WEDDING GIFT TO MARGARET THAT LEFT TONY FUMING

PRINCESS Margaret and Tony were married on May 6, 1960. Directly after the wedding breakfast, they left on the Royal Yacht Britannia for their honeymoon in the Caribbean. The outward voyage was full of the formality to which the Princess was used but which was, if not unfamiliar, alien to Tony. At dinner, she wore a long dress every night, with jewels and a tiara; he put on a dinner jacket. The crew were ordered to avert their eyes as they served coffee or drinks by the pool. Early one evening, as Colin Tennant (a former escort of the Princess) and his wife Anne sat by their house on Mustique, looking out to sea, they saw Britannia arrive and lower a boat. From it stepped a white-clad young officer to ask if they would like to come aboard for dinner. ‘I sent a message back saying we’d love to,’ said Anne Tennant, ‘but that as we hadn’t had a bath for a month, could we possibly have a bath first? Our hut was very primitive — no hot water, electric light or anything like that.’ They were given a cabin and bath and, during the course of dinner, Colin Tennant told them of the beautiful empty beaches of white sand, suggesting they chose a different one every day. There were eight of these on the three mile by one mile island. From then on, each morning sailors from Britannia would go to the chosen beach, set up a tent for shade and lay out a picnic lunch and drinks before departing to leave the couple entirely alone. In the evenings they would join the Tennants for drinks. During one of these evenings, Colin, realising that he and Anne had not given them a wedding present, said to his old friend Margaret: ‘Look Ma’am, would you like something in a little box or. . .’ — waving his arm about — ‘a piece of land?’ ‘A piece of land,’ replied Margaret, looking at Tony, who smiled in agreement, although inwardly it confirmed his growing dislike of Colin — wedding presents, felt Tony, should be given to a couple jointly, rather than to one person only, as Colin clearly intended. A plot on a small peninsula, then covered with dense, thorny vegetation, was chosen for its privacy and its views. Perhaps, with hindsight, something in a box might have been better.