It was an intensely cloudy day for our visit to a palace where a princess found solace in its sunken garden and where her wedding dress preserves a fairy-tale (dis)illusion.
First, however, we enjoyed exceptional playing of Johann Sebastian Bach’s organ music by Samuel Eriksson from Goteburg on the sublime clarity of the historic George England Pike organ at Saint Margaret Lothbury, one of our most beloved of City churches. To have the complete Schubler chorales completed by a fabulous prelude and fugue was a real treat!
The Broad Walk in Kensington gardens led us to a yet-again revamped royal palace.
We had not been impressed by its previous incarnation described here:
https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/kensington-palace-revamped-or-vamp/ .
This time, however, we found the results and, in particular, the display relating to Queen Victoria’s childhood very well done. Sandra’s critical letter sent to the palace authorities must have made them re-think! However, we found out that little Vicky had sadly as lonely a time there as a more recent princess of Wales.
As life members of the National Arts Fund we have free admission to the palace. Otherwise it is not cheap to visit although the tickets have been temporarily reduced to £19 since some rooms (including the cupola room) are closed because of a restoration project which also involves strengthening a whole floor of the building. Twelve million pounds were spent on restoration in 2015 and a similar sum is being lavished in 2021. No wonder ticket prices have more than doubled in the last five years (and donations are asked too…).
We entered the palace via the sunken garden beloved by the ‘princess of hearts’. Her statue impressed us more than the photos we had seen of it. Its setting could certainly not be more lovely.
Although I am by no means an enthusiastic royalist Diana holds a special place in my thoughts. I was part of the crowd outside Buckingham palace cheering her return from the marriage ceremony in Saint Paul’s cathedral and I was at Hyde Park witnessing the poignant funeral cortege pass by headed (now thought controversially) by two young princes and afterwards in Hyde Park to view the burial service on the big screen and hear that rather angry speech by Diana’s brother.
In the orangery the exhibition of royal dress designers which include such names as Hartnell, Messel and Emanuel was elegantly presented. The highlight was, naturally, that dress with the longest of all wedding trains (at 25 feet!) sumptuously decorated with 10,000 pearls and sequins and finished in the nick of time for the grand event by David (from Bridgend, Wales) and Elizabeth Emanuel … with the help of Elizabeth’s mum.
The Morning
Outside the Palace I stood with gladness
waiting for the open landau to pass;
good will touched people with a light caress
lacking difference of culture or class.
What is left of that day now? Betamax
video still plays back the scene
innocent of the mistakes and attacks,
the wedding album of what might have been.
I woke up early on that strange morning,
switched on the radio to hear faithless news.
Just once before felt I this sudden sting,
my mind was mute for who could I accuse?
The stark, unforgiving Sunday headlines:
Diana and Lover Dead and still the sun shines.
FP
