Billy Wallace
ft 1
rv
Earl of Dalkeith
about the British royal family. Al
though a valet or governess occasion
ally turns blabbermouth and tells all
he or she knows, the royal family as
a rule is kept under thick and discreet
wraps. Close friends don't dare talk to
reporters for fear of ceasing to be
close friends. The Queen has a public
relations officer, Commander Colville,
who has his office at one end of Buck
ingham Palace, but his major official
function is to say, "No comment"
In 1947, 1 went over to London with
the naive American idea of inter
viewing Princess Elizabeth for an
American publication. I looked up
Buckingham Palace in the telephone
book and called for an appointment.
I didn't see Princess Elizabeth, but I
did get inside the palace and talk to
the young woman whom Commander
Colville had hired to handle the
Princess' press relations.
She was eminently qualified for
the job by having been a wartime
employee in "Winston Churchill's top
secret, hush-hush Map Room. I didn't
find out anything about the Princess
from her. But the English journalists
gave me "A" for brassy American
enterprise. Even the ones who are
officially attached to the palace are
expected to keep their distance and
ask only polite questions. It is only
around the pubs in Fleet Street,
where the journalists gather and ex
change rumor and speculation and
gossip, that the royal family is dis
cussed as freely and irreverently as
our Presidents and their families.
Since Margaret's troubles have piled
up, her personal inner circle is as
tight-lipped and grim as Commander
Colville could hope. Her Highness re
tires more and more frequently from
public view with her cases of royal
sulks. Yet it wasn't always so.
In happier, younger days Margaret
will be 28 in August we in the
United States and the common people
in London goggled at her newspaper
pictures, showing more cleavage than
any royal torso had ever exposed at
least, in print. She smoked cigarettes
in long black holders.
Even run-of-the-mill reporters saw
her and her friends at the Bohemium
restaurant in Soho, and overheard her
giving imitations, of Louis Armstrong.
Ordinary tourists passing by Clarence
House, where she lives with the
Queen Mother, could hear the piano
playing late at night, often repeat
ing " Margaret's favorite, "La Ronde
d' Amour." Records of the song, sub
titled "By a Royal Personage," were
bootlegged in London at $20 each.
Margaret then gave little indication
of fearing reporters, and some au
thentic news leaked down direct from
her inner circle to Fleet Street pubs.
At a private party in Paris, she sang
for an audience which included Garbo.
When she came of age and into
$18,000 a year from the Civil List and
a lump sum of $60,000 under the will
of an old family friend, she celebrated
by buying a $21,000 Rolls Royce and a
white strapless Dior evening dress
(which later, when she came back to
England, quietly acquired straps).
While Margaret was in Italy, photog
raphers disguised as improbable
fishermen followed her into the surf
at Capri and got pictures of her in a
bathing suit. Not a bit daunted, she
came back to England and danced a
can-can at another private party.
Reports of these activities filtered
down to Fleet Street, and English
journalists shared gossip and tidbits
with American reporters. A friend of
mine from a London tabloid once
asked a male member of Margaret's
inner circle: "If you tried to kiss
Margaret good-night after a party,
would .she pull her rank on you?"
And the fellow replied, without a
trace of a smile: "Indeed she does
like frozen lightning." Even then,
there were solid indications that the
gay young Princess wanted to have
her fun without the consequences. -Speculation
about whom she would
marry was a good game for news
papers all over the world, and Mar
garet's dozen-or-so fairly steady
escorts became for a time almost as
well known as leading cinema stars.
Today all except faithful, well-heeled
Billy Wallace have slipped back into
comparative obscurity.
KJobody noticed the quiet figure of
Group Captain Peter Town
send in the background; he had
been around too long, equerry to the
King since Margaret was 14.
On her 21st birthday, which she
celebrated at the family's Scottish
castle at Balmoral, a Fleet Street
photographer caught pictures of
Margaret riding with a man, then
apologized to his editor when he dis
covered "it was only Townsend."
It is possible that for a while Town
send himself did not suspect that the
young Princess had a "crush" on him.
He was 16 years older than she. He
was married, and King George was
godfather to his second son. Although
the marriage was dissolved late in
1952, not even malicious gossip has
ever hinted that it was for love of
Margaret. Reporters close to the
palace think that Townsend's affection
for the whole family, particularly
King George and Queen Elizabeth,
simply relegated his marriage to
second place.
Margaret called him Peter. Town
send always called her "ma'am" in
the presence of the press. When the
royal family toured South Africa in
1947, Townsend was with them as
acting manager of the royal house
hold. He and 17-year-old Margaret
swam together in the Indian Ocean,
rode horseback together, visited the
Victoria Falls. When Elizabeth
married, Margaret seemed to depend
more and more on Townsend, and
chose him as her companion and ad
ministrator on her first important solo
mission abroad, to the Netherlands.
After her father's death and Eliza
beth's coronation in 1953, Townsend
was chosen as comptroller of the
household when the widow and
Margaret moved from the palace to
Clarence House. The stigma of divorce,
still strong in court circles, made no
difference in the case of the royal
family's favorite.
The first rumors of the love affair
started in newspapers in the United
States, a few days after Queen
Elizabeth's coronation. Margaret and
her mother were about to fly to Africa
with the inevitable Townsend. Over
night, Townsend was sent with the
Queen and Philip to Ireland, then
rapidly posted to Brussels as air
attache, a job which was almost an
insult to a man wearing the Dis
tinguished Service Order (next to the
Victoria Cross), Distinguished Flying
Cross and Bar, with 11 German air
craft to his credit during the Battle
of Britain.
In Africa, Margaret retired with a
"diplomatic cold." When she came
back to London, she cut out nearly all
her public engagements, and started
going to church frequently. She wasn't
seen in night clubs or fashionable
restaurants. Her old inner circle kept
mum; it is possible that only a few of
them saw very much of her. For
28 months Townsend stayed pat in
Brussels. How many times Margaret
talked to him over her green tele
phone is one of the royal mysteries.
But after she returned from a very
successful tour of duty in the West
Indies, reliable word came from the
inner circle that Margaret had been
talking to Townsend on the telephone.
Her 25th birthday, when she would
be free to marry without consent of
her sister and the Privy Council, was
only a few months away. The news
papers promptly descended in force
on Townsend in his Brussels flat, and
the Queen extended his royal posting
until the end of September, a month
after Margaret's birthday.
I p the Queen and Philip (who is said
to have a great deal of in
fluence with Margaret and dis
likes Townsend) hoped to change
Margaret's mind in six months, they
failed. The Princess began going out
more socially, even "stood in" during
rehearsals of a fashionable socialite
amateur play, and was reported to
show her old enthusiasm and wit. Then
Townsend came back to London on
Oct. 12, 1955.
The couple met for an hour and a
half the next day at Clarence House,
the first of a series of meetings which
they tried to keep secret. The meet
ings went on for 19 days and were
reported in sometimes fictional detail
in papers all over the world. Every
one pretended to have the inside track
on the question of whether Margaret
would marry Townsend. It was never
a question of her sacrificing a penny
(her grandmother, Queen Mary, had
also left her a sizable sum) or,
necessarily, her right of succession to
the throne.
The pertinent point to a devout girl
fJ (Continued on page 10)
Family Weekly, July 6, 195
7