Andrew Morton - The Queen

THE

QUEEN

First published in Great Britain in 2022 by

Michael OMara Books Limited

9 Lion Yard

Tremadoc Road

London SW4 7NQ

Copyright 2022 by Andrew Morton

Published by arrangement with Hachette Book Group, Inc., 1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10114, USA

All rights reserved. You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978-1-78929-448-4 in hardback print format

ISBN: 978-1-78929-464-4 in trade paperback format

ISBN: 978-1-78929-449-1 in ebook format

Front cover photograph by Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

Jacket design by Ana Bjezancevic

www.mombooks.com

To my mother Kathleen and all those of the war generation

CONTENTS

F OR THOSE OF US FORTUNATE enough to have met Her Majesty the Queen, its a moment were unlikely to forget.

I was on my first major tour as a royal correspondent for a British newspaper and I recall watching in wonder as the Royal Yacht Britannia, pristine and glowing in the dappled sunshine, slowly sailed into San Diego Bay. It was February 1983, and those few days in the company of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh transformed my life.

Britannia was surrounded by a raucous welcoming armada of speedboats, yachts, catamarans, skiffs and canoes. It was a Saturday morning when the yacht docked and the royal party emerged. The Queens nine-day tour of California, land of surf, sun and starry-eyed dreams, was supposed to be a carefully curated review of the best that The Golden State had to offer, from the artifice of Hollywood to the natural splendour of Yosemite National Park. However, if the visit had been a Broadway play it would have been named: The Tour That Goes Wrong.

In days gone by, when the Royal Family arrived in a new country, with some reluctance they would hold a cocktail party for the press corps who dogged their every move. So, suited and booted, I found myself handing over my gold-embossed invitation card to a waiting Navy officer and was then invited to take a proffered gin and tonic a measure naval and substantial on Britannias aft deck.

It took me back to a foggy day in October 1965. I was eleven years old and, proudly dressed in a freshly pressed Scout uniform, I took my place lining the route on the outskirts of Leeds to see the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh go by on their way to open the brand-new, brutalist Seacroft Civic Centre. As they drove past, the dank, claustrophobic fingers of fog, combined with the bright interior light in their high-domed Rolls-Royce, only served to heighten the effect of two exotic beings dropped in from outer space, alien creatures come to view mundane municipal life. Although I caught just a fleeting glimpse of the Queen and her consort, the memory has always stayed with me.

The Queen has been part of my life forever. Growing up, the Royal Family were like the White Cliffs of Dover: immutable, impregnable, ever present. A necessary part of life, like breathing. Not only did her image appear everywhere, from postage stamps to coins, but it could also be seen looking down disapprovingly from behind the headmasters desk, just as punishment was being administered. At the Regal Cinema in Cross Gates, we regularly mumbled through the national anthem after watching that weeks childrens offering Cliff Richards 1963 movie Summer Holiday, about a group of friends singing and dancing their way across continental Europe on a London double-decker bus, was a favourite.

Viewed through my young eyes, the Queen was not a real human being. She was a distant, faraway symbol, an occasionally smiling personage who in her Christmas Day broadcast, which we gathered round the telly to watch at three in the afternoon, spoke in barely understandable English.

For me, the only relatable and human element of our Monarch was the fact that she was a few months younger than my mother and both had served in the Second World War: my mother Kathleen in the Land Army and Princess Elizabeth in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS).

On that Saturday in San Diego, I have to confess that my first encounter with Her Majesty was less than memorable. The diminutive lady in a striking blue-and-white outfit, which some fashionistas described as reminiscent of a Cockney Pearly Queen, listened with increased inattention as I went on about the impressive size of the US fleet lying at anchor in the harbour. She agreed politely and promptly moved on.

The next few days, though, did peel back some of the mask of monarchy, revealing a somewhat different character to the stern visage reproduced on Britains postage stamps. The visit became the very antithesis of a royal programme, where every movement, every meet and greet is timed to the minute. What with gale-force winds, storms at sea, overflowing waterways, noisy IRA sympathizers, washed-out roads and inebriated celebrities, what could possibly go wrong?

It seemed she positively relished it when a meticulously devised schedule was thrown up in the air. Years later, her grandson Prince William made the same observation. They love it when things go wrong, he said. They absolutely adore it because obviously everything always has to be right, but when things go wrong around them, theyre the first people to laugh.

On this particular royal visit, the weather proved to be the key disruptor. While the Queen and Prince Philip attended engagements in San Diego and Los Angeles, Britannia had sailed up the coast to Long Beach, where the plan had been for the couple to rejoin the royal yacht and cruise a little further north to Santa Barbara. On arrival in Santa Barbara Harbour, they were due to be met by the President and First Lady, Ronald and Nancy Reagan, before heading up to their home Rancho del Cielo (translated as ranch in the sky) north-west of Santa Barbara for a taco lunch and a horseback ride. Following a tornado over LA, however, the Pacific was far too rough for the royals to travel from Long Beach to Santa Barbara by sea, so they had to go by plane instead.

But even the morning journey from the yachts berth to the airport proved far from straightforward, as roads in the area had been closed due to flooding. The only way through the rising water was in a high-axled US Navy bus. Not wanting to let people down, the Queen donned a pair of galoshes and climbed into the front seat. Secret Service agents were glad she didnt sit further back as, during their cursory examination, they discovered that the bus had more than its fair share of lewd graffiti scrawled on the rear of several seats.

Further unexpected drama was to come after landing in Santa Barbara. Following handshakes and a brief exchange of pleasantries with the Reagans, the Queen and Prince Philip embarked upon a jouncing 7-mile switchback ride in a four-wheel-drive Chevrolet Suburban, which involved motoring through a steep obstacle course of flooded streams, submerged roads, falling boulders and downed tree limbs to reach their destination. Her Majesty remarked that it was all terribly exciting. Unfortunately, a much-anticipated horseback ride in the scenic Santa Ynez Mountains was cancelled and the tacos were eaten indoors.