The King's Speech (29 page)

I
t was one of the greatest – and certainly the most joyous – street parties London had ever seen. On Tuesday 8 May 1945, tens of thousands of singing, dancing people gathered in the Mall in front of Buckingham Palace. The moment they had dreamed of for more than five and a half years had finally arrived.

The German surrender had been on the cards for several days: a team of bell ringers was on standby to ring in victory at St Paul’s Cathedral, people stocked up on Union Jack flags and houses were garlanded with bunting. Then at three o’clock, Winston Churchill finally spoke to the nation: at 2.41 a.m. the previous day, he announced, the ceasefire had been signed by Colonel General Alfred Jodl, Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command, at the American advance headquarters in Reims. In his speech, Churchill paid fulsome tribute to the men and women who had ‘fought valiantly’ on land, sea and in the air – and to those who had laid down their lives for victory. His broadcast was delivered from the War Cabinet Office, the same room in which his predecessor Neville Chamberlain had announced the country was at war six years earlier.

‘We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing,’ Churchill concluded. ‘But let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead. Japan, with all her treachery and greed, remains unsubdued.’

Shortly afterwards, the King, as much a symbol of national resistance as Churchill, stepped out onto the balcony of Buckingham Palace to acknowledge the cheers of the ecstatic crowd below. For the first time in public, he was accompanied not just by the Queen but by the two princesses. At 5.30 p.m. the doors opened again, and the royal family stepped out once more – this time together with Churchill. They were to make a total of eight such appearances that day. Later that evening, the King was due to follow his prime minister in addressing the nation.

At 11.30 a.m. on the previous Saturday, Logue had received a telephone call from Lascelles asking him to go to Windsor that afternoon: ‘Peace Day V’, as it was known, was in the offing. Lascelles was still not certain of the exact day; it all depended on what happened in Norway. The German forces occupying the country had contemplated turning it into a last bastion of the Third Reich, but had finally come to realize the futility of further resistance. The only question was when they would capitulate. A car came to Sydenham Hill to pick up Logue, and he was at Windsor Castle by 4 p.m.

He arrived to find the King looking completely exhausted. They went through the speech, which Logue really liked – although they altered a few passages. They had a further run-through, this time at Buckingham Palace, on Monday at 3 p.m., and it was agreed that Logue should return at 8.30 that evening. He went home for a rest, but at six o’clock the telephone range; it was Lascelles. ‘Not tonight,’ he said. ‘Norway has not come into line.’ But he assured Logue this was certain the following night and told him to stand by.

The next morning Logue received another message from the Palace. ‘The King would like to see you at dinner tonight, and bring Mrs Logue’ – to which someone had added the cryptic message: ‘Tell her to wear something bright’. So at 6.30 p.m., Lionel and Myrtle set off towards Buckingham Palace. The streets were virtually deserted and it took them only a few minutes to drive into the centre of London. They encountered the first traffic barrier near Victoria Station, but Mieville had organized a permit, and they continued on their way towards the Palace. As their car crossed the courtyard towards the Privy Purse entrance, a tremendous cheer broke out – the King and Queen had just come out again onto the balcony. Lionel and Myrtle joined other members of the royal household in wildly cheering and waving handkerchiefs.

Lionel made for the new broadcasting room on the ground floor, facing the lawn, and went through the speech with the King. They made a couple of alterations, more for the running of the speech than anything else, and then the King, rather plaintively, declared, ‘If I don’t get dinner before nine I won’t get any after, as everyone will be away, watching the sights.’ This, coming from a man in such an exalted position, sent Logue into paroxysms of laughter – so much so that the King himself joined in; but after thinking it over, he said, ‘It’s funny, but it is quite true.’

