For Valour

(Part 2!)

For the final day of Wimbledon, here is a little gifset of Bertie with his friend (and later equerry), Louis Greig as they played that ill-fated doubles match against the older and more experienced pairing of Herbert Roper Barret and Arthur Gore.

I also wanted to share two other lesser-known tournaments involving our dear Prince Bertie!

First: In 1922, four years before his appearance at Wimbledon, Bertie partnered in a mixed doubles game with Miss Peggy Ingram at a tennis party in Lady Crosfield’s home in Highgate. Here are two gifs from that day.

(I love the first gif, with Bertie swinging his racquet around like a petulant teenager. Guess they must have lost that day 😆)

And second: A year after Wimbledon, in 1927, Bertie undertook a tour of the British Empire, including a visit to Jamaica where he partnered with talented Jamaican sportsman Bertrand Milbourne Clark (below) in another game of doubles. Mr. Milbourne Clark was the All-Jamaica Tennis Champion for seven consecutive years - so I really hope they won this match!

This pairing was considered incredibly unusual at the time, and so was seen as a positive and progressive display of racial equality between both men, and friendship between both nations ☺️

gifs made by @for-valour

(Part 1!) Now Wimbledon has begun, I wanted to share some of my favourite photos of Bertie playing tennis!

When he was still The Duke of York, he participated in a doubles match at Wimbledon with his mentor & friend, Louis Greig (above). Bertie was extremely anxious and asked to play on one of the outer courts, as opposed to Centre Court, to keep attention away from him. A compromise was eventually made for Court 2, where there was still a considerable crowd.

One spectator recalled that, ‘The Duke of York was very nervous and couldn’t play at all, at times lashing at the ball with his racquet…”

The Prince and Louis Greig lost the match in straight sets: 6-1, 6-3, 6-2 to Herbert Roper Barret and Arthur Gore - both considerably older and more experienced than the then 30-year-old Bertie! Some exasperated people in the crowd even yelled out that he should try playing with ‘the other hand’ (i.e. his right hand, as Bertie played tennis left handed). It is likely that his anxieties and quick temper —usually aimed at himself!— affected his game that day.

In reality, Bertie was, in fact, an extremely talented tennis player!

He had previously won the RAF doubles competition in 1920 (pictured above!) and when at White Lodge, he loved playing tennis with Elizabeth in the mornings, before breakfast.

The ladies’ Wimbledon champion, Suzanne Lenglen, watched Bertie’s match on Court 2 that day and said that, ‘with plenty of practice’ he would have ‘the makings of a champion’. Nonetheless, the whole Wimbledon experience traumatised the sensitive Duke, and he never played a game in public again.

Sources: George VI, by Sarah Bradford; The King Maker, by Georgie Greig. Photo credits: Getty, Alamy.

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Part 2! (Part 1 is here.)

On this day, the 11th June, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth joined Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt at their cottage in Hyde Park for what was described to the press as a ‘casual’ picnic-style dinner with informal and relaxed entertainment.

On the menu was Virginia ham, salad, turkey, strawberry shortcake (one of Bertie’s favourites, apparently!) and a lorry of watermelons. Oh, and the all-American hot dogs grilled over an open fire - which were only included at the last minute because the King said he was “looking forward to tasting them.”

Everyone ate from paper plates. Elizabeth opted to use a knife and fork for her hotdog, whereas Bertie went all in and used his hands! (I love that he was such a willing participant😂) He even went back for seconds, tried some Boston baked beans, and enjoyed several beers too. Bertie was less amused when he got mustard on his tie - oh those Windsor boys and their sartorial hang-ups!

There was also Native American music, dancing and folktales. All in all it was a hugely successful evening, with the humble hot dog meal having since gone down in history as being both an amusing but rather brilliant culinary idea as part of the Roosevelts campaign to win over the American people to the charms of the British monarch, and in turn build mutual support; a special relationship between both countries ❤️

P.S. I’m a little bit obsessed by what foods Bertie liked and ate, so expect more food-related posts in the future.

gifs made by @for-valour

On this day, 86 years ago: 12th May 1937:

The Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

‘…Then came Papa looking very beautiful in a crimson robe and the Cap of State.’

