The simple life
At home, they are an ordinary couple, says Dickie Arbiter, the palace’s former press secretary
It was a drab, overcast November morning, 70 years ago, when I arrived in London to catch a glimpse of Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten’s wedding celebrations. I was seven years old, and one of a lucky few taken into town for the day, from my boarding school in Berkshire. My overwhelming memory is of the cold. It was truly bitter, standing out there; I tried to combat it by putting newspapers under my clothes, but to no avail. This was still in the time of rationing, and despite jubilation in the air, London continued to wear the scars of war. Many bomb sites hadn’t been filled in, soldiers were still wearing khaki, and there was a faint smell of the conflict lingering.
The crowds were huge, filling every street. People hadn’t come together in such numbers since VE Day, two years earlier, and you could feel the sense of Britain getting back on its feet again. It was not the grand ceremony we know a royal wedding as today, but when I caught a flash of the bride in her carriage, she looked beautiful.
I probably thought I’d come just about as close to the couple as I ever would. Four decades later, I started under their employment.
In a dozen years working closely with the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, as a press secretary at Buckingham Palace, I witnessed a marriage of extraordinary fortitude and love. This is a relationship that has been through an awful lot over 70 years, but at its core it remains the same. Look at a photograph of Princess Elizabeth gazing at her naval officer in 1947, then see the portrait released for their 60th anniversary. It is the same shared look of trust, adoration and unfailing support. They have always been there for one another.
In many ways, of course, theirs has been an unusual and difficult marriage to run. The Queen has always put duty before all else and had a defined role to do, but the Duke has had to create his career. She has always considered him head of the family (frequently saying so), but she knows a large part of his role has been to stay two steps behind her at all times. And to her, that role has been an invaluable comfort.
On the other hand, it has been a marriage of utter normalcy. Shortly after I took the job, I went to Balmoral for 48 hours, and had lunch in a log cabin with just the Queen, the Duke and her lady in waiting. The food was put out in Tupperware, for us to help ourselves and dine on China plates. I even did the washing up with Her Majesty afterwards. “I’ll wash, you dry,” she told me, rolling up her sleeves. So I did. In those lovely flashes of mundanity, they were like any other couple in the world. In the summer, they’d enjoy barbecues, picnics and rolling down the hills with the children. In later years, in the evenings, the Queen would settle down to watch television (racing, often) while the Duke, who isn’t particularly keen on telly, worked on his computer. Whenever possible, the simple life is preferred.
The Queen had two young children, three-year-old Charles, and Anne, 18 months, when she ascended to the throne, in 1952. Juggling the pressures and strains of that, at 26, with parenting was difficult. It meant neither she nor the Duke could spend nearly as much time with the children as she would have intended. When Andrew and Edward were born, in 1960 and 1964 respectively, she and the Duke were a lot more settled, and a lot more involved.
With all they’ve had to deal with, you could excuse the odd fallingout in times of high tension. I never saw them fully argue, though the Windsor temper is famous for a reason. She would snap at him to slow down if he was driving too fast, for instance, and once told him: “If you carry on like that, I’ll push you out of the car.” They can both erupt, but they also simmer down instantly. Like any couple, I suppose.
They’re not celebrating 70 years with much fanfare. It will be a quiet, family occasion with the children, a memory or two, and perhaps the odd joke. It’s how they like it. Here’s to many more.