The Peoples King (4 page)

For many of the rich of Britain, little had been changed by the
Depression. The women still organized 'coming out' parties for their
debutante daughters, and the men still relaxed in the clubs of Pall
Mall. Joey Legh, a royal courtier, lost some money in the Depression,
but all he had to do was cut down on domestic staff - 'making do with
one footman instead of two.'
¹¹
Even in the Monmouthshire valleys,
near the coalfields, there was luxury and splendour. Tredegar House,
the glittering home of Viscount Tredegar, hosted an endless round
of weekend parties attended by footmen dressed in breeches and
powdered wigs.
¹²
In County Durham, another coal-mining region of
Britain that had been hit badly by the Depression, the enormously
wealthy Londonderry family enjoyed every luxury at Wynyard Park
- just one of their three family seats. At Londonderry House, in
London's exclusive district of Mayfair, Edith, Lady Londonderry
held massive receptions to mark the opening of Parliament; the guest
lists, of about a thousand people, took up nearly two full columns in
The Times.

It was against this background of extreme contrast between the lives
of the rich and the lives of the poor that King Edward's visit to South
Wales in the late autumn of 1936 took place. Aneurin Bevan, the
radical Labour MP for Rhymney, regarded the visit as patronizing
and refused to welcome him. Organizing the visit in 'much the same
way as you might to go to the Congo', he thought, was an affront to
the people living there." But few people in Wales shared this view.
'Everywhere the people looked delighted and hopeful at his visit',
noted his equerry, Charles Lambe. 'They obviously loved and trusted
him.'
¹⁴
Men, women and children thronged the narrow roads of the
valleys.
¹⁵
'Croeso I'r Brenhin
', declared a large banner - 'Welcome to
the King'.
¹⁶
Colourful flags and bunting hung from shops and homes.
'As everywhere it's the same story, flags waving above the grime and
decay, cheers breaking the silence where work hooters have long since
ceased to blow,' observed the Pathe Gazette newsreel that was shown
in cinemas the following week.
¹⁷
'Surely, something will happen now'
was the widespread feeling in South Wales, reported the
Spectator.
¹⁸

The King's Ministers of Attendance on the tour of Wales were
Ernest Brown, Minister of Labour, and Sir Kingsley Wood, Minister
of Health. He was also accompanied by representatives of social
service organizations, among them the National Council of Social
Service, of which Edward was patron.
¹⁹
The royal party was met at
each stop by local representatives of these and other welfare groups,
by town mayors and by the chairmen of urban district councils.
Everywhere, groups of ex-servicemen who had served in the Great
War of 1914-18 waited patiently to see the King.

The royal courtiers on the visit to Wales were led by Alexander
Hardinge. The son of Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, who had been
Viceroy of India between 1910 and 1916, he had been educated at
Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge, and fitted easily into the
royal household - a closed world of upper-class men and women who
shared the same background. They identified strongly with the elite
of Britain and knew little, if anything, about the lives of the working
classes. As Bevan suggested, to Hardinge and the other courtiers the
people of South Wales must have seemed as foreign and remote as the
people of the Congo. Hardinge had been a courtier to King George V
and had taken part in the unchanging royal circuit of the previous
reign: Buckingham Palace in the winter and summer seasons, Windsor
Castle over Easter, Sandringham House in the autumn and over Christ­mas, Balmoral Castle in August, and sometimes the royal yacht at
Cowes. He now found himself visiting very different places as Private
Secretary to the new king, George V's son.

Charles Lambe was another member of the royal party to South
Wales. A tall, good-looking naval officer of thirty-six, he had been
appointed Edward's equerry just a few months before, in July. He had
been put forward for the post by Lord Louis Mountbatten, his best
friend, who was also Edward's cousin and aide-de-camp.
²⁰
Lambe had
no experience of the previous royal court and served Edward with
loyal and unqualified enthusiasm.

From Llantwit Major, Edward was driven in the royal car to nearby
Boverton, where the Welsh Land Settlement Society was developing a
cooperative farm on an estate of 650 acres. The King chatted with the
settlers on the farm, most of whom were unemployed miners, and
many of whom were wearing medals they had won in the Great War.
With smiles and handshakes, Edward told them how much he admired
their hard work. Then a drive through the rolling countryside of the
Vale of Glamorgan brought him to a very different scene - to the
Rhondda Valley, the heart of the South Wales coal industry, scarred
with slag heaps and idle mines. 'To-day, for miles,' wrote a Rhondda
man in 1935,

you see the soft contours of the valleys, gashed and streaked by rows of ugly,
drab houses, built anyhow, anywhere, to serve the purposes of those gloomy
collieries; the rubbish tips sprawl everywhere, polluting the mountain air with
dust and the streams with inky filth.
²¹

