Sandringham Days

by John Matson

  It is very nice here and peaceful & I am sure I shall like it, but I miss dear Papa quite dreadfully, even more than in London & his rooms look so empty and deserted without him; I forced myself to go in & look round but felt very sad. Papa adored this place & I love it, it is full of so many happy memories of my whole married life, though of course Papa & I went through sad times too – especially when Grannie became so frail those last two years.282

  Since that visit in the summer Queen Mary, too, had endured the strain of the abdication. For one whose whole life had been ordered and governed by a sense of duty and service to the monarchy, her eldest son’s decision to give up the throne in order to devote his life to Mrs Simpson was shattering. She wrote bitterly to her eldest son that she did not think it possible that he would be able to return to England ‘for a very long time.’ But there was something reassuring in the traditional return of the Royal family to Sandringham. On 22 December, Queen Mary wrote: ‘Left London with Bertie, E. & their children for dear Sandringham to spend Christmas there, my staff running it this year… Happy to be back in the old home.’283 But for the elderly Queen the strain had been too much. She became unwell and spent Christmas Day and much of the following week in her room. She came downstairs on New Year’s Eve to watch an amusing film. ‘Thank God,’ she wrote that day, ‘this sad year is over.’

  Queen Mary was still at Sandringham on the occasion of the first anniversary of King George’s death. ‘Many letters and flowers & was glad to be surrounded by the family – Went into his room.’284 The familiar rooms and the gardens were a reassurance after a year of violent change. Though she no longer wore mourning, she felt his loss as keenly as ever and she was perhaps uncertain of the role that would be left for her to play with the accession of the new King. Her instinct, however, was unerring: having consulted with her son she decided to attend the coronation service in Westminster Abbey, which broke with tradition. Her reception by the enormous crowds along the coronation route assured her that not only had she done the right thing, but that her presence symbolised the enduring quality of the British monarchy – an institution which had been battered by the abdication crisis.

  The following year the Royal Family were once again at Sandringham, grateful for a respite from the arduous coronation celebrations, and on Christmas Day the King broadcast to his people. It seemed that the earlier traditions established by King George V were being maintained; to a large extent this was true, but the King was his own man and the changes to the estate which he had recommended to his brother were being planned with a view to the property becoming economically self-sufficient. Like his brother, now Duke of Windsor, his boyhood had been spent in the shadow of his father, of whom he was considerably in awe; but he, too, was very much part of the twentieth century, moving with the times – he was the first member of the Royal Family to learn (with some reluctance) to fly – respecting the traditions of the past, though ready to adapt them to the present. His independence of spirit won him the admiration of his father, who recognised in him the virtues he himself admired and cherished, in contrast to his eldest son whose interests and views seemed so exactly contrary to his own. ‘You have always been so sensible and easy to work with and you have always been ready to listen to any advice and to agree with my opinion about people and things, that I feel we have always got on very well together (very different to dear David),’285 he wrote.

  But change was in the air: though King George VI respected tradition, the yachting his father loved did not appeal to him and the attention he paid to the Royal stamp collection was more dutiful than enthusiastic. He shared, however, with the Queen a sense of companionship and affection within the family circle which he cherished above all else. It differed from ‘the Waleses’, which had been inward-looking and uncritical, and from that of his own childhood with parents of whom he was much in awe. Though a close affection and mutual respect developed as Prince Albert grew into manhood, biographers of King George V and Queen Mary consider that they failed as parents of young children. King George VI, though, enjoyed the company of his daughters and admired their attributes; there was a confidence and trust within the family which brought great happiness to them all.

  The new King turned his attention to the Sandringham estate with a zeal that would certainly have won his father’s approval, though he would have hesitated over the changes which were about to take place. But the threat of war, and war itself, intervened. Queen Mary was at Sandringham on the day war was declared. At morning service in the little church in the park she listened on the wireless which the rector had set up in the nave to the momentous words of the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, telling the nation that Germany had not replied to the British ultimatum and that ‘consequently, this country is at war with Germany.’

