TO LOOK AT THE QUEEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 756, 15 January 1954, Page 6

TO LOOK AT THE QUEEN

By

SARAH

CAMPION

weeks, has much resembled a house being got ready for a Christmas party. Such a tidying up,such a Cleaning, such a refurbishing, as never was-all for an occasion whose kind many of us have never seen before, end most of us, likely. will never see again. Tt was fun, getting ready for the Queen. We had the usual agitations, of course: I imagine these were common experience ell over the city, certainly on the North Shore they provided steady staples of conversation. Were the old Plunket Rooms by the Devonport ferry going to be dismembered and removed in time? (To which some of us added: "Why take them away at all? They’ve been part of Devonport for forty years or. more."’) Were those heavenly scented stocks, those coloured perfumes along the east side of Victoria Road. going to be over before the Queen saw them? We enjoyéd them-you saw passers-by with their shopping baskets pausing, sniffing, looking about them in pleased wonder, all through that hot spell] in November-but perhaps she these last few

could not. And. the pohutakawas-were they going to be at their best from December 23 onwards? We also had _ inward prayers about the weather which, heaven knows, is all too apt to let us down badly, at this time of ‘the year. We were, in brief, torn between two irreconcilable hopes: that the Queen should see us as we-really are, and also at our best. O it went on, our days a bustle of Christmassing and other preparations, our nights, too, sparking with busyness. Along our little pocket of the waterfront, which most resembles a fishing village in Old Europe, members. of the local pipe. band ardently practised on fine starlit nights, forbidden the house, but rhoaning out their heartplucking melodies under the hedge by the road, to the startlement of strangers. The Flowers of the Forest were a’ wede away alone’ before December: then to our relief the pipers became more merry, attacking The Dashing White Sergeant or other toe-tickling tunes with

gusto and abandon. Attuned they might be, but would they be ready? We

doubted it, hearing their native bagnotes wild as we went along late at night to the milk bar, or returned across the domain. Would we all be ready? That was the point. Well, some of us were and some of us were not. The scented stocks were almost over, the Plunket Rooms were only half removed, and still standing in a waste of torn timbers, when Q-Day dawned: but the pohutakawas were out, had burst into their holly-berry reds a few days earlier. And some of us who mourned the passing of the flowers consoled ourselves with these misnamed Christmas trees: for the Queen will have seen many stocks in England, but pohutakawas she has never seen before. Now she has arrived, and seen both the worst and the best of us. The day of her coming. could hardly have been ‘worse: it was, like so many Auckland summer days, chilly, windy, and wet. We raised our loyal cheers from North Head, Mount Victoria and otherwheres, into a Deep Depression: standing be-

neath skies of plumy grey with _ hardly a feather of ‘sun, sopping earth and

rain-flattened grass underfoot. The rain fell off our eyebrows into our mouths, ran down our ankles into our shoes, as we cheered the Gothic in: and we were all. too excited to care. 2OR the arrival, which could have been flattened into mere formality by the weather of Auckland, was saved by Auckland’s little boats, Like the little boats of Dunkirk, they snatched a glorious victory. No one, surely, who stood on North Head as we did, and watched the Queen’s yacht come in from far away out on the Hauraki Gulf, wil) ever forget the gaiety, the beauty, the dashing exuberance of those little craft around her. They not only made the picture, they made also, we hope, an atmosphere which will follow the Queen wherever she goes in New Zealand: they created that air of warm unforced friendliness which is New Zealand; and by doing so they cocked a healthy snook at officialdom. For -officialdom, in ‘its unwiser moments, had been. very busy telling Auckland’s yachties how they should behave in their own element; telling them not only where they should sail their craft, but also what they should wear -while doing so. It was deemed "desirable" that the usual easy uniform of old shirt and shorts. fisherman’s cap ‘or: battered hat, should be replaced ‘by the unnatura] togs of a millionaire yachts-

WHAT WILL THE CHILDREN WHO SAW THE QUEEN SO CLOSE, REMEMBER?

