home leave. ‘Mrs Atkinson came in,’ recorded Nella Last on Thursday the 13th as press coverage increased its intensity:

  She had got me some yeast. She said idly, ‘Looks as if you’re going to be right, that Princess Margaret will marry Townsend – seen the paper yet?’ We discussed it. We both felt ‘regret’ she couldn’t have married a younger man. Mrs Atkinson too has ‘principles’ about divorce that I lack. We just idly chatted, saying any little thing that came into our minds, for or against the match. I wasn’t prepared for my husband’s wild condemnation or his outburst about my far too easy-going way of looking at things! . . . I poached him an egg for tea.

  That evening the storm-tossed couple had two hours together at Clarence House. ‘TOWNSEND VISITS MARGARET’ and ‘NOW – THE NATION WAITS’ were among next morning’s headlines. ‘Nothing much else than Princess Margaret’s affairs is being talked of in this country,’ observed the Manchester Guardian on Saturday morning, and that weekend the press besieged Allanbay Park in Binfield, Berkshire, where Margaret and Townsend were guests of the Hon Mrs John Lycett Mills, a first cousin of the princess. ‘NO RING YET!’ announced a disappointed Daily Mirror on Monday, with an accompanying photo of Margaret and the bare third finger of her left hand.22

  Next day, Tuesday the 18th, the Cabinet discussed the question and took a collective view that if Margaret went ahead and married Townsend, she would lose both her rights of succession and her Civil List allowance. On the Wednesday, Nella Last had a visit from two former neighbours, a mother with her married daughter. ‘She is a rather silly “bobby soxer” who never really grew up,’ she wrote afterwards about the daughter, ‘& if there’s one thing I detest on the whole of God’s green earth it’s an “adolescent” of 37 or so! How she yammered about the “fairy tale” romance of Princess Margaret – just like you read about in Fairy Tales.’ The Mirror’s headline of the day, however, was ‘MARGARET DINES TONIGHT WITH PRIMATE WHO WON’T MARRY HER TO TOWNSEND’, and that evening (while Anthony Heap waited impatiently for Godot) Margaret did indeed dine with the unrelenting Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, who did indeed counsel her against. One increasingly exasperated observer of the whole business was Malcolm Muggeridge. ‘The probability is, I suppose, that the monarchy has become a kind of ersatz religion,’ he wrote in this week’s New Statesman (in a piece called ‘Royal Soap Opera’), which was out on Friday morning. And he concluded:

  The royal family and their advisers have really got to make up their minds – do they want to be part of the mystique of the century of the common man or to be an institutional monarchy; to ride, as it were, in a glass coach or on bicycles; to provide the tabloids with a running serial or to live simply and unaffectedly among their subjects like the Dutch and Scandinavian royal families. What they cannot do is to have it both ways.

  Muggeridge’s reward was an Evening Standard editorial accusing him of treasonable views.

  This same Friday, the 21st, with ‘MARGARET AND PETER TOGETHER AGAIN’ the Mirror’s unashamedly soap-opera headline, the Queen, watched by the Cabinet and the rest of the Royal Family, unveiled a statue of George VI in Carlton Gardens. ‘Much was asked of my father in personal sacrifice and endeavour,’ she said in heavy rain in words equally heavy with resonance. ‘He shirked no task, however difficult, and to the end he never faltered in his duty.’ Gazing sympathetically at the royals as they returned to the Palace was Madge Martin, down in London for the day with her husband. ‘We had a grand view of them in the Royal cars,’ she recorded. ‘The Queen lovely, and delicate; Princess Margaret, pale and strained, under all the nerve-wracking time she’s going through now – regarding her possible marriage with Captain Peter Townsend. Poor young thing.’ Joyce Grenfell, albeit in New York, felt much the same. ‘Papers here full of Meg and Peter,’ she wrote later this day to her friend Virginia Graham in London. ‘Wish they’d decide. Sad whatever they do. Poor girl.’ Saturday found Margaret in the East End – where she opened a new community centre and heard women shouting, amid cheers, ‘Good luck, Maggie! You marry him!’ – while next day Florence Turtle in Wimbledon Park reflected: ‘A lot of gossip in the papers . . . Why can’t they leave the girl alone? They abuse the freedom of the press.’23

