The King’s life is drawing peacefully to its close.... These solemn words were heard by me as a small boy in London, sitting with my family around the wireless at 5 Park Crescent, the beautiful Nash house of my uncle’s mother-in-law Mrs Gustav Hamel, mother of the pioneer aviator who had disappeared in 1914.

The old lady was in tears as she had known King Edward VII well and the dying King, George V, had personally comforted her on the loss of her son.

We were only visiting Park Crescent as my parents and I were staying with my uncle at 11 Wilton Place, Knightsbridge.

This house was well placed for Hyde Park Corner and, on January 23, 1936, the old King made his last journey from his beloved Sandringham to King’s Cross Station.

From there, he was taken to Westminster Hall for the lying-in-state and, finally, to St George’s Chapel, Windsor, for the funeral service and burial.

The cortege was due to pass Hyde Park Corner and I, a keen royalist almost from birth, demanded to see the procession. One of my uncle’s housemaids, Murphy, volunteered to take me the short distance. She had, she said, a beau who was a trooper in a cavalry regiment and on duty there in the crowd.

We made our way up Knightsbridge and jostled through the crowds until we got close to the Decimus Burton Arch where a dozen or so mounted soldiers were positioned, facing Apsley House.

Murphy pushed her way through the press, dragging me behind until all I could see were horses’ back legs.

To please his girl, Murphy’s boyfriend hauled me onto his steed and I had a marvellous view of some of the vanguard slowly progressing towards Piccadilly.

I became very excited until the NCO spotted me and bawled at the top of his voice, ordering the poor soldier to put me to the ground. I hope he was not in any trouble afterwards.

There was I, waist high among the crowds and could see nothing but human and equine legs. Murphy, bless her, tried hard to do something and approached a woman on top of a taxi (in those days taxis could carry most things on their roofs, including the kitchen sink).

The woman brusquely and rudely declined but another woman, who had overheard and was watching from another taxi, took pity and kindly offered to accommodate me.

Murphy helped lift me up and, once again, I had a fine view of the proceedings and was just in time to see the banner-draped coffin on its gun-carriage topped with the Imperial State Crown, with the royals following on foot.

The new King, Edward VIII, walked first behind the coffin followed by his three brothers, the Dukes of York, Gloucester and Kent, and others, including the old King’s son-in-law the Earl of Harewood, though I was much too young to be able to discern who was who.

There had been a delay and the procession had been held up by the surging multitude until police cleared the way.

I was in a prime position as most of those present could only get a decent view by using periscopes and mirrors on sticks – and there were plenty of those around.

It was a sharp winter’s day but not unpleasant. I don’t remember feeling cold – just excited.

Not very long before, I had been taken to Buckingham Palace and marched past the sentries into the forecourt. When accosted by a policeman, I asked to see the King.

“The King’s not coming out today, sonny,” he said in an avuncular manner, “but Her Majesty will be driving out in about half an hour.”

I was not impressed by this; it was the King I wanted to see, so I was taken home. I never did get to see him – only his coffin.

After the pageantry was over, Murphy and I pushed our way through the dense crowds back the short distance to Wilton Place where I described what I had seen to my parents.

My mother took me to Harrods the next day where, for sixpence, you could talk into a machine and come away with a disc record rather like a modern CD. A further sixpence bought special wooden needles to play it.

This I sent to my grandmother in a special envelope which came with it, plus a 1½d stamp. I did this regularly as I hated writing letters and my mother thought this a novel way of communicating.

The trouble is, I had the equivalent of stage fright when confronted by the trumpet into which I had to speak. The result was that my voice was hesitant and whiney.

My grandmother kept these little discs and, long after her death, I discovered them in a drawer in her bureau. They included, of course, the account of the King’s funeral and my quavery voice can be heard saying:

“... and I saw the crown and the orb and the sceptre”. I also describe the incident when the woman rudely refused to help me.

The history of an age passed before my eyes on that day – among others, the kings of Norway, Rumania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, the Crown Princes of Italy, Sweden, Greece, Egypt, the Prince Consort of Luxemburg, Prince Frederick of Prussia, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Queen Maud of Norway (King George’s only surviving sister).

There were, of course, numerous ambassadors, prime ministers and representatives of most of the world’s powers.

All this was graphically recorded by the Illustrated London News in its special “Record of the Lying-in-State and Funeral of His Majesty King George V and the Accession of His Majesty[King Edward VIII”.

In later life, I came across this splendid souvenir and spotted, among the dense throng of people, in a photograph taken from the top of St George’s Hospital, a small boy on top of a taxi behind a group of mounted soldiers and I realised it could not have been anyone else but me.

Looking at these pictures and remembering the events all those years ago, I could not help wondering whether, in all that crowd, there might have been some very old person, perhaps in a wheel chair, who had been at Hyde Park Corner to see the funeral of the Duke of Wellington 80 years before.

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This article is from the Derby Evening Telegraph and is reproduced online here.

Talk:1930s: A child's view of the death of a king

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