man off Cowes, England, who sometimes knows no more about: yachts than the cost of his own in easily earned thousands. Clad thus, our yachties were to take up certain positions in the Gulf, wait a certain time, then follow the Gothic as per orders, at a respectful distance. This, thank goodness, they did not do. ‘Order was there, the order of good seamanship, when we on North Head saw the Gothic standing in the drizzle off Tiri Island a little after eight o'clock in. the morning, and the small craft all about like seagulls waiting on a fishing boat.. They were still in position when the Queen’s yacht came slowly out of a tiny patch of sun, and grew slowly nearer, larger, whiter, as she entered the Rangitoto Channel. But when she drew level with the Head, the race was already. on--when she had rounded it, and the guns of the Army establishment on its southern side were already banging out their welcome, the little craft had turned official welcome into a delirious: picnic. Everything had been thrown overboard but joy and good manners: they were racing alongside, dipping madly in and out of the spray, plunging like Neptune’s foam-flecked horses, throwing up plumes of green sea, carving other patterns of green. behind them in ithe leaden waters of the gulf.) And the .yachties who handled them so. superbly were, for*the most part, superbly clad as usual-old shirts, old. shorts, old headgear, the right garments for the job. MANY Royal occasions have I seen, » ‘but. never one like this, Every seaworthy boat of this sea-girdled city seemed to. be out there between the booming guns and Bastion Point, all the craft we have watched being got ready in our northern. bays (knowing as we watched that all along the twenty-mile waterfront there was the sdme activity for the same great day). White and pas-tel-coloured boats predominated, demoiselles in summer frocks: but there were also the more sober and matronly craft, newly-painted, also looking their bestthe dark blue launches that ply in and

out of the harbour on various commissions, the coastal steamers, the scows taking a day off. from cattle or coalcarrying to Thames or Coromandel, lolloping through the drizzle with the ponderous whale-like motion of their kind. They were al] there; and the hearts of all Aucklanders lifted in patriotic pride to see them there, to know that the guests they greeted were admiring them as we were, from the bridge of the Gothic. We all hoped passionately that, whatever the weather might do for so0od or ill later, the Queen would remember her entry into Auckland as an occasion of big and little boats, managed by the. men who love ther. On Christmas Eve we in Devonport saw the Queen and her husband again, this time in a more domestic, cosy way, and on one of Auckland’s loveliest days. Warm sun, bright skies, a lovely breeze: here we were at our best, feeling our best, hoping that she would en-

joy the}change in: climate as much as we were doing. This warm identification of. ourselves with our visitors needs no apology: it is one of the’: most spontaneous emotions of humanity, an instinctive kindliness which in the jast "few days has been at odds with the effusions of the Press. Never has_ the divorce of. newspaper language from public thought been so significant> in thé one, unfeeling clichés coming thick as hailstones, in the other a homely identification of, the. speaker with the — spoken of, especially among the women. "It’s horrid for her, coming straight from the’ tropics into this — why on_ earth didn’t someone bring an umbrella down to. the wharf for her?" or "She'll be enjoying the

" sun, now, after that nasty drizzle. Just as each yachtie, one felt on Wednesday, was sure the Queen and the Duke were noticing the spick and spanness of his own beloved craft, so the mothers, at the Devonport rally, were sure that the Royal eyes as they went by, were on their own. pride-and-joy. "The Duke looked straight at our Des, and smiled," we said collectively, knowing this to be’ impossible in-all cases, but still maternally sure that any father, even a Royal Duke accustomed to the best. couldn’t help noticing, und smiling at, our lovely offspring: AM. wondering, though, what the children who saw the Queen so.close will remember? Will they, too, have identified themselves with these till now mythical personages? ("Is he another Philip?" said our own, with the arrogance of. childhood, ’as I. whiléd away the waiting in the hot sun by telling

him something of the great ones he was soon to see.) Or will they remember the banks of flowers, insouciant and lovely, which the women of Devonport’ had been preparing with loving skill since midnight, and which now hung surprisingly fresh in the warm air? Or will they remember with surprise that the Queen was smaller than. they had thought? This comment, coming from a five-vear-old, is surprising until ‘you remember those pictures from Jamaica and Fiji: an important centra} figure in a light dress standing out from the ‘rest and therefore, to a child's unsophisticated eye, larger than the rest. Probably, though, a!l of us who were so close to the Royal car this Christmas Eve will remember the Queen and her husband alweys in New. Zealand. sunshine, against a delicate blaze of New Zealand flowers, That. and the memory of little boats scudding merrily over grey seas beside the Gothic will be the Queen’s visit to Auckland. for us..