‘I thought it all very, very wonderful and I expect the Abbey did, too.’

‘The arches and beams at the top were covered with a sort of haze of wonder as Papa was crowned…’

‘When Mummy was crowned and all the peeresses put on their coronets it looked wonderful…’

‘At the end, the service got rather boring as it was all prayers. Grannie and I were looking to see how many more pages to the end, and we turned one more and then I pointed to the word at the bottom of the page and it said ‘Finis.’ We both smiled at each other and turned back to the service.’

Excerpts taken from 11–year-old Lilibet’s account of her father’s coronation ❤️

Bertie looks so very anxious in some of these clips 🥹

All gifs made by @for-valour

On this day, 78 years ago:

8th May 1945 marked the official end of the war in Europe, known as VE (Victory in Europe) Day. Newspaper and radio sources had all but confirmed the Allied triumph, and a ceasefire had been declared on the previous day. Wanting to celebrate, thousands of people flocked outside Buckingham Palace, calling out ‘We want the King!’

At around 3:11pm, King George VI, accompanied by Queen Elizabeth and the princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, made the first of several balcony appearances that day (later to also be joined by Winston Churchill).

In this photo, The King is wearing the uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet. Princess Elizabeth is seen wearing the uniform of the Auxiliary Territorial Service (the ATS) which she had joined earlier in the year; the first woman in the Royal Family to serve as a full-time active member of the Armed Forces, albeit for only a few months. Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret were both in blue.

This was also the day that the two princesses (along with other members of the Royal Household) disguised themselves amongst the crowds outside the Palace gates and cheered for their parents from the ground! ❤️

On the morning of February 6th, 1952, King George VI died in his sleep of a coronary thrombosis at Sandringham House. He was only 56. These clips are some of the last images of the King, as he anxiously waved goodbye to his beloved daughter, Princess Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip, as they embarked on the Commonwealth tour that Bertie himself was supposed to undertake before becoming too ill to travel. The King looks so very worried here, pacing around the tarmac with a deeply furrowed brow. I honestly believe he knew in his heart that it was his final farewell to his darling Lilibet. How I hope that 'Us Four' are all having the warmest heavenly hugs today for sweet Bertie <3

“My dear Darling, I am just writing you a very little letter, I shall be thinking about you when you get this, & hoping that everything will go off wonderfully well. I am quite sure it will. Also, I might add that I do [underlined several times] love you Bertie, & feel certain that I shall more & more . I shall miss you terribly. You are such an Angel to me.” - Queen Elizabeth

“This is my first letter to you since you made me such a very happy person that Sunday at St Paul’s Walden & you don’t know what a wonderful difference it has made to me darling, in all ways. I think I must have always loved you darling but could never make you realise it without telling you actually that I did & thank God I told you at the right moment.” - King George VI

She had given the Duke of York what he had always longed for, a happy family life. As his wife, she had dedicated herself to him… She had given him confidence and social grace…The King always talked of his family as ‘We Four’. But, within ‘We Four’, ‘We Two’ were closest of all.

Those closest to Elizabeth saw more clearly than the world at large that it was a relationship of mutual dependence. It had become commonplace to say that, without her, the King could never have become ‘the great and gallant King he proved to be’, as a friend in later life observed. ‘But perhaps what is not widely known is the fact of her great reliance on him, on his wisdom, his integrity, his courage…’

Doris Vyner {Elizabeth’s close friend since childhood} …understood how desperately she had needed the King and she commented that without him her ‘mainspring’ had gone. Indeed Doris pointed out to mutual friends whom she trusted that although everyone thought that the Queen had energized the King and kept him up to his work, in fact the opposite was true.  The initiatives almost all came from the King - he had had to make the decisions. Now she was quite lost without him.”