  On the following morning the air-raid siren sounded and she and the children of the Duke of Kent, who were also staying at Sandringham, took refuge in the basement. Later she regretfully left the house for Badminton, in Gloucestershire, where she was to spend the war, and did not return for five years. Although she felt that her place should be in London, she understood that her presence there would an avoidable anxiety for the King. The Big House was shut up, and on their rare visits to Sandringham, the Royal Family stayed at Appleton where Princess Maud and, before her, Louise Cresswell had lived. York Cottage, which had remained empty since King George V and Queen Mary moved into the Big House, became the base for Coates’ Mission, the small Army team prepared to move the Royal Family from Norfolk in a crisis. In the meantime, whilst enjoying those cherished visits to Norfolk, the Princesses sometimes worked on the estate, helping with the harvest; it was a pleasant interlude from Windsor, where they spent much of the war. The King continued to keep in close touch with affairs on the estate, and in September 1941, during a brief rest, he was able to arrange some highly successful partridge shooting but, with the Queen, he was almost constantly engaged in visiting units of all the armed forces and civilian services. Their interest and support were widely appreciated, especially during the ‘Blitz’, when major cities had been bombed and Buckingham Palace was also damaged. The King’s relationship with the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, which had not initially been easy, developed into a warm friendship enhanced by their great responsibilities and strong mutual respect. The King started a tradition of a weekly informal lunch where they could discuss the war situation without risk of interruption. In June 1944 both leaders had desperately wanted to be present at the D-Day landings on the French coast; each had to dissuade the other to their great regret; each in his own way was indispensable to the country.

  After the end of the war the family were together again at Sandringham for Christmas – the first time for six years. Lady Airlie went into waiting early in January 1946: ‘I travelled up on the King’s train,’ she wrote:

  …in the familiar little compartment always used by the ladies-in-waiting, which brought back many memories. At teatime the King sent his equerry to fetch me for tea with him, Princess Elizabeth, and her cousin Lady Mary Cambridge, who were on the train. We all arrived at Sandringham House together, where we were met at the door by the Queen, Princess Margaret and Queen Mary.

  I thought – regretfully at first – how much the atmosphere of Sandringham had changed, but then I realised that this was inevitable, for a new generation had grown up since I had last seen it. In the entrance hall there now stood a baize-covered table on which jig-saw puzzles were set out. The younger members of the party – the Princesses, Lady Mary Cambridge, Mrs Gibbs (Princess Elizabeth’s lady-in-waiting) and several young Guardsmen – congregated round them from morning till night. The radio, worked by Princess Elizabeth, blared incessantly.

  Only in Queen Mary’s room – the one which she had always occupied, with its lovely collection of small treasures – was it possible to recapture the past. I felt as I sat reading to her that King George might come in at any moment with some letter about which he wished to consult her.r />
  Before the end of a week I revised my impressions… There was no denying the fact that the new atmosphere of Sandringham was very much more friendly than in the old days, more like that of any home. We still assembled in the drawing-room in the traditional way, but no orders or medals were worn, not even badges. One sensed far more the ordinary setting of family life in this generation than in the last. It was in the way in which the King said, ‘You must ask Mummy,’ when his daughters wanted to do something – just as any father would do; in Princess Margaret’s pout when the Queen sent her back to the house to put on a thicker coat – like any fifteen-year-old girl’s; in the way both sisters teased, and were teased by, the young Guardsmen, to whom Queen Mary referred when we were alone as ‘The Body Guard’.

  At dinner on the first evening I sat next to the King. His face was tired and strained and he ate practically nothing. I knew that he was forcing himself to talk and entertain me… The King had worked on his Boxes until just before dinner and was going to work again afterwards. Looking at him and realising how hard he was driving himself I felt a cold fear of the probability of another short reign – and a great personal love for him.

  At about 11.30 that evening dancing began. We all danced, Queen Mary and myself included… At the end of an hour I stopped… but Queen Mary kept on until we went up to bed at nearly 1 a.m.

