Palace garden suffers breach of the peace
The Queen complained that the noise of passing planes drowned out a conversation with Sir David Attenborough in Buckingham Palace’s gardens as the pair – both aged 91 and born a month apart – recorded footage for a documentary charting Her Majesty’s project to create a global forest network.
IN ANY other circumstances, two 91-year-olds strolling around a garden complaining about noisy aircraft would hardly be of note.
But when the couple happen to be the Queen and Sir David Attenborough, the nature of the old friends’ conversation is undeniably of interest.
As it happened, the pair’s chatter was marred by the aforesaid overhead din. The Queen could not contain her irritation. “Why do they go round and round when you want to talk?” she pondered aloud. Poking fun at the noisy aircraft favoured by US leaders, she joked: “Sounds like President Trump or President Obama.”
It is not the first time the Queen has expressed frustration about living under a flight path. Last year, she bemoaned the increasing “noise from the air” that disturbs the peace in the gardens at Frogmore House in Windsor.
In a pre-recorded message, she told Gardeners’ Question Time on BBC Radio 4: “I very much hope you have enjoyed visiting Frogmore House and garden, which holds a special place in my family affections. Indeed, I would echo the sentiments of Queen Victoria, who, 150 years ago, wrote of this dear lovely garden where all is peace and you only hear the hum of bees, the singing of the birds. These days, there is more noise from the air than in 1867, but Frogmore remains a wonderfully relaxing environment.”
Heathrow airport is barely a sevenmile drive from Frogmore House and its flight path passes close to the royal retreat.
But aside from the noise, the Queen and Sir David – who were born just a month apart – clearly revelled in each other’s company after she agreed to escort him around the Buckingham Palace tree collection.
Their summer stroll was the culmination of a year’s filming that also involved her grandchildren, the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry, for The Queen’s Green Planet documentary, which follows the progress of a project known as the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy. It aims to create a global network of forests, second only in size to the Amazon rainforest.
The pair strolled through the 40acre gardens as the Queen told the story of some of the trees planted by family members or for her children.
Sir David admitted that despite many previous meetings, he was nervous about the garden walk because “all sorts of things could have gone wrong”.
“There were problems in that where the palace is, geographically, there are always police sirens and ambulance sirens that make filming difficult,” he told Radio Times. “But she took it all in her stride. It was a privilege, of course, a very nice occasion – and she was very gracious. She is very unsolemn, very good at putting people at their ease.”
At one point, the Queen teased Sir David because he was struggling to identify the name tags on two oak trees planted to celebrate the births of Prince Andrew and Prince Edward. “The truth was I couldn’t find my glasses,” he said.
The Queen also chuckled when he pointed out a sundial “neatly planted in the shade”.
Asked how two nonagenarians were still going strong, protecting the planet, he said: “We must be very lucky in our constitutions. There are very many virtuous people I can think of who can’t walk at my age, so it’s a matter of luck, isn’t it?”
The Queen, as we know from past experience, is rather good at asking questions. “Why did nobody see it coming?” she asked in 2008 after the financial crash during a meeting at the London School of Economics. Now, in conversation with Sir David Attenborough at Buckingham Palace, she has asked: “Why do they go round and round when you want to talk?” It’s the aircraft that go round and round: beefy helicopters clattering over Buckingham Palace and loud aeroplanes in a holding pattern roaring past Windsor Castle. Perhaps if the wind is easterly, the wedding of the Queen’s grandson next month will be less swamped by cataracts of noise, or perhaps the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull will erupt again as a timely wedding present and leave the royal blue skies serene.