The Peoples King (12 page)

After demobilization, Edward took an active interest in the work of
Toc H, an organization that was set up to provide a refuge for veterans
of all ranks of men and officers, and the British Legion, which was
founded in 1921 to cater for their welfare. His commitment to ex-
servicemen was uncompromising. When he was in Belgium in 1923,
one of his duties was to visit a hospital for the treatment of English
soldiers suffering from facial disfigurement. He was introduced to the
patients but, noticing that there were only twenty-seven present out
of the twenty-eight known to be in the hospital, he asked to see the
absent man. The officer in charge explained that his was such a
frightful case - repulsive, even - that the patient had been kept away.
But the Prince insisted on seeing him - as far as he was concerned, this
man had the highest claim to his sympathy. He was taken to the
patient's room, where he went straight up to the man and kissed him.
⁴⁰
This heartfelt compassion for the casualties of war was captured by
newsreel reports. During a visit to North Wales, where he walked
down lines of veterans, a Pathe newsreel lingered on his visible grief
as he talked to a blind soldier who had lost his sight in battle.
⁴¹
'I've
seen both in France during the Great War and at home [how] the
interests of your Subjects however humble (Especially Ex Service men)
have been
one
of
your
interests', wrote a veteran to the King from his
London basement in 1936. 'To me
you
will always
be
OUR TEDDY.
You shook my hand at the First British Legion Gathering at the Crystal
Palace. What a handshake.'
⁴²

Edward's concern for ex-servicemen embraced everyone, regardless
of their background or nationality. In 1936 he invited to a garden
party at Buckingham Palace six thousand Canadian war veterans who
- like himself - had shortly before attended the unveiling of the
Canadian War Memorial at Vimy Ridge in France to mark the single
victory in the Battle of the Somme. The garden party was a remarkable
and alien sight to the conservative-minded officials of the royal court.
The Deputy Comptroller of Supply at Buckingham Palace was aston­ished to see the Canadians
strolling round the Palace grounds and passing through the famous Bow
Saloon . .
.
dressed in lounge suits, all wearing their war medals, and many of
them with berets on their heads. It was in striking contrast with the usual
elegant, morning-coated, top-hatted guests at the normal Palace garden-
parties.

When it started to rain hard, the King hurried indoors. A minute or
two later he appeared on the balcony of the first floor, bareheaded,
and gave a short speech of welcome. Never before, observed the
Deputy Comptroller, had a sovereign spoken so informally at a garden
party at the Palace. In the royal household, opinion about his
behaviour was divided: 'The older ones, naturally, were taken aback
by this new example of the changes that were taking place in Royal
procedure.' But the younger ones like himself, he said, 'took the view
that this was a fine thing ... for the King to step down for a moment
from his exalted isolation and talk almost as man to man to the men
who had been under fire with him in the muddy trenches of France
and Flanders.'
⁴⁵

This affinity with war veterans was something that Edward's father,
King George V, did not share. In 1923, he rode in an open carriage
with the Prince of Wales and some other members of the royal family
to review some 35,000 Silver Badge ex-servicemen in Hyde Park. He
was given an enthusiastic reception, 'but there was also another spirit
abroad' - the dissatisfaction of ex-servicemen. They were angry -
because they had returned home not to the 'Land Fit For Heroes'
promised them by Lloyd George's slogan, but to unemployment and
poverty. They had decided to tell King George of their bitterness:

As if by a prearranged signal, hitherto concealed banners with slogans were
defiantly unfurled among the milling humanity which pressed about the King.
In so tense an atmosphere there were possibilities of serious trouble, but
fortunately the police were able to extricate the King without incident.

George V failed to understand the feelings of these men. Back at
Buckingham Palace, he muttered,' "Those men were in a funny tem­per" - and shaking his head, as if to rid himself of an unpleasant
memory, he strode indoors.'
⁴⁴

But to Edward, both as Prince of Wales and later as King, veteran
soldiers and sailors looked faithfully as their royal patron. They begged
him to use his influence with the Government to do something for
them. In 1927, Edward became an enthusiastic patron of the National
Council of Social Service, and went to hundreds of clubs and schemes
for the unemployed and visited the poorest homes.
⁴⁵
The majority of
the men waiting for Edward in South Wales and Monmouthshire in