After they had eaten, they went back to the broadcasting room at 8.35. Wood of the BBC was there; he and Logue compared watches and they had another run-through. There were two minutes to go. Another small further alteration and then, as usual, the Queen, who was dressed in white, came in to wish her husband luck. As the floodlights were switched on, a mighty roar erupted from the crowd. Logue found the atmosphere fantastic: ‘And in an instant the sombre scene has become fairyland – with the Royal Ensign, lit from beneath, floating in the air,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘Another roar – the King and Queen come on to the balcony.’ He was especially struck by the way the lights played on the Queen’s tiara; as she turned, smiling, to wave to the crowd, the floodlights created what looked like a band of flame around her head. The King declared:

Today we give thanks to Almighty God for a great deliverance. Speaking from our Empire’s oldest capital city, war-battered but never for one moment daunted or dismayed, speaking from London, I ask you to join with me in that act of thanksgiving.

Germany, the enemy who drove all Europe into war, has been finally overcome. In the Far East we have yet to deal with the Japanese, a determined and cruel foe. To this we shall turn with the utmost resolve and with all our resources. But at this hour when the dreadful shadow of war has passed far from our hearths and homes in these islands, we may at last make one pause for thanksgiving and then turn our thoughts to the task all over the world which peace in Europe brings with it.

Continuing, the King saluted those who had contributed to victory – both alive and dead – and reflected on how the ‘enslaved and isolated peoples of Europe’ had looked to Britain during the darkest days of the conflict. He also looked to the future, urging that Britons should ‘resolve as a people to do nothing unworthy of those who died for us and to make the world such a world as they would have desired, for their children and for ours. ‘This is the task to which now honour binds us,’ he concluded. ‘In the hour of danger we humbly committed our cause into the Hand of God, and He has been our Strength and Shield. Let us thank him for his mercies, and in this hour of Victory commit ourselves and our new guidance of that same strong Hand.’

The King was exhausted, and it showed; he stumbled more than usual over his words, but it didn’t seem to matter. ‘We all roared ourselves hoarse,’ recalled Noël Coward, who was among the crowd. ‘I suppose this is the greatest day in our history.’

As the celebrations continued, the two princesses asked their parents for permission to be allowed out into the throng. The King agreed: ‘Poor darlings, they have never had any fun yet,’ he wrote in his diary. And so, at 10.30 p.m., accompanied by a discreet escort of Guards officers, Elizabeth and Margaret slipped out of the Palace incognito. No one seems to have recognized the two young women as they joined the conga line into one door of the Ritz and out of the other.

At 11.30 the Queen sent for Lionel and Myrtle, and they said their goodbyes. Then Peter Townsend, the King’s equerry and future lover of Princess Margaret, led them out through the gardens to the Royal Mews where a car was waiting for them. The crowds had thinned considerably by then, but there were still plenty of people out on the streets celebrating victory.

As the Logues drove home, they gave a ride as far as the Kennington Oval, in south London, to a soldier and then, after he got out, to a couple with a little girl, who wanted to go to Dog Kennel Hill which was near their home. As they drove, they talked about the evening’s events and about the King and Queen. The couple thanked the Logues warmly as they got out; Lionel heard the baby’s sleepy little voice saying goodnight.

Although Logue had recently celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday, he had no plans for retirement and continued to see other patients. On 3 June 1945, Mieville wrote to thank him for ‘what you did for young Astor’ – a reference to Michael Astor, the twenty-nine-year-old son of Viscount Astor, the wealthy owner of the
Observer
newspaper, who wanted to follow his father into politics. ‘Your efforts were successful in that he was adopted for his constituency,’ Mieville added. ‘He ought to get in as it is a v. safe seat, but I fear he will not contribute much when he does arrive in the House of Commons.’ Astor was duly elected as the Member of Parliament for Surrey East in the following month’s general election, but served only until 1951 and made little impact on British public life.

For Logue, joy at the return of peace was soon to be tinged with personal tragedy.

That June he was in St Andrew’s Hospital in Dollis Hill in northwest London having an operation on his prostate when Myrtle suffered a heart attack and was taken to the same hospital. She died a few days later on 22 June.

Lionel was heartbroken. During their more than forty years together, Myrtle had been a dominant figure in his life; they had been deeply in love. During an appearance in 1942 on a BBC programme called
On My Selection
– similar to today’s
Desert Island Discs
– he had described his wife as ‘the lass who has stood by my side . . . and helped me so valiantly over the rough places’. She was cremated at Honor Oak Crematorium in south-east London, near their home.

