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peopled by royalty, courtiers and servants; these three weeks in 1945 would, she hoped,
give her her first chance to mix with people of her own age who did not come into those
categories.
But at first she found it difficult to get in touch with the other women. While they
slept in dormitory huts, she went back every evening to spend the night at Windsor. At
lectures protocol was observed: she sat in the middle of the front row flanked by two
sergeants, with the lower ranks behind. She was ‘whisked away’ by the officers between
each lecture and lunched in the officers’ mess. ‘We are all rather sore,’ Corporal Eileen
Heron wrote, ‘at this rate no one except Patsy Young (a sergeant) who sits next to her
will ever speak to her.’ It was to be the story of Elizabeth’s life, always being ‘whisked
away’ as soon as she had the chance to talk to ‘ordinary people’. She did what she could
to escape the imposed segregation. ‘She is very interested in us,’ Eileen Heron wrote.
‘When anyone is asked a question she turns round to have a good look at the person
concerned. It is her only opportunity to attach names to the right people.’ Although a
15cwt Bedford staff car had been sent to Windsor to be set up on blocks in a courtyard
for her first lesson, the second half of the Practical Mechanics lesson at Camberley
provided her first occasion for embarrassment. Shown how to handle a spanner and
asked if she had ever held one before, she ‘looked slightly surprised, giggled slightly and
said “No! Never.”’
Elizabeth’s second day was not much of an improvement:
Standing Orders and Map-reading after break with Elizabeth. She was rather bored with Standing Orders –
they’re not much to do with her anyway, except to know what her driver should do. Mechanics in the
afternoon – lecture on Oil… She was whisked off by the officers in the interval again – however, the Second
thinks she will be a bit freer from officers in a few days time. They seem to be breaking her in very gently.
We are told that the Queen wishes her to do Drill.
By the third day, however, the press discovered the not very closely guarded secret.
‘IT’S OUT!! There are awful libels in the Daily Mail today about all the things she isn’t
doing,’ a shocked Eileen Heron wrote. Elizabeth was beginning to detach herself from
her praetorian guard of officers and talk to her fellow cadets (although the Company
Sergeant Major sat watchfully at a distance). She had found out their names ‘to give to
Mummy’ and said that she had spent the previous evening explaining the ignition
system at length to her father. ‘These cups of tea are getting a nice chatty institution,’
Corporal Heron wrote. ‘She talks much more now she is used to us, and is not a bit shy.’
There was a great fuss when Elizabeth’s aunt, the Princess Royal, came for an
inspection. Elizabeth said her aunt had written to her and asked her if she would be
there during the inspection. ‘I don’t know where else she thought I’d be,’ she
commented. Afterwards she told her colleagues how funny it seemed for her to be at the
receiving instead of the inspecting end and that she would never forget the hard work
everybody had to put in for inspections. There was still more spit, polish and panic on 9
April when the King, Queen and Margaret came. ‘The Queen, we felt, was especially
interested in US,’ Eileen Heron wrote, ‘and looked at us critically to see what sort of