Two points of intersection with Queen Elizabeth II
England is having a grand party to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s platinum anniversary — 70 years on the throne. TV doesn’t tell me how enthusiastically the Scots and Welsh are joining in.
“Lillibet” and I don’t have a long personal history. Minimal, in fact. Our life stories intersect at only two points.
I saw her once, when she was still Princess Elizabeth. Her father, King George VI, was scheduled to visit Canada in 1951. Because of illhealth — he died the next year — his daughter and her husband made the trip instead.
It may have been the most successful Royal visit ever.
Elizabeth and Philip toured all the way across Canada for 33 days, from coast to coast.
By the time the royal couple reached Vancouver, Elizabeth had mastered that wobbly hand wave to the adoring crowds.
I was 15 years old. I had an afternoon paper route, where I rode down the sidewalk slinging folded newspapers in the general direction of my subscribers’ front porches.
On that day, Elizabeth and Philip would be driving down the East Mall at the University of British Columbia, to attend an exhibition football game at the UBC stadium. I abandoned my subscribers — who weren’t home anyway. They jammed the roadsides, hoping to see their future Queen.
So did I. I parked my bicycle against one of the maple trees along the boulevard.
Perhaps motivated by the biblical story of Jesus and Zacchaeus, I climbed the tree, and edged out along a lower limb.
Her Cadillac convertible passed right underneath me.
She looked up. For an instant, that almost automated hand wave faltered. Her fingers opened wider. And she smiled up at me — that beatific smile that has captivated people for 70 years.
I treasure the memory.
In fact, we had an older connection too. My uncle, Dr. A.C. Taylor, had been the personal surgeon to Prince Philip’s uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India before Independence in 1947.
Born in India of missionary parents — as was I — Uncle Andy originally returned as a missionary doctor. When mission funding dried up during the pre-war depression, he had a choice of coming home, or finding some other employer to stay in
India. He joined the British Army.
When the Second World War broke out, he found himself in Burma, in charge of a 1,000-bed military hospital. If you saw the movie Bridge on the River Kwai, you’ll have seen a romanticized version of the war in Burma.
It was hell.
When Japanese forces neared, Andrew Taylor found himself the senior officer shepherding a train of British sick and wounded across the Irrawaddy River to safety in
India. Sappers blew up the bridges after he crossed them.
I’ve been told he was under order to shoot any soldiers who couldn’t keep up, to prevent them from falling into the not-so-gentle hands of the Japanese. He didn’t. He kept treating the sick and wounded, as the straggling procession finally had to walk, through ankle-deep mud, for two months.
He finally reached safety in British India, 30 pounds lighter, emaciated, with malaria and dysentery. He was fortunate. Some
30,000 British soldiers never made it out of Burma.
After his recovery, my uncle was appointed personal surgeon to Lord Mountbatten.
Although the records show he was present at meetings between Mountbatten, Gandhi, and Nehru, he was sworn to secrecy. He knew what went on behind closed doors, too. But he never broke that vow of silence. Not even to his children.
During that 1951 royal tour, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip specifically requested personal time with only one Canadian — Dr. Andrew Copeland Taylor, then chief of surgery in Regina. On behalf of her father, King George VI, she presented him with the highest award that can be made to a civilian, the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
King George is long gone. Lord Louis Mountbatten is dead, too, blown up in 1979 by an IRA bomb. His nephew Prince Philip died two years ago. Elizabeth, Queen since 1952, is nearing the end of her reign.
In a few more years, there will be no one left who can treasure these memories.
No one knows that will become of the monarchy when Queen Elizabeth is gone too.
Prince Charles, as one commentator noted acidly, is “not as unpopular as he was a few years ago.” Prince William seems groomed to carry eventually.
Monarchy may seem like an unnecessary luxury these days. And yet we all treasure our memories…