“REBELLIOUS BOYHOOD”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26637, 6 December 1947, Page 7

“REBELLIOUS BOYHOOD”

DUKE OF WINDSOR’S YOUNGER DAYS REVELATIONS IN LIFE STORY NEW YORK, Dec. 4. In the first of three articles in Life magazine, the Duke of Windsor describes his boyhood, revealing himself as a headstrong, shy,' and somewhat rebellious boy. The Duke writes that his father, who was the sterner of his parents, thought him “ dumb.” To his father, “ Lloyd George, and even Winston Churchill, were dangerous, almost subversive characters.” He explains that he was always called David, and that he was taught to call his mother and father Mama and Papa, in the simple English way. The Duke quotes a notation from his father’s diary at 10 a.m. on June 23, 1894: “A sweet little boy was born and weighed 81b.” The Duke adds: “ Somehow I imagine that this vvas the last time my father ever applied to me that precise adjective.” The Duke says his boyhood was strict because his navy-trained father was strict.

“ I have often thought,” he writes, “that my father liked children only in the abstract.” He tells how he was scolded for being late, dirty, for making a noise on some solemn occasion, and for wriggling and scratching in church. His rhother taught him to crochet comforters—a diversion to which he returned when in bed after a riding accident, and again when, a majorgeneral in the First World War, he made long motor tours in France. When 12£ he went to a naval school and “ the privacy of my royal existence was folded up like a 4 curtain.” His fellow students poured a bottle of red ink over his head and slammed a window down on his neck as a tactful reminder that his ancestor, King Charles I, had been beheaded, i Of his brother, the present King, he 'says: “I am sure it will in no way detract from the prestige of my kingly brother when I say that when we were young I could always manage him. That is, after all, the established prerogative of an older brother.” Unprogressive Student , The Duke wrote regarding his own education —geared primarily for a career in the navy—that he was allergic to mathematics and that his lack of progress was a source of worry to his mother. “Yet, quite apart from the question of whether I possessed the intellectual equipment to make a good student, the circumstances of my birth, combined with the constitutional constraints of a monarchial democracy, tended to dilute and slow down my preparation for the modern world. “ For one thing, I never knew the spur of competition until I was nearly 13 and had gone to a naval school. While its absence no doubt made my childhood more pleasant, those formative years were devoid of the sudden creative bursts and ringing interest that are normally inspired by the competitive association of young boys Then, the fact that I was destined from birth for the navy tended to throw an iron ring around my education.” “ Poor at Engineering ” The Duke showed his own position in his naval academy class at Osborne to have been very poor—he ranked fifty-ninth in his class out of 59 students in engineering—and reflected: “No doubt my being a prince and in direct line to the throne saved me, where other boys without these connections might have been dismissed. But I like to think that it was on my own merits that I survived, to progress to Dartmouth for the last two years of my naval training ashore.” Of the general outlook on his family's political life, the Duke said: “Under the principle of British politics that the Monarch should reign but not govern, we as a family were condemned in the midst of an intensely political environment to be not merely neutral, but if possible, apolitical.” Deepest Love for Mother The Duke’s feeling for his father was one of respect, and his affection for his mother of deepest love. For King Edward VII, his greatest admiration, and for Queen Victoria, awe. He said his mother had a precise encyclopaedic memory. “Although she backed up my father in all matters of discipline, she never failed to take our side when in her judgment he was being harsh with us.” ‘ The article, which is headed: “A Royal Boyhood.” is accompanied by many photographs of the Royal Family.