  …The King was a devoted father to both his daughters. He spoiled Princess Margaret and still continued to treat her as an enfant terrible, but Princess Elizabeth was his constant companion in shooting, walking, riding – in fact in everything. His affection for her was touching…286

  He was aware of her destiny as the future sovereign and felt the poignancy of the passing of her youth. In February 1947, the Royal Family left England in HMS Vanguard for a tour of South Africa. It was a tour which recognised the importance of the Union’s support during the war, and a respite from the gruelling year, with its shortages of food and commodities, and a feeling of unrest and disillusion. The massive Labour majority in the General Election of the previous year was evidence of a strong desire for change.

  A few years later the joy in family relationships extended to his grandchildren and when Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh spent Christmas in Malta, the King wrote to her of her eldest son, Prince Charles: ‘He is too sweet stumping around the room & we shall love having him at Sandringham. He is the fifth generation to live there & and I hope he will get to love the place.’287

  King George and his father were both keen and skilful shots: with a lifetime’s knowledge of the Sandringham estate they planned their shoots with great care and in close collaboration with their game-keepers, but in one respect they differed. King George V inherited from his father the love of very large shoots of driven birds reared on estates when the bags could be numbered in thousands; as Louise Cresswell testified, the provision of ideal conditions for the rearing of game birds in the early days at Sandringham was given absolute priority. The size of the bag was the main attraction, irrespective of skill and awareness. For King Edward VII shooting was a means of providing entertainment for his guests: the huge number of birds reared and the size of his game larder simply ensured that in making such provision his hospitality would not be outdone by his neighbours. It was shooting on a scale that derived from the battue prevalent in Europe in the nineteenth century. He opposed any scheme which might have resulted in birds flying high. Dersingham Wood, for example, had ‘consisted of a dense semi-circular thicket around which were planted at intervals wide screens of clipped evergreens about seven feet high.288 After the war conditions had changed: there were fewer keepers, rearing was expensive and the King’s tastes veered towards the challenge presented by a wide variety of birds and wildfowl. He was content to be in the right place at the right time – numbers were not important. The King’s whole attitude to the sport can be understood from his insistence that a drive was not completed until every bird had been picked up. ‘He had not finished his shoot, and was not ready for conversation, until the birds were found. Picking up was an inseparable part of the shoot itself.’ It was, after all, as Buxton commented, ‘nothing more than common humanity.’289

  Until his health deteriorated in 1949, the King was almost irresistibly drawn to Sandringham when he heard that there were plenty of duck in. It was for him a new aspect of shooting and, as its possibilities became evident, much care was given to improving wildfowl haunts. Reeds were cleared, islands were created and barrels were sunk. In 1937, he began a ‘duck book’, separate from his game book, in which he could observe the habits of the birds: Wolferton Splash, Frankfort Pool, Park Ponds – he knew them all. He was often in place by 6 a.m. and his brief comments vividly conjure up the scene: ‘Misty and damp. No wind. 6.0 – 8.0 a.m.’; ‘Wet and dark. Strong S.W. wind 6.45 – 7.30 a.m. Quite a lot of duck came in large lots. Rather chary.’290 The bag for that morning flight at half a dozen pools was 113 birds with eight guns, including the King and the Duke of Gloucester. We can picture it all: a dark October dawn, the reeds and rushes rustling in the wind and the marksmen, muffled in coats and jerseys against the cold, and wearing waders, crouched in their barrels waiting silently for the beating of wings in a sky that was beginning to lighten. That morning flight was to be the King’s last – and he was accompanied for the first time by Princess Elizabeth.

  The King was a knowledgeable and enthusiastic gardener and he designed and supervised the creation of a series of plots, protected by hedges, on a site overlooked by his own rooms so that he could enjoy looking out over them. He took the keenest interest in the work, invariably writing suggestions in his own hand from wherever he happened to be, and was delighted to see it taking shape over the years. He acquired a specialist’s knowledge of rhododendrons and was able to discuss with authority the development of the Savile Garden at Windsor Great Park. It was tragic that he was not to see this project reach full maturity. He also reshaped the approach to the house from the Norwich Gates, creating a bank to screen the house from the road to ensure greater privacy.

