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dressing (with cream, curiously) and putting up with endless ‘whys’; another shot shows
him explaining to his brother how a cello works. A string snaps painfully against
Edward’s cheek; he doesn’t cry but gets extremely cross: ‘What did you do that for?’
Elizabeth is photographed on Britannia, maternally holding Margaret’s daughter, Lady
Sarah Armstrong-Jones, in her arms. It is August and the family are on their way to
Balmoral; the Snowdons are presumably somewhere in the Mediterranean. ‘I think
sometimes the Snowdon children used to think of the Queen as Mum,’ a friend said.
Charles, Anne and their father are portrayed very much in sporting ‘Action Man’ mode,
Charles and Anne being winched over a rough sea between Britannia and the
accompanying destroyer. We are told that Charles’s favourite sports are ‘shooting,
skiing, waterskiing and his father’s favourite sport – polo’. Philip is pictured
helicoptering on to the lawn at Buckingham Palace, at the controls of an aircraft of the
Queen’s Flight – ‘he has flown 55 different types of aircraft’. His private office is staffed
by upper-class girls in what appears to be a uniform of grey lambswool sweaters and
twin rows of pearls.
Elizabeth works on the move. The royal train has ten coaches including three working
offices, three dining-rooms, five bathrooms and three kitchens. En route to Scotland she
is seen going through papers with Martin Charteris, her Assistant Private Secretary,
while Bobo irons her clothes in preparation for the public engagements she will face
during her annual stay at the Palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh early in July. Sir Hugh
Casson, commissioned to redesign the interior of the train, had been given minute
instructions by Bobo – ‘Bobo was the client really,’ he said. Even at Balmoral Elizabeth’s
official ‘boxes’ follow her; at least a dozen a day are loaded on to a trolley at the back
door and trundled through the hall with its life-size statue of Prince Albert and up the
stairs past antlers and trellised thistle-flocked wallpaper to Elizabeth’s office on the first
floor. When on holiday, she works on them in the evening before dinner and even at
Balmoral she cannot escape the traditional annual visit of the current Prime Minister
and spouse.
Britannia was different; for a family on whom cameras are trained as soon as they
emerge into the daylight, the royal yacht was a refuge with the particularly holiday
atmosphere of being at sea. Elizabeth is shown wearing trousers and a twinset. The crew
take orders in hand signals so as not to disturb the royal family on the decks below. As
Britannia steams into some foreign port at the beginning of a state visit (in this case
Brazil), there is a resounding oompahing of Sousa marches from a Marine band in white
uniforms and pith helmets, an ear-splitting whistling as Elizabeth is piped either on
board or into the royal barge, and a huge spray of white water from accompanying
speedboats official and unofficial.
While Britannia provided Elizabeth with a private refuge, once on shore, then as now,
on state visits she is on duty every hour of every day. She can never see what she wants
to see, only what her hosts are determined she should. There is a good deal of official
eating. Sometimes, as on the state visit to America, she would give a state banquet in a
big hotel, when all arrangements, down to the last coffee spoon, would be brought out