Buckingham Palace opens to visitors on
Sunday, two days after the Queen Mother's
100th birthday.
But unlike Her Majesty, the royal residence has
been falling in the popularity stakes amongst
tourists.
Last year the number of visitors to the palace
in central London fell for the first time. It was
criticised by the Consumer's Association for
being sterile and overpriced.
Palace officials hope that thousands of tourists
will visit the palace during the eight weeks it is
open to the public and have unveiled plans to
make it a top summer attraction.
This year, the ballroom has been added to the
list of state rooms on the tour for the first
time.
The room has been the setting for grand
celebrations since the reign of Queen Victoria.
High pound
At 37.5m long and 18m wide, it is the largest in
the palace and is known to millions through
television coverage of state banquets and
royal investitures.
The decision to open Buckingham Palace to the
public was originally seen as a placatory move
by the Royal family, who wanted commercial
funding as well as money from the public purse
to pay for the building's upkeep.
However the high value of the pound has been
blamed for the drop in visitor numbers at all of
London's top tourist attractions.
According to the
English Tourism Council
(ETC) the Tower of
London and Canterbury
Cathedral also saw a
fall in visitor numbers
last year.
ETC chief executive
Mary Lynch said the
results were mixed.
"A number of historic
properties have had a
tough year, with the
strong pound and falling overseas visitor
numbers affecting many of the most popular
ones."
But one royal property bucked the trend.
Kensington Palace in London, the former home
of Princess Diana, saw an increase of 32% in
visitor numbers in 1998.
Buckingham Palace is open to the public until 1
October.
~*~
Balcony scene touches a nation's
heart (UK Times)
BY ALAN HAMILTON
BALCONY scenes are about love affairs. The
appearance of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother on the
Buckingham Palace balcony yesterday, flanked by 27
members of her dynasty, sealed a kiss between the British
public and a love of their own history.
No British balcony has ever before hosted a royal
centenarian. Yesterday's centre-stage star, a diminutive
figure in shimmering pale blue, was born before that
balcony was built, at about the same time as her tribute
song Happy Birthday was composed and long before
most of her audience of 40,000 had seen the light of day.
History will never be entirely bunk so long as one of its
characters, born when Victoria was still alive, is there to
be seen in the flesh. But the crowd, loyal, warm and
tremendously enthusiastic, was not large enough for police
to activate their back-up plan of opening the entire Mall to
a longer procession.
When the Queen Mother last stepped through that
window, in 1995, we were celebrating the 50th
anniversary of the end of the war and a quarter of a million
people swarmed for a glimpse, almost as many as had
been there to see her, her husband and Winston Churchill
in 1945.
Yesterday's crowd, if smaller, got a better dynastic
bargain. From the french window at 12.31, with the sun
obligingly strong and warm, there appeared first the
Queen Mother, two sticks in her left hand to leave the
right free for waving. Immediately behind her came her
two daughters, the Queen in lilac and Princess Margaret in
brown.
The crowd cheered the three
women. All waved back.
The Duke of Edinburgh
hovered in the background,
a somewhat spare man on a
woman's day. In a second
wave came her
grandchildren, the Prince of
Wales, the Duke of York,
the Princess Royal and the
Earl of Wessex
accompanied by, for those
who had them, their spouses
and offspring. Princes
William and Harry emerged
with Princesses Beatrice and
Eugenie, the Countess of
Wessex and Commodore
Tim Laurence.
Next through the window emerged Princess Margaret's
children, Lord Linley and Lady Sarah Chatto, with their
spouses, and the Princess Royal's children, Peter and
Zara Phillips. There were more to come. The Dukes and
Duchesses of Kent and Gloucester, Prince and Princess
Michael of Kent and Princess Alexandra and Sir Angus
Ogilvy completed a rare line-up of the grandchildren of
King George V. After not much more than five minutes,
the party disappeared inside for a rare group photograph
in the Grand Hall. That was followed by lunch in the Bow
Room, where they were joined by some of King George
V's great-grandchildren: the Michaels' children, Lord
Frederick and Lady Gabriella Windsor, and the Kents'
daughter, Lady Helen, with her husband, Tim Taylor.
For all her weight of years the Queen Mother is at heart a
showgirl who knows how to work a crowd. At the start
of the day she emerged from Clarence House, two sticks
at the ready and the Prince of Wales as her escort, to
acknowledge the crowd and receive one of her most
important visitors of the day.
Tony Nicholls, the Queen's postman, drove up in his
gleaming red Royal Mail van and handed her one of 12
congratulatory messages sent by her daughter to
centenarians yesterday. She received it graciously, and
made play of not being able to open it, handing it to her
equerry.
Captain William de Rouet knew what was expected. He
instantly unsheathed his ceremonial sword, wielded it as a
letter opener, and slit open the envelope. Even Hollywood
queens are rarely up to such clever tricks.
The message inside was personalised, in her daughter's
handwriting: "On your 100th birthday, all the family join
with me in sending you our love and best wishes for this
special day - Lilibet."
The procession moved off, the Queen Mother
accompanied by the Prince in an open carriage decked
with flowers in her racing colours of light blue and gold.
They were preceded by three mounted policemen, 56
mounted troopers and six guns of the King's Troop, Royal
Horse Artillery, and a travelling escort of the Household
Cavalry.
At the rear, preceded by the band of the Irish Guards on
their way to the daily Changing of the Guard, Postman
Nicholls drove his van back to Buckingham Palace and
parked it in the forecourt, possibly waiting to deliver the
royal gas bill or junk mail.
The pace of the carriage procession was lively, the Queen
Mother waving constantly to the crowds on both sides
and clearly relishing every minute.
As she swung into the Buckingham Palace gates the
Guards' band played Happy Birthday. The crowd was
stirred to three cheers and their rendition of the song was
interrupted by the Royal Horse Artillery, now stationed in
Green Park, firing the first echoing volleys of a 41-gun
salute. Then the police opened the crowd barriers and a
tidal wave of people surged down the Mall for the
balcony scene.
Once the balcony appearance was over, the Queen
Mother was safely ensconced within, surrounded by her
dynasty and undoubtedly quaffing a glass of the bubbly
that appears to be part of the recipe for a long and fulfilled
life, and should always be drunk at the high points of love
affairs.
~*~
Queen honours producer of pageant(UK Times)
BY A CORRESPONDENT
THE Queen has issued a special Honours List to mark the
Queen Mother's 100th birthday.
Major Michael Parker, producer of the Queen Mother's
centenary pageant, and Major-General Evelyn
Webb-Carter, chairman of the pageant committee, are
appointed Knight Commanders of the Royal Victorian
Order, an honour in the Queen's personal gift.
Fiona Fletcher, secretary to the Queen Mother's
ladies-in-waiting, is appointed Commander of the
Victorian Order, as are Ian Gill, registrar and seneschal of
the Cinque Ports, Kent, where the Queen Mother is Lord
Warden, and Captain Ashe Windham, chairman of the
Castle Mey Trust, which administers the Queen Mother's
Scottish home.
Colonel William Toby Browne is appointed Lieutenant of
the Victorian Order for his work as pageant
organiser.Captain William de Rouet, of the Irish Guards,
the Queen Mother's equerry, is appointed Member of the
Victorian Order, as is Warrant Officer Alan Mason, of the
Coldstream Guards, the pageant's parade sergeant-major.
Emma Bagwell Purefoy, Major Parker's assistant, is
appointed a Royal Victorian Medal (Silver).
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