My unlikely ancestral connection to the Queen

Lady Antonia Fraser revealed this week how she and a friend joined the crowds “storming” Buckingham Palace after they skipped school for the day to witness, at a distance, the Queen’s coronation in 1953.

Yes, of course, she was a royalist, she said during a discussion on the monarchy on the BBC’s Broadcasting House, ahead of this weekend’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.

As the daughter of an earl, Lady Antonia could be expected to be a royal champion but some of us have arrived at that “consensus of respect” for the Queen — as David Zolkwer, director of Sunday’s pageant, put it — through more circuitous routes.

As a humble commoner, I was destined to harbour a lifelong fascination with and allegiance to the Queen, thanks to an accident of birth, with both my parents boasting unlikely royal associations.

My father was a schoolboy at Plumtree, near Bulawayo, in what was then Southern Rhodesia when he met the future sovereign. The day was April 16, 1947, and King George VI, on his tour of southern Africa with his family, agreed that the royal train should stop at the school.

The boys lined up on the platform and the head boy was presented to the King and Queen but Hjul and co were more interested in Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose. 

How was a young man to get noticed, though? Fortunately, my father and his friend had the foresight to acquire a “pookie”, a big-eyed, beguiling little night ape, which “claimed considerable attention from the two princesses”, according to a report in the school newsletter, The Prunitian. The boys offered the pookie as a gift but it was politely declined.

Princess Elizabeth was already spoken for by then, but Dad used to say wistfully that Margaret had lovely eyes. He wouldn’t have cut it as a consort, but I’m certain his brush with royalty goes some way to explaining why a natural republican like my father nurtured a sneaking regard for the British monarchy. This regard would bring out the enthusiastic Windsor Castle tour guide in him years later when he had emigrated and made Royal Berkshire his home.

My mother’s claim to royal fame is far grander. Though not high born or well-connected, she managed to secure a priceless invitation to the coronation.

A young South African girl living off rations in post-war London, she had caught the eye of a Canadian diplomat, who was on the guest list and took her along as his plus one. Such a coup was this that she made the papers back home, under the heading, “Cape girl goes to Queen’s Coronation”.

Her formal invitation from the Earl Marshal’s office was delivered to her modest bedsit in Chelsea, along with strict instructions as to what to wear and how and when to arrive.

The dress regulations, other than for peers and peeresses, included; for “ladies”, evening or afternoon dresses, with “a light veiling falling from the back of the head as far as the shoulders, but not lower than the waist-line”.

Any colour but black was acceptable, and the materials should be “suitably light”, such as tulle, chiffon, organza or lace, held in place by combs or pins — but not feathers — or with a tiara, should one possess one.

A photograph survives of my mother in her incongruous basement-dwelling, posing in a floral satin gown with spaghetti straps (most likely sewn herself), pearls, probably borrowed, at her neck and a shimmering shawl (coats were not permitted) to ward off the chill of Westminster Abbey.

She was bidden to arrive at No 4 door, South Cloisters, between 6 am and 7 am, although the ceremony was not due to start until 11.15 am when the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, entered the west door of the Abbey to begin the procession.

What did those in the upper tiers of seating, built for the occasion, do for food, comfort breaks or to stretch their legs for nearly seven hours?

I don’t remember her complaining about anything, apart from the rain that threatened to ruin her carefully coiffed auburn hair, and the fact that much of the proceedings were obscured from her perch, high up in the gallery on the south aisle of the nave.

But she surreptitiously took blurry snapshots of the young queen, the same age as she was, a tiny spectacle far below, before and after she was crowned.

And she recalled proclaiming with the 8,000 others present, “God Save Queen Elizabeth”, and then the trumpets sounding. And Zadok the Priest. And the thrill of playing a small part in that sacred ritual while the rest of the world looked on.

Boy did she dine out on the experience. The Canadian Diplomat, Jean, did not last but her memories went with her, home to South Africa, where she met my father, and eventually back to Britain again. 

She would regularly produce the prized invite, together with the long white gloves, the veil, and whatever other paraphernalia she had treasured from that day.

Her life was shorter than the Queen’s but her journey, and my father’s, brought her into closer proximity than she could have imagined, growing up 6,000 miles away, reaching its end a stone’s throw from the grounds of Windsor Castle, a historic royal resting place.