A small mining town called Dinas was Edward's first stop in the
Rhondda. Here, a disused coal tip was being converted into a re­creation ground by voluntary labour. The King sympathetically patted
on the shoulder a man who had told him he had been unemployed for
four years. To another man, who had been out of work for seven
years, Edward said simply, 'I am indeed very sorry for you.'
²²

Soon after, the King was taken to the Pentrebach Preparatory
Training Centre for the unemployed, where young men were learning
the skills of the building trade. He received a tumultuous welcome.
He paused for a moment, visibly moved, and raised his hat in
acknowledgement. Lunch was scheduled at the centre. But before
sitting down to eat, the King asked to see the men's dining hall. He
waited until everyone was seated and then stepped briskly into the
hall, where he rapped sharply on the metal wall of the hut. In the
tone of an orderly officer and with a broad smile, he asked, 'Any
complaints?' This produced a burst of laughter from the men as they
sprang up from the tables - laughter in which the King merrily joined.
After lunch, he went on a tour of the centre and asked for instructions
on how to mix mortar. He picked up a trowel to try it for himself,
which delighted all the working men around him, reported the
Merthyr
Express.

The centre of Merthyr Tydfil was the next stop, and Edward was
taken to see the Merthyr Maternity and Child Welfare Clinic. This
clinic sought to provide mothers and children with extra nutrition and
basic medical services. So high was the infant mortality rate in the
region that in Abertillery in 1935, more than eleven infants in every
hundred had died before they reached twelve months.
²⁴
The Mon­mouthshire County Health Department reported that eight out of
every ten schoolchildren in the area were sickly and that only ten out
of every hundred were in normal health.
²⁵
This meant that most of the
children Edward met on his tour of South Wales were suffering from
some kind of physical weakness.

A major worry at the Merthyr clinic was the rate of death in
childbirth, which was high nationally but even higher in areas blighted
by long-term unemployment.
²⁶
At the end of 1934 the maternal death
rate in the Rhondda was so grim that nearly one in every hundred
women in the region lost their lives in childbirth.
²⁷
Every pregnant
woman lining the roadside to cheer Edward on his tour of Wales faced
this high risk of death. She knew that by the time of the King's
coronation next May, she might have lost her life - and left her baby
motherless. Such suffering was unnecessary: research carried out in
1936 had demonstrated a clear connection between unemployment
and maternal mortality, due to poor diet, fatigue, nervous strain and
inadequate medical care.
²⁸

Edward's next stop at Merthyr was the Ministry of Labour Home
Training Centre at Gwaelodygarth, where girls from unemployed
households were being trained for work as domestic servants. Their
uniform of white pinafores and headbands had been starched and
carefully ironed, and their shoes polished to a shine. Then on to the
employment exchange in the town, where the King saw men queuing
up to register, dressed in threadbare jackets and caps. He went to the
front of the queue and spoke to some of the men waiting for work.
²⁹
A visit to an employment exchange had been specially asked for by
the King.
³⁰

The tour continued to Aberdare and Penrhiwceiber, and then to
Mountain Ash, where Edward was greeted by the singing of the local
choir as he entered the pavilion in the centre of the town. Here, a great
gathering of social service workers waited for him. As he stepped
forward he was welcomed by thunderous applause, and for a brief
moment he was overwhelmed. Then he walked up the steps of the
platform and in an impromptu speech, told the audience of seven
thousand that

You have made me feel at home in this part of South Wales today, and
although I do not now hold the title of Prince of Wales - a title which I held
for 25 years - my interest in the Principality will never diminish.
¹¹

A few weeks later the King received a letter from a woman living in
Barry - 'just a "nurse" and young like yourself!' - who said she had
had the pleasure of seeing him at Mountain Ash during his royal tour.
'I think you must have felt', she said, 'how sincerely the Welsh people
love and admire you.'
³²

In a plain grey overcoat bare of official insignia, Edward's slight
frame blended easily into the crowds of working men. Everywhere he
went, he mingled with the people, doffing his hat. He got out of his
car, reported a letter to the
Spectator
on 27 November, in the heart of
a vast crowd, with not more than one or two policemen anywhere
near him - 'His utter confidence in the goodwill and the affection of
a much maligned people was magnificent.'
³³
This display of trust was
greatly appreciated by the people themselves. Shortly after the visit,
an 'ordinary married woman from the distressed areas' who signed
herself 'one full & loyal heart from Wales' wrote a long letter to the
King. She had always admired him, she said, 'but lately, especially
since your visit here, though I saw little of you myself (how I would
love to have been one of those with whom you shook hands), my
admiration has grown into the deepest love towards your Majesty.'
She planned to go to the coronation in May the following year and
would be cheering him with all her heart,
not because of who you are, but because of what you are, in spite of your
Kingship. I do not suppose for one moment that you are perfect, no one in the
world is, but your humanity 8c kindly interest in the people has touched me
very deeply. You could profess concern & interest & yet stay away, but that
you do not do, and may God bless you for it.