The King sent a telegram of condolence as soon as he heard the news: ‘The Queen and I are grieved to hear of Mrs Logue’s death and send you and your family our deepest sympathy in your loss – George.’ He followed up with two letters: one on 27 June and a second on the following day. ‘I was so shocked when I was told because your wife was in such good form on Victory night,’ he wrote. ‘Please do not hesitate to let me know if I can be of any help to you.’

Logue had to face his grief without two of his three sons: Valentine was due to leave a few weeks later for India with a neuro-surgical unit, while Tony seemed likely to be sent back to Italy. He hoped at least Laurie would remain in Britain, though. ‘He has had a bad time in Africa and has not yet recovered,’ he wrote to the King on 14 July. ‘I don’t know quite what I would have done without him.’

Logue’s own health continued to be poor, but he nevertheless went back to work, ‘the great panacea for all sorrow’. ‘I am entirely at your Majesty’s command,’ he added. ‘I expect there will be a Parliament to be opened shortly.’

The State Opening, which took place on 15 August, saw a return to the pomp of pre-war years, with thousands of people lining the streets of London as the King and Queen travelled to parliament in the royal coach. There was an extra cause for celebration: earlier that day, following America’s dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Emperor Hirohito of Japan announced his country’s surrender. The Second World War was finally over.

In content, the speech written for the King was one of the most dramatic for decades. That July’s election had for the first time returned a Labour government with an absolute majority – and a mandate for a programme of sweeping social, economic and political change that would transform the face of Britain. Among the major reforms to which the new administration was committed was the nationalization of the mines, the railways, the Bank of England and the gas and electricity companies, as well as reform of the welfare and education systems and the creation of the National Health Service. ‘It will be the aim of my ministers to see that national resources in labour and material are employed with the fullest efficiency in the interests of all,’ the King declared.

A natural conservative, the King was concerned at the potential impact of some of his new government’s more radical measures. He was also saddened by the defeat of Churchill, with whom he had formed a close bond during the war. Yet whatever his misgivings, he was a constitutional monarch and had no alternative but to accept his new government. On a personal level, he developed good relations with Clement Attlee, the prime minister – like the King a man of few words – as well as with several of the new Labour ministers. He had something of a natural affinity with Aneurin Bevan, the minister of health, even though he was a member of the Labour left. Bevan, too, had long suffered with a stammer and told the King during his first audience of his admiration for the way he had overcome his speech defect.

Although the war had ended, life remained tough for ordinary Britons; the economy had been dealt a serious blow from which it would take many years to recover. Rationing, far from being ended, actually became stricter: bread, which had been freely on sale during the war, was rationed from 1946 until 1948; potato rationing was introduced for the first time in 1947. It was not until 1954 that rationing was finally abolished, with meat and bacon the last items to go.

Logue continued with his practice. ‘Life goes on, and I am working very hard, harder than I should have [to at] my age 66, but work is the only thing that lets me forget,’ he wrote in a letter to Myrtle’s brother, Rupert, in May 1946. In the letter he expressed the hope that he could go back to Australia for six months, in what would have been his first trip home since he and Myrtle emigrated to Britain in 1924. He was suffering from abnormally high blood pressure, however, and was warned by the doctors not to fly. This meant having to wait until normal shipping services resumed. He never made the trip.

Of Logue’s various cases, particularly poignant was that of Jack Fennell, a thirty-one-year-old stammerer from Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, who in September 1947 had written to the King pleading for his assistance. Unemployed, penniless and with a child to feed, Fennell was despondent and suffered from an inferiority complex brought on by years of discrimination over his stammer. Lascelles forwarded Fennell’s letter to Logue on 24 September, asking him to take a look at him and give an opinion on his condition. Logue reckoned he might need as much as a year of treatment, which Fennell couldn’t afford. After trying in vain to get help from the various welfare bodies, Fennell eventually found a sponsor in Viscount Kemsley, the newspaper baron who owned the
Daily Sketch
and
The Sunday Times
. With lodging in an army hostel in Westminster and the offer of a job at the Kemsley newspaper press in London, Fennell began his treatment in January 1948.