These began modestly in 1940 with a simple play, ‘The Christmas Child,’ in St. George’s Hall, with Elizabeth playing one of the three kings, flanked by two boy evacuees. The occasion was enjoyed by everybody, and the princesses, who had been on stage since birth without knowing it, discovered an interest in, and even a talent for, amateur theatricals. The following Christmas, the stakes were raised slightly, and a pantomime, ‘Cinderella,’ was written for them by a local schoolmaster. Again it was a success, and once again there was a good deal of democratic sharing of tasks and banter in the preparations and rehearsals. The next year, they put on ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ and Lisa Sheridan described how Princess Elizabeth ‘took the arms of the two “sailors” and sang “Mind Your Sisters”’ and brought the house down.81 The tradition continued, giving pleasure to both performers and audience, which always included the princesses’ parents. Horace Smith, who attended the pantomimes of 1942–4, recalled seeing the elder princess ‘full of confidence and vigour,’ and reducing the King to hearty laughter.82 The humour depended a lot on puns. ‘There are three acres in one rood,’ Widow Twankey, an office boy from the Castle, was required to say in the 1943 production of ‘Aladdin’. ‘We don’t want anything improper,’ replied Margaret. ‘There’s a large copper in the kitchen,’ said the Widow. ‘We’ll soon get rid of him,’ declared Elizabeth – and so on.83
Year by year, the performances became more polished, with increasingly elaborate costumes and sets. It was also established, as Court etiquette apparently required, that if the King and Queen were to attend, their daughters should have leading parts, regardless of the acting ability of the evacuees and village children who were also involved. Consequently, attention focused on the royal children and their skills, even more than would have been true in any case. Meanwhile audiences grew, bringing in large numbers of locally-based guardsmen and ATS girls. In 1943, there were three performances, including one specifically for soldiers. The show also became publicly known. Weeks before the 1943 pantomime, advance publicity produced a flood of inquiries, and more than a thousand would-be ticket holders sent in applications containing blank cheques. All were politely refused.84 However, those denied entry could still learn about the show second-hand, for reports appeared in the press. Particular interest was aroused by ‘Aladdin’ in 1943, in which the Heiress Presumptive, cast in the title role, and wearing utility shorts and top, performed a tap dance, and in one scene appeared as a charlady, in an apron of sackcloth. ‘From the moment Princess Elizabeth popped out of a laundry basket,’ enthused the Sunday Graphic, ‘the King and Queen and the audience of 400 laughed and thoroughly enjoyed the show.’85 After seeing the last of the three performances, Lascelles wrote in his diary that the principals and chorus alike would not have disgraced Drury Lane. ‘P’cess Eliz. was a charming Aladdin’, he noted, ‘and P’cess M. a charming and competent Princess Roxana’.86 Altogether the pantomime netted £200.
The final pantomime, at Christmas 1944, starred the Heiress Presumptive as a Victorian seaside belle. It also included a carefully choreographed ‘ballet interlude,’ arranged by the dancing mistress at Buckingham Palace.87 By this time, however, it had been transformed into an ambitious, semi-professional extravaganza, widely discussed as an established rite, and, in effect, part of the public relations of royalty.
Chapter 5
BEING ON STAGE was, of course, an inescapable part of a royal childhood. Indeed, the last of the Windsor shows was followed by a royal performance as theatrical as anything the princesses had yet experienced. In contrast to the run-up to the 1918 Armistice which was brought about by a sudden German collapse, the early months of 1945 provided a crescendo of victories and liberations. At home, faith in the cause, pride at survival, and the justice of the outcome, created a patriotic mood quite different from the nationalist frenzy of twenty-seven years before. As a result the celebrations marking the defeat first of Germany and then of Japan contained a communal spirit which expressed itself in the festival nature of the rejoicing, and also in an inclusive and grateful attitude to the Royal Family. On both VE and VJ-Days it was the crowds, as much as the Government, that placed the King, Queen and two princesses centre-stage.
Officially, Victory-in-Europe Day was 8 May. In practice, the celebrations lasted at least three days, with attention directed at Buckingham Palace, and with the Royal Family in starring roles throughout. By mid-afternoon on VE-Day itself, the number of people gathered in the hot sunshine round the Queen Victoria Memorial in front of the Palace exceeded that at the Coronation. It was, according to The Times, ‘a red, white and blue crowd,’ with every other woman wearing a multi-coloured ribbon or rosette in her hair. Winston Churchill arrived in an open car and spoke briefly, before disappearing for lunch with the King and Queen. A lull followed. Then the call ‘We want the King’ rose from the crowd. Responding to it, the royal couple and the two princesses came out onto the balcony, the King in naval, and Princess Elizabeth in ATS uniform, to be met by prolonged cheering and singing of ‘For he’s a jolly good fellow’. Only later did the Prime Minister appear with them, giving the ‘V for Victory’ sign. In the evening after Churchill had left, the Royal Family appeared for yet another encore, producing fresh waves of applause and community singing.1
That night, they were joined for dinner by a group of Guards officers who were friends of the princesses. After the meal, as the noise continued beyond the railings, Princess Margaret suggested that the younger members of the party should go outside, so that she and her sister could become, for an evening, part of the chorus. It was a frivolous idea which would have been dismissed as absurd on any other day. However, the exhilaration was such that the King and Queen agreed. Accompanied by a police sergeant, a small party left the Palace and went into the street.
They wandered among the chanting, cheering merry-makers. According to Lascelles, ‘the Princesses, under escort, went out and walked unrecognized about St. James’s Street and Piccadilly’.2 One member of the group remembers a much more extensive itinerary – from Buckingham Palace to Parliament Square, then to Piccadilly, St. James’s Street, Bennet Street, Berkeley Square, Park Lane, and into the Ritz and Dorchester Hotels, before crossing Green Park, and ending up, once again, outside the Palace. ‘It was such a happy atmosphere,’ he recalls. ‘Such a tremendous feeling of being alive.’3 Apart from Margaret, all were in uniform, making them barely distinguishable from thousands of others also moving almost aimlessly in the no-longer blacked-out city centre.
To be invisible in a crowd! For an instant, the fantasy of being ordinary and unknown became real. After five years of incarceration at Windsor, and a life sentence of the public spotlight, the nation’s liberation gave them an exceptional moment of personal freedom. Many years later, Elizabeth recalled that they were terrified of being recognized, ‘so I pulled my uniform cap well down over my eyes’. She remembered ‘lines of people linking arms and walking down Whitehall, and all of us were swept along by tides of happiness and relief’.4 One of the party snatched a Dutch sailor’s cap as a joke, and the sailor kept chasing after them, not knowing and probably not caring who they had in their midst. In the atmosphere of carefree hysteria, they did the Lambeth Walk and the hokey-cokey. When they got back to the Palace, they stood close to the railings, and helped to orchestrate a new wave of ‘We want the King’ cries. Unlike most people, however, they were able to supply the King. One of them was sent inside, and shortly afterwards, the King and Queen reappeared on the balcony.5
Next day, the holiday continued with street parties and bonfires. During the afternoon, the princesses went with their parents on a tour of bombed-out districts in East London, including a council estate in Stepney, where two blocks of flats, and one hundred and thirty people, had been wiped out by a V2 rocket two months before. The King and Queen and their daughters appeared again on the Palace balcony in the evening, as a military band