Tag: Royalty

Backstairs Billy – Mistress and Servant

As we dropped into our seats on the top deck of the early morning workers’ express to Norwich, Liam said, “Okay Jack, roll up for a magical mystery tour.” I had no clue what was to come but went along for the ride anyway. Three hours later we were meandering through London’s theatreland, eventually joining the queue outside the Duke of York’s Theatre in St. Martin’s Lane.

Sneaky Liam had secretly booked tickets for a West End play I’d mentioned in a throwaway comment months earlier. The show, Backstairs Billy, is a comedy about the close relationship between Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and her faithful retainer of 50 years, William ‘Billy’ Tallon.

Set long after the dowager queen had been put out to pasture, the razer-sharp script cascades from belly-laugh slapstick farce to moments of real tenderness. The sparkling Penelope Wilton (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Downton Abbey) and hunky Luke Evans (Beauty and the Beast) play mistress and servant. And they do it with great aplomb.

Billy cut a controversial figure in royal circles. The Queen Mother wasn’t the only queen he serviced. An infamous chaser of young men, Billy often sailed close to the wind at a time when it wasn’t quite cricket. The play waltzes around one such indiscretion when he was caught in flagrante delicto with a casual pickup in the garden room of Clarence House and almost got the boot. But the Queen Mother’s loyalty knew no bounds – apparently she loved her gays, as evidenced by the famous quote,

“Perhaps, when you two queens are quite finished, you could get this old queen her drink.”

Whether or not she actually said this we shall never know, but the line got the biggest laugh in the show.

Billy died in 2007 and, despite his notoriety, his funeral was held in the Queen’s Chapel at St. James’s Palace, and it was attended by more than 200 mourners, including lords, ladies and luvvies of stage and screen. Not too shabby for a boy from the wrong side of the tracks.

A Right Royal Do

My dad took the King’s shilling in the late forties and made a career out of soldiering for the next twenty-something years. Despite swearing allegiance to the monarch, Dad was a soft leftie, voting Labour all his life. He liked and respected the Queen but he didn’t think much of the motley crew of incidental royals – the  ‘hangers on’ as he called them. My mother, on the other hand, was a devoted royalist and had a picture of Her Maj hanging on her bedroom wall.

In my adult years, I’ve always been conflicted about the entire notion of a hereditary head of state. My head questions its relevance in our modern, more egalitarian world but my heart tells me different. I was genuinely saddened by the Queen’s death. I can’t explain why. Maybe it’s my age. And when I look around the world at the assortment of elected nobodies, ne’er-do-wells and nasties, particularly those who would sell their children to the Devil to cling to power, I think, well, if it ain’t broke…

Today, we have the right royal do of the Coronation with Charles and Camilla riding the golden Cinderella coach to their ball at Westminster Abbey, the venue for such rituals for nearly a thousand years. The Crown Jewels will be dusted down, oaths will be sworn, heads will be anointed. And yes, we will be joining the locals at our local for a glass of bubbly to watch the fairy tale on the big screen.

Across our twin villages, the streets are decked out in fluttering flags and bunting of red, white and blue, and shops have gone all out to put on the best stately display. Here’s a taste…

And tomorrow, our villages are throwing their very own right royal do with a big Coronation party. We’ll be joining the festivities because let’s face it, we could all do with a party right now.

The Wedding

We watched the royal nuptials with friends surrounded by homespun bunting, Union flags lovingly coloured in felt tip pens and attached to straws, and photocopied mini-flags on cocktail sticks. We feasted on a celebratory spread of British fare with a Turkish twist – spicy Cornish pasties for the fellas, scones for the ladies, fairy cakes for the pansies. Intellectually I’m a republican but emotionally I’m a true blue royalist. It’s a contradiction I manage to fudge with typically British pragmatism.

We had a joyous time stuffing our faces, sipping Pimms, waving our patriotic pennants and whooping at the hotchpotch of heavenly and hideous frocks. Princess Bea’s head dress could pick up intelligent life on other planets and Anne wrapped herself in her granny’s tablecloth that she’d run up on a Singer. Her Maj, of course, is above fashion. Harry looked dapper in his uniform. He’s the best of the bunch even though he’s a ginger. I’ve forgiven his faux pas with Nazi party attire some years ago. I put it down to youthful exuberance and stupidity. The Windsor-Mountbattens aren’t blessed with much up top. The Abbey looked magnificent and the majestic pageant was delivered to perfection in a way only the British know how. It gladdened my heart to see Elton John and his Civil Partner, David Furnish, in attendance. The final nail in the coffin of bigotry? Well, perhaps.

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I’ve heard it said that the whole jamboree was a waste of time and money in these days of austerity and the terrible events occurring around the globe. What’s wrong with forgetting the woes of the world just for one day and enjoying the fairytale moment? I hope the dysfunctional Firm have learned the Diana lesson and gorgeous Kate will be allowed to flourish in a thoroughly modern way.