  Monday and Tuesday were quiet, but the next two days paid for all. ‘Princess Margaret’ was the authoritative title of the main leader in The Times (hitherto standing aloof) on Wednesday the 26th, the day of Butler’s emergency budget. Almost certainly reflecting the strong views of the paper’s editor, Sir William Haley, in effect this was the Establishment seeking to deliver a knock-out blow in order to end an unseemly, even dangerous controversy. After describing the ‘enormous popular emotion’ on the subject as ‘sentimental’ and ‘ill-informed’, and referring to the press’s ‘odious whipping-up of these honest and warm-hearted feelings’, it defined the fundamental purpose of the Royal Family as to be ‘above all things the symbol and guarantee of the unity of the British peoples’. Accordingly: ‘There is no escape from the logic of the situation. The QUEEN’s sister married to a divorced man (even though the innocent party) would be irrevocably disqualified from playing her part in the essential royal function.’ In practice, went on The Times, this would entail ‘abandonment of her place in the Royal Family as a group fulfilling innumerable symbolic and representative functions’. The editorial ended on an appropriately sententious note: ‘Her fellow-subjects will wish her every possible happiness – not forgetting that happiness in the full sense is a spiritual state, and that its most precious element may be the sense of duty done.’ This did the job, for Townsend subsequently recalled that, after reading it, he and Margaret had privately agreed that it would be impossible to go ahead. The following day, she called on Fisher and told him that, on the grounds of conscience, she had reached her decision. ‘Was her act of abnegation from a sense of duty, or through an unwillingness to lose her title, status and income?’ Nick Clarke would ask almost half a century later, and with the passage of time it is hard not to view the latter motive as having been somewhere near the fore.

  For the moment, the public was kept in the dark. ‘THIS CRUEL PLAN MUST BE EXPOSED’ thundered the Mirror on Friday the 28th, accusing the ‘starchy’ Haley of having ‘donned the black cap and passed his savage sentence’ in ‘an ill-disguised attempt to force Princess Margaret into giving up the man she loves by a bullying ultimatum’. The same day, Graham gave Grenfell the latest well-bred buzz: ‘Feelings are quite violent about Townsend, some saying that the moment he fell in love with P.M. he should have disappeared for good; or that at least a grand gesture of renunciation would have been appropriate. Others say he is a cad. In the meantime we wait . . .’ That evening, Any Questions? carefully avoided the topic – although presumably there were questions submitted – but over the weekend the press continued the debate, with the Sunday Express’s fiery columnist John Gordon urging Margaret to choose according to her heart: ‘Are we going to permit a minority to dictate to the Princess which man she chooses to be her husband?’ Next day, Monday the 31st, the Daily Express argued similarly and insisted that ‘the people will give her their support’. It was a fair claim, given that a recent Gallup poll had found that 59 per cent approved of Margaret marrying Townsend and only 17 per cent disapproved, with the rest claiming not to be interested.24

  The announcement came this Monday evening, with the BBC reading out Margaret’s carefully drafted explanation: ‘Mindful of the church’s teaching that Christian marriage is indissoluble, and conscious of my duty to the Commonwealth, I have resolved to put these considerations before others.’ Among those hearing this over the 9 o’clock news was Jennie Hill. Middle-aged, unmarried, living in a village near Winchester with her rather despotic mother and working long hours in a bakery (which she cycled to and from each day), she had been keeping a full diary since the start of the year. ‘I feel so depressed & sorrowful for them both,’ she now wrote �
� the first time so far she had mentioned an event outside her immediate situation. Other diarists responded in their own way:

  So that puts to bed all the newspaper claptrap. (Florence Turtle)

  It is a heroic decision – & rends one’s heart. She is so vital, human, warm & gay – made for happiness. And what she must be suffering doesn’t bear thinking of. (Violet Bonham Carter)

