10 december 1936. I remember it well. There had even been talk of the country becoming a republic. In my youthful ignorance (I was only nine years old!) I was heard to say “In that case, one day I could be President.” What a hope. Little did I know what kind of a game politics is
When it came to it, we were at the annual Christmas Fair and Sale of Work for the Pitt Street Settlement in Peckham. The man responsible for the Settlement was my proGodfather, Captain C Lisle Watson. I believe he was also one of the Clerks at the House of Commons. He’d lost a leg in the War (1914 to 1918) but this didn’t seem to deter him in any way. (In 1939 he was promoted to Major and resumed active service as an Army Welfare Officer for South London.)
On that evening, 10 December 1936, someone brought in a wireless set and stood it on the front edge of the stage. A hush descended on the crowd in the hall. We heard the man who was no longer King tell us how he had given up the throne in order to be with the woman he loved.
What a different world it was then. Edward VIII wanted to marry Wallis Simpson. ‘They’, the Establishment, wouldn’t let him. Horror of horrors! Mrs Simpson was an American, she was divorced, and her last husband was still living. The Establishment could never allow a woman like that to be Queen.
From time to time in one or other of the ‘recent past’ programmes so popular these days, we hear again the recorded voice of Edward conveying his sorrow to those who had once been his people. It always brings a lump to my throat.
francis cameron, oxford, 10 december 2010
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