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Poet Laureate, C. Day Lewis, neither of them seemed to have any idea how to conduct
themselves in a royal tête-à-tête and compensated with a rather uncomfortable jokey
familiarity – Elizabeth, smiling and informal and, after all, used to such occasions,
certainly comes out of it best. A quick press of the buzzer and the elderly poets are
ushered out. A more formal ceremony was the reception of a recently appointed
ambassador. This involved the despatch of carriages from the Royal Mews to fetch the
ambassadorial party and an impressive display of uniforms by various officials
including the Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps, whose dress would not have been out of
place at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The Marshal was the handsome Sir Lees
Mayall; the Ambassador was the new US representative, the millionaire anglophile
Walter Annenberg. The Ambassador was noticeably nervous as the Marshal, who had
done the job a hundred times before, explained exactly what to do. ‘When the doors of
the Queen’s audience room open,’ he said, ‘you take one pace forward with your left
foot, then stop and bow. Then you walk up to the Queen who is standing about 6 or 7
paces away. As she holds out her hand, you bow again, another little bow as you shake
hands. Then you transfer your credentials to your right hand and give them to her…’
The etiquette was as formal and precise as if it had been the court of the Chinese
emperor. There were streams of other ambassadors either presenting credentials or
taking their leave, introduced by the Master of the Household, Patrick Plunket, in his
smart, high-collared uniform: ‘The Venezuelan Ambassador, Your Majesty… The Italian
Ambassador, Your Majesty…’
Shots show the royal lunch on its long journey from the basement kitchen. The dishes
stand on an old-fashioned, high and heavy two-tiered wooden trolley, which looks as if
it had been in service since at least before the First World War. Things are made to last
at Buckingham Palace; in 1969 there were sheets still being used which dated from
Queen Victoria’s reign and even blankets from the reign of her uncle and predecessor,
William IV. The trolley lumbers along 200 yards of corridors and up two floors in the lift
before reaching the private dining-room where Elizabeth is lunching with Philip before
one of the annual summer garden-parties. There will be 9,000 guests at this one, staring
at the royal family – Charles and Anne are also there – and at the pink flamingoes in
the lake. At this and various other receptions, Elizabeth actually manages to look as if
she were enjoying herself, smiling and quite unlike her public image.
She was forty-three when this film was made and still extremely pretty, seemingly
utterly at her ease when tracked by the cameras behind her shoulder in the Land-Rover
driving a five-year-old Prince Edward at Sandringham in the snow or picnicking among
the pine trees and barking corgis beside Loch Muick at Balmoral. Philip and Anne are in
charge of the barbecue, a cast-iron contraption which looks as if it has been made by the
local blacksmith; their methods of lighting it seem positively boy scout – newspapers are
rolled up by Elizabeth and Anne and placed in the bottom with tidy little heaps of
kindling over them, then lit carefully with a match. ‘Doomed to failure,’ Anne jokes, but
apparently not, as later shots show her and her father grilling large fillet steaks. Charles
seems particularly fond of Edward, showing him how he makes his special salad