  Princess Margaret has decided NOT to marry Group Captain Townsend – after all that bother! I suppose her money & position meant more to her than her affection for this rather scrubby looking youngish man. (Gladys Langford)

  This is a great act of self-sacrifice, and the country will admire and love her for it. I feel rather moved. It will be awkward meeting the Duke of Windsor at dinner after this. (Harold Nicolson)

  It is a very noble, unselfish decision, and she has all our sympathy and admiration for putting her own feelings to one side for the sake of the prestige of the throne, and to uphold the sanctity of the Marriage vows. (Madge Martin)

  This is a fine slap in the chops for the bloody press which has been persecuting her for so long. (Noël Coward)

  ‘Thank goodness that’s over!’ (Nella Last, quoting her husband)

  It was a sorrowful night for Jennie Hill: ‘Dreamt about Princess Margaret, but I was outside Clarence House crying my eyes out for her.’25

  Next morning, Tuesday, 1 November, saw the papers more or less evenly divided, with for instance the Daily Mail’s ‘Who can doubt the Princess has made the right decision?’ being counterbalanced by the Manchester Guardian’s more ponderous ‘In the long run it will not redound to the credit or influence of those who have been most persistent in denying the Princess the same liberty that is enjoyed by the rest of her fellow citizens.’ That afternoon a Mass-Observation investigator mingled with the mainly female, working-class crowd, about 200-strong, waiting outside Clarence House in the vain hope that Margaret would appear. Two women, aged 30 and 26, talked it through:

  I’d no idea this would happen. I thought it was all fixed – they looked so happy. I just couldn’t believe it. It’s terribly sad.

  I can’t understand why they don’t leave them alone.

  It’s not as if she would come to the Throne.

  (Laugh) Not with that lot!

  They say it’s because he hasn’t much money, but there’s heaps of things he could do. Anyway she’s got money of her own – I’ve been told she’s a very rich girl.

  As usual, the diarists had their private say. ‘Now there will perhaps be an end of all the noise,’ reflected Kenneth Preston in Keighley, and Anthony Heap agreed: ‘Now, perhaps we’ll hear a little less of that over-publicised little lady.’ Judy Haines was more sympathetic, but still relieved: ‘I do hope Margaret will fall in love again. I must say divorce is very distasteful to me. Separation yes, but remarry – why? Why ask for trouble twice!’ As for Jennie Hill, the news continued to dominate her thoughts. ‘Cannot get over the tragedy of it all day,’ she noted at the end of the day, and then that Tuesday night: ‘Dreamt of them again.’26

  On Wednesday the 2nd, after rather muted coverage the day before, the Mirror hit its stride. ‘THIS MUST NOT WRECK TWO LIVES’ was the front-page headline, with Keith Waterhouse declaring below that ‘it would be outrageous if either of them should be made to suffer in any way because of the genuine love they have shown for one another’. Specifically, he did not want Townsend – ‘a man of intelligence and great personal courage’ – to be banished, and he went on: ‘The stiff-collar classes are already crowing in their clubs that Peter Townsend has been shown the door. These are the people who would have bowed the lowest if he had married Princess Margaret.’ Finally, he warned: ‘These are the people who, from now on, will watch Princess Margaret like hawks crossed with vultures.’ That evening, Richard Dimbleby went to Lambeth Palace to interview the archbishop live on television. Urbane and relaxed, Fisher was adamant that the decision had been solely Margaret’s and that ‘there was no pressure from State or Church’. The spectacle revolted Gilbert Harding. In his next People column, he described Fisher as having been ‘at his most unctuous’ and Dimbleby ‘at his most pompous’.