  Since 1948 the King’s health had been causing concern: in that year he was diagnosed as suffering from arteriosclerosis which, if not treated promptly, would have led to gangrene developing in his legs and inevitably requiring amputation. The King deeply resented an enforced rest and the cancellation of an overseas tour, but the condition appeared at first to respond. The Royal Family went to Sandringham for the New Year and the King was allowed to go shooting a fortnight later, provided he spent the afternoon in bed. His condition did not improve, though, and he underwent an operation in March 1949. In 1951, he was found to be suffering from cancer of the left lung, which was successfully removed in a further operation in September 1951. There remained, however, a risk of coronary thrombosis, from which he was, in fact, eventually to die. On 21 December he returned to Sandringham for Christmas. It was a happy family holiday and he was well enough to be able to take part in the shooting. On 1 January 1952 at Heath Farm, with six other guns, the bag was 121 head, with 101 pheasant.

  At the end of January the King and Queen were back in London to bid farewell to Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh, who were flying to Kenya for the first stage of a tour that was planned to take them to Australia and New Zealand. He had a check-up with his doctors, who were pleased with his progress, and returned with the Queen to Sandringham.

  On 5 February he enjoyed a ‘Keepers’ Day’, shooting with some twenty guns. Though it was as carefully planned as ever, it was a day of informal sport after hares – ending, to the King’s satisfaction, with three hares with his last three shots.291 It had been a fine, sunny day, but with a cold wind, and one that he had greatly enjoyed. That evening he sent a message of congratulation to each of the keepers, and after a happy domestic evening, he retired to his room at about 10.30 p.m. At about midnight a night-watchman in the garden saw him ‘afixing the latch of his bedroom window, to which a new fastening had lately been attached.’292 He did not
write up his game book that evening.

  The next morning, when the King’s valet came into his bedroom to awaken him, he found that the King had died in his sleep.

  It was said that, as his coffin was borne, like his father and grandmother and two uncles before him, from the Big House to the church beyond the gardens, a cock pheasant crowed in the park.

  King George VI came to the throne by default, like his father, and similarly, at a time when the country was preparing for war with Germany. It was also a time of constitutional turmoil following an uneasy and short-lived reign. To him and to his family must be given the credit for the restoration of stability to the country, and the return of a monarchy which was traditional but tempered by having shared with his people the ravages of war. It was enhanced by the emphasis on family values and exemplified by the visible presence of his wife and daughters to a degree that had not been seen before.

  AFTERWORD

  In the course of more than 150 years and five monarchs, Sandringham has undergone striking changes, from the rebuilding of the old Hall to the modern and highly efficient estate it is today. The trim hedges, the rows of immaculate fruit trees and currant bushes, the air of prosperity that begins to make itself felt even at the approaches to the estate, all are a far cry from the run-down, rabbit-ridden, neglected acres which the young Prince of Wales surveyed with such enthusiasm in 1862. These changes reflect not only the modern agricultural techniques of the last century but also, the individual tastes and interests of successive Royal owners.

  For some seventy-five years the programme at Sandringham was one of improvement and expansion. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Prince of Wales delighted in taking the members of his house-parties round the rows of greenhouses: ‘All Persimmon!’ he would say proudly, for the earnings in stud fees from this horse were enormous. King Edward VIII spoke truly when he said that Sandringham was ‘voracious’, but only in his mind was it a ‘white elephant’. Had he been so minded, he would have spared no expense in its upkeep, but his affections were clouded by memories of the lack of communication and understanding between himself and his father and, besides, he found much greater happiness at Fort Belvedere, the property on the edge of Windsor Great Park given to him by his father and which he had made very much his own. Apart from the shooting, the attractions of a largely agricultural estate in Norfolk, remote from the fast-paced activity of the metropolis, were, he felt, strictly limited. Like his grandfather, King Edward VII before him, Edward VIII was powerfully drawn to the hedonistic life of the capital. The retrenchment which was undoubtedly necessary at Sandringham led to more efficient use of the land and greater productivity. But there was another reason: the new King displayed an obsessive concern about money. It showed, perhaps not for the first time, at the reading of his father’s will, as its terms were read out at a family gathering. In response to the King’s enquiry, ‘Where do I come in?’ the solicitor commented drily that King George had considered that his heir was already sufficiently provided for.