Royal Transport
For my grandfather, Fred Selwyn, who was a Justice of the Peace in Imperial India
Copyright © Peter Pigott, 2005
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Copy-Editors: Kate Pedersen and Patricia Kennedy
Design: Andrew Roberts
Printer: Friesens
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Pigott, Peter
Royal transport : an inside look at the history of royal travel / Peter Pigott.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN-10: 1-55002-572-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-55002-572-9
1. Great Britain--Kings and rulers--Transportation--History--20th century. I. Title.
| DA566.9.A1P545 2005 | 388'.086'21 | C2005-903476-9 |
1 2 3 4 5 09 08 07 06 05
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credit in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
Printed and bound in Canada.
Printed on recycled paper.
Dundurn Press
3 Church Street, Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5E 1M2
Gazelle Book Services Limited
White Cross Mills
Hightown, Lancaster, England
LAI 4X5
Dundurn Press
2250 Military Road
Tonawanda, NY
U.S.A. 14150
Royal Transport
Detail of photo from page 73.
I am indebted to many people without whom this book would have been difficult to write. Some, for reasons of sensitivity to the subject matter, have asked that their contribution remain anonymous. But I am pleased to be able to publicly acknowledge my obligation to the following:
In Canada:
I owe a special debt of gratitude to all whom I interviewed in the Canadian Forces. Not only did they give their time willingly and with unfailing courtesy, but some did so in what must have been periods of great stress — replying to my queries even as they loaded and flew the first CC-150 flights in the tsunami relief operations.
They are:
Captain Randy Henning
2 Lt Eric Martinat
2 Lt. V.G. Winter
Captain Steve Thompson
Major John Komocki
Captain Mike Chaytor
Major Mat Joost
Captain Al Mclean
Major Al Mornan
Master Seaman John Bourne
For speedily locating archival material and photographs, once more I relied on the skills of Janet Lacroix at the National Defence Imagery Library, Réjean Tremblay and Michel Meilleur in the Lester B. Pearson Library, and Anthony Pacey at the Science and Technology Museum. Vern Bethel, the owner of the 1939 McLaughlin-Buick, was unfailingly helpful, providing me with copious material on the use of his car by royalty.
In Britain:
When I began this book, I saw myself combing through the archives at Windsor Castle, accessing previously untapped sources at Buckingham Palace, and attending informative luncheons at Clarence House and Highgrove. Unable to do any of this (my day job just would not allow it), like Miss Blanche DuBois, I have depended on the kindness of strangers. Taking full advantage of the good nature and sympathies of several Brits, I have drawn heavily from their resources on the Windsors and their transport. They are:
Mrs. Nicky Colman, The Estate Office, Sandringham
Julia Stephenson, Head of Marketing and Visitor Experience, The Royal Yacht Britannia Edinburgh, Scotland
Miss Frances Dimond, Curator, Royal Photograph Collection, Windsor Castle
Mrs. Nicola Hunt, Crown Copyright Administrator, Intellectual Property Group, Defence Procurement Agency, Bristol
Sqn. Ldr. Ross Mattinson, 32 Squadron, RAF Northolt
David Pennington, Librarian and Archivist, LNWR Society
Morag Reavley, Web Editor, Buckingham Palace, London
Chris Hallewell, Helicopter Museum, Weston-super-Mare
Lisa Heighway, Royal Collections, Windsor Castle
Peter Sharp, authority on the Canadian Pacific liner Empress of Scotland
Labouring as I do in the Legal section of Foreign Affairs Canada, I have assiduously sought permission to use many of the photographs in the book, a difficult task when much that is available on the internet has no provenance. Where I have been unable to ascertain copyright, I can only hope that the author will forgive me.
In the course of writing this book, I have read thousands of words on the Windsors and scanned hundreds of photographs. Rather than bore the reader by listing all of the books, newspaper cuttings, websites, and magazines consulted, I have selected only those from which I derived exceptional pleasure.
Beginning with the basics: George VI by Patrick Howarth, Edward VIII by Frances Donaldson, The Queen Mother by Donald Zec, Prince Philip: First Gentleman of the Realm by Douglas Liversidge, Mountbatten by Philip Ziegler, Philip by Basil Boothroyd, Queen Elizabeth II: A Celebration of Her Majesty’s Fifty-Year Reign by Tim Graham, and The House of Windsor (A Royal History of England) by Andrew Roberts and Antonia Fraser.
For the royal motor cars:
Rolls-Royce and Bentley: The Crewe Years by Martin Bennett, Rolls-Royce and Bentley Motor Cars: From the Dawn of the 20th Century into the New Millennium by Klaus-Josef Roßfeldt, Rolls-Royce State Motor Cars by Andrew Pastouna,