  It was indeed Fisher and his institution that now bore the brunt of the popular outrage, encapsulated in a quartet of letters appearing in the Express on Thursday the 3rd:

  As one who tries to practise Christianity, I am disgusted. I never intend to set foot in church again. (Mrs P. J. Arick, Isleworth)

  As a divorcee and now married to the man I love, and who loves me, I only hope all the self-righteous people who call themselves Christians will now be able to sleep at night. (Mrs Elliott, Merstham, Surrey)

  Princess Margaret has made a mistake and those clergy who influenced her decision should have it on their conscience. (Mrs Jean Hamilton, Hendon)

  I have always been a member of the Church of England, but from now onwards I never again enter that Church. (Mrs Winifred Barkby, Sheffield)

  That afternoon, M-O secured an ‘overheard’ in Chelsea by a 30-year-old working-class woman: ‘The typing pool at Morgan’s Crucible Works [in Battersea] is simply seething. They all think she ought to have married him.’ And at about this time, Gallup conducted its post-renunciation poll, finding that only 28 per cent agreed – and 59 per cent disagreed – with Fisher’s ruling that the Church of England should not remarry a divorced person so long as the other party was still alive. Firmly in the ‘disagree’ camp were Lindsay Anderson, James Cameron, Humphrey Lyttelton, Wolf Mankowitz, John Minton, Ronald Searle, Kenneth Tynan and Sandy Wilson, who on behalf of ‘the younger generation’ sent a striking letter to the Express that appeared on Friday the 4th. They explained what the episode had shown:

  First, it has revived the old issue of class distinctions in public life.

  Second, it has shown us ‘The Establishment’ in full cry, that pious group of potentates who so loudly applauded the Princess’s decision.

  Third, it has exposed the true extent of our national hypocrisy.

  But, above all, the Townsend affair brings up the general question of ‘national dignity’, and its encroachments on personal freedom.

  Finally, after complaining about ‘the alliance of a swollen bureaucracy and an elderly oligarchy’, the writers concluded: ‘It is not to be wondered at if some young people are seriously considering quitting this country in search of one less restrictive in its patriotism and less stifling in its conventions.’ That evening, Any Questions? was predictably silent on the dominant question of the day.27

  Unsurprisingly, in the same directive in which it asked its largely middle-class Panel about commercial television, Mass-Observation also sought to gauge reaction to the no-marriage announcement. The difference between the two sexes could hardly have been greater, starting with the men:

  My interest in this matter has not been raised above the ‘luke warm’ stage and I have no opinions on this very personal subject. (25, single, local government officer)

  Her action was a crushing blow to the sloppy sentimentality showed by some of our less responsible newspapers over this affair. I am quite sure that she has done the right thing. (33, single, audit clerk)

  I don’t care a tinker’s cuss what happens either to P. Margaret or to G. Capt. Townsend. Of course she has done the ‘right’ thing. (41, married, schoolmaster)

  I feel that Princess Margaret has made the correct decision. I also feel that had Group Captain Townsend been a Gentleman he would not have put the Princess to the necessity of making such a decision. He would have gone off to Darkest Africa to shoot elephants or something. (47, married, commercial traveller)

  It is a pity she did not marry Townsend and thereby leave the country. I am no lover of Princess Margaret and the National Press does not help by its continuous publicity of this so called glamour girl. Princess Alexandra beats her hands down. (36, married, bank cashier)

  Stupid to get herself into such a situation. Townsend should also have known better. (48, married
, warehouseman)

  I just don’t care one way or the other. (32, married, research chemist)

  A very sound decision. (56, married, Inland Revenue valuation clerk)

  She has put herself in the right, which is always a good thing to do. (37, married, journalist)

  ‘Indifferent,’ replied a 41-year-old married schoolteacher, ‘but my wife showed enough interest for two people. She was firmly pro-Princess and a happy ending. I cannot know enough of the true facts to be able to pass judgement.’

  By contrast, the Panel’s women were divided in their opinion about the decision, but with few exceptions emotionally engaged by the human dimension:

  I think she has done the right thing. The Princess belongs to the royal family & cannot behave as any ordinary girl. She is well paid for any work that she does, & she should not do anything to lower moral standards. She is young, but not too young to set an example. (58, single, retired teacher)

  I feel that Princess Margaret should not have put state and religious interests before her personal happiness. But I am not convinced he was the right husband for her. According to the newspapers, he loves country life and quietness, and Princess Margaret is known to love a gay city life with parties and theatres. Their only thing in common apart from their love for each other would seem to be horses! (28, married, housewife)