November 1936, at least those who were middle-aged, were ex-
servicemen like himself. The local press stressed this link between the
King and his subjects: ' "I served in the War with the King", many a
be-medalled veteran would say, and then, to leave no shadow of doubt
in the mind of the listener - "Was in the trenches with him." '
⁴⁶
Even
an old horse at Cwmavon, said the
South Wales Argus
, had survived
the battles of the war. 'His name ... is either Sergeant or Major
.
. .
and served in Flanders.'
⁴⁷

The horror of the war seemed to linger on into the thirties, in the
sufferings of the long-term unemployed. In 1934, Harold Macmillan,
now a Tory MP, drew a parallel between the despair of the trenches
and the despair of unemployment. On learning in the House of Com­mons that the Government was planning to investigate conditions in
the distressed areas of Britain, he remarked with bitter irony, 'I am
glad that there has been on this occasion a visit from Whitehall to the
Passchendaele of Durham and South Wales.'
⁴⁸
Ex-servicemen were
bitter, too. The representative of the Central Ratepayers Association
in Portsmouth explained to the King, 'I served my Country TWICE,
during [the] Great War, and got "NOW'T" for it.'
⁴⁹
One man who
in 1934 was sent to a camp for the unemployed, High Lodge in
Durham, could hardly believe that

They had us digging trenches. Dig down so far then start further down, in
stages as it were. We thought we were learning to dig trenches for war. It was
just like a trench on the bloody Somme. We would dig it down one day then
the next day another group would come and fill it in. That is all we done for
three months. It was murder because all the time you were digging through
chalk. Bloody hopeless it was.
⁵⁰

When the King returned to London from South Wales in November
1936, he immediately sent a message to the Lords Lieutenant of the
regions he had visited, asking them to pass it on to the men who were
unemployed. 'I would urge them', he said, 'not to lose heart and to
rest assured that their troubles are not forgotten. - Edward R.I.'
⁵¹
The
people had been immensely encouraged by his visit. 'He came amongst
us, he has seen, and will assuredly never rest content until happiness
is abundant and useful work has been restored to the submerged tenth
of Darkest Wales', observed the
Western Mail & South Wales News.
'The whole nation', it added, 'has been stirred by the events of the
wonderful tour.'
⁵²
The
South Wales Argus
thought the same. Referring
to Edward's 'kingly brotherliness', it pointed out that he was ready to
go 'among the humblest of his people in order that he might see for
himself how the poor lived - in order that he might open the eyes of
the nation to evils which need to be redressed.'
⁵³
'It may not be out of
place', wrote John Rowland from the Welsh Board of Health to Sir
Kingsley Wood on
20
November,

‘If I write to tell you that the King's Visit to South Wales has everywhere been
a tonic to the people. I have not heard a single discouraging note; on all sides
there is a strong hope that something very definite is to be done soon . . .
Merthyr is placing her hopes very high.'
⁴

Beyond Wales, too, there was widespread approval of the royal visit
and of the King's words at Dowlais. They 'reverberated round the
country like a thunderclap', wrote William Deedes in an article for
the
Morning Post.
^ss
Most national newspapers were enthusiastic.
'Standing bowler-hatted before the towering cobwebbed chimneys
of the once-famed steelworks of Dowlais, South Wales,' reported
the
Daily Mirror
in November 1936, 'Britain's monarch spoke four
live-wire words':

Spurring a Government.

Electrifying a nation of loyal subjects.

'Something', he said, 'must be done .. ,'
⁵⁶

'Never has the magic of personal leadership been better shown',
observed the
Daily Mail,
'than by the King's visit to South Wales.'
⁵⁷
It
drew a sharp contrast between the King's energy and the National
Government's inaction. Unlike Government Ministers, it observed,
'the Sovereign examined their plight and drew from them the tale of
their trouble . . . the King has called for action . . . The contrast to the
way in which national questions are customarily approached can
escape nobody.'
⁵⁸
Everyone knows, enthused the
New Statesman,
'that ... he is genuinely and deeply troubled about the misery and
poverty which successive Governments have failed to relieve.'
⁵
" The
News Chronicle,
the chief organ of non-conformist opinion, com­mented that what the King had done was 'in the sole interest of truth
and public service . . . The man in the street feels that Whitehall stands
condemned.'
⁶⁰