Alexandra the great
GEORGE V said: ‘Abroad is awful. I know. I’ve been.’ He much preferred holidaying up the road from us, at Sandringham.
Although Lady Macclesfield wrote that ‘it would be difficult to find a more ugly or desolatelooking place: the wind blows keen from the Wash and the spring is said to be unendurable in that part of Norfolk,’ George’s mother, the dowager Queen Alexandra, adored it. The estuary mud reminded her of her native Denmark. COUNTRY LIFE would report in 1902 that ‘the exquisite kindness which permeates all she does finds constant expression in her love of animals’.
I’ve managed to get through life without a chalcedony model of a corncrake. In 1907, however, Alexandra was to commission the London outpost of the House of Fabergé to depict the animals on the Sandringham estate. At about £75 a throw, they made charming gifts and the list of semi-precious stones from which they were fashioned reads like the Book of Revelation.
Fabergé’s sculptors produced an opal stoat, an aventurine quartz sow, a silver woodcock, an obsidian shire horse, a jasper cat, a purpurine bantam, a jet Norfolk Black turkey and a sheep, modelled from a beloved royal pet that had been rescued from the lunch menu on a Nile cruise. (Abroad is awful.)
Sandringham’s famous horses, Field Marshall, Persimmon and the Iron Duke, were splendidly depicted. Along with the agate and rose-diamond rabbits, there were dogs, dogs and dogs: dachshunds, wolfhounds, pugs, Cairn and border terriers, Clumber spaniels and borzois. Lord Knutsford commented: ‘I never saw anything like them, over 100, and some most beautiful things. The Queen has a magnificent collection in two large glass cabinets in the drawing room.’
The outbreak of the First World War was to lead to the slaughter of the Romanov cousins, as well as, to Alexandra’s distress, the Sandringham horses. Back in Russia, the House of Fabergé set about making hand grenades, but Alexandra’s delightful souvenirs of a more serene Edwardian twilight are on display in the ‘Russia Season’ exhibition at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich (until February 11, 2018). Treat yourself: they are infinitely touching.
Alexandra’s bantams enjoyed a happier existence than do some others in Norfolk today. The 2 Sisters food-production scandal, centred further away on its West Bromwich outfit, has brought the chickens home to roost; the company’s director, Ranjit Boparan, has been called before a Parliamentary inquiry.
It has sent shockwaves through our little community. Boparan’s enormous empire includes the dark satanic feed-mill in the very heart of our village, a monolith built more than half a century ago. It stands—just about—as one of the first links in his beleaguered food chain.
Townies, who prefer their meat sanitised in supermarket clingfilm, are being forced once again to consider how, when, whence and under what conditions it is produced. No bad thing. We tucked-away countrymen, who must endure dust, odour and the HGVS wrecking our conservation area, are all too aware of what can be the unattractive side of corporate agri-business.
Alexandra’s close kinswoman, Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, is a tireless human-rights activist. My wife is working alongside her in Serbia, raising funds for GRUBB, the charity that integrates vulnerable Roma children into society, giving them both an education and a voice through the medium of the performing arts. It was GRUBB that triumphantly opened the show at an international children’s dancing competition this Thursday in the vast Soviet-era Sava Centre in Belgrade.
‘The House of Fabergé set about making hand grenades
Kate, already bewildered by battalions of impeccably drilled Chinese children, was further puzzled to find herself seated next to the grey-suited and pleasant mayor of Coventry. After the Second World War had razed his city (and dethroned the Princess’s house of Karadordevic), it was Belgrade that sent over a gift of timber to rebuild its theatre. It solved what has long for us been a family puzzle: why the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, should be so named.
So, here I am, home alone, avoiding chicken and watching Alexandra’s mother-in-law, Victoria, on the telly-box. It’s going to be a long haul this series: we’re still barely at the Corn Laws and the woman reigned for 60-odd years. However, it’s gripping, in particular for its quite wonderful design: that odd, schizophrenic period between Regency and Full-blown Aspidistra.
It’s been consummately realised, I’m delighted to say, by my gifted chum Michael Howells. Long may he reign!
Kit Hesketh-harvey’s detective mystery stocking-filler, For The Shooting, is available online at about a tenner. He’s also playing King Rat in pantomime at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford, Surrey