ON the wall of Major Mike Parker's home is a photograph of the Queen as
you never normally see her. While a fire rages behind her, she is looking at
Parker and laughing delightedly, uninhibited glee etched on her face.
Parker explains the context. It was 1977, the Queen's Silver Jubilee, and the
first national event organised by him. As part of the celebrations, the Queen
was to light - or pretend to light - a 35ft bonfire. "I had an idiot in a tree with a
switch," says Parker, "and I said, 'When the Queen lights the fire, press the
button.' He pressed the button too early so the bonfire caught light before it
was meant to. I got a fit of the giggles and said, 'Ma'am, I must tell you
absolutely everything is going wrong.' She said, 'Oh, good.' "
It can't have put her off. Indeed, since then, the Royal Family has come to rely on Parker to mastermind the entertainments at every landmark occasion. It is
he who is the brains behind the Queen Mother's 100th Birthday Pageant, to
take place in Horse Guards Parade on July 19. He supervised her 80th and
90th birthdays, the VE Day and VJ Day celebrations in 1995 and the earlier
G7 summit, when he organised fireworks from the roof at Buckingham
Palace. "God, that was high risk - I could have set light to the palace," he says
now. He produced the Royal Tournament at Earls Court for 26 years and this
year is organising its replacement, the Royal Military Tattoo in Horse Guards
Parade from July 10-15, which, he promises, will be the largest military
extravaganza ever. He is, in short, the world's biggest party planner. "I find it
easier to do things on a large scale," he says.
When I arrive at his two-storey Earls Court flat, he is on the phone, working
out the tiered seating arrangement for the Queen Mother's Birthday Pageant.
His head is on the table, in despair. "The riser for normal seating has got to be
more than six inches. What! No wonder I can never bloody see." He
half-turns from a sea of papers, apologises, then launches into a discussion
about swing doors.
His office is like a stage set. A skull and a Viking helmet hang from a screen
depicting a Harrier jet, while his designs for the backdrops of the Royal
Tournament adorn the walls. Evidence of his royal connections abound: a
large picture of the Queen Mother dominates one wall and a signed
photograph from the Prince and Princess of Wales is on his mantelpiece. The
Major himself is wearing a T-shirt printed with the crown and the words "The
Royal Tournament: 1880-1999, Producer". His hair is slicked back and his
bushy eyebrows give him a look of Denis Healey, while his amused grin is
reminiscent of Stephen Fry.
Eventually, he finishes his phone call and flops into a studded red leather
armchair. "There are so many things that could go wrong," he groans. "But if
something is easy to do, then it's not worth doing." His whole career has been
a testimony to this statement. Each event is bigger and better and more daring
than the last. "Most of these events are a damage-limitation exercise. If you're
not living on a knife- edge then you're doing something too boring and too
predictable."
Things, inevitably, do go wrong. There was his re-enactment of the Battle of
Trafalgar on a lake in Germany with 25ft-high galleons, when he managed to
set fire to all the trees around the lake while the boats melted and sank. Or the
Royal Fireworks at the Prince of Wales' wedding, designed to depict events
in his life, including a huge firework palace. "We'd planned the most complex
fireworks display ever," says Parker, whose every event is always summed up
in superlatives. But he hadn't bargained on the horses' hooves cutting through
the cable connected to the fireworks. "It was an evening of complete horror.
Put it this way, the fireworks went off in a slightly unusual order. The Queen
did point out to me that the programme wasn't going exactly according to
plan."
Yet for all the failures, there are far more spectacular successes. He seems to
have a gift for galvanising people and persuading them to believe in his ideas,
which usually come to him, he says, while he lies in the bath listening to The
Archers. Now 58, he lives alone, and always has done, maintaining that no
wife would be able to put up with him. "I joined the Army to have a family,"
he says.
It doesn't take long in his company to realise that he is hard to oppose. He
asks me if I would like a glass of wine and when I start to say no, he says,
somewhat illogically, "Why not, today's got a long way to go yet. Emma
dear," he calls through to his assistant. "I've decided we'd like a glass of
wine."
A bottle of chilled white wine is produced, followed, not long afterwards, by
another. I hope that this might loosen his tongue on the subject of the Royal
Family. Not a bit of it. Even after four or five glasses, the Major is a man of
the utmost discretion. "I know what you want me to say but I really mustn't,"
he says, charming but adamant. "I'll be drummed out of the Brownies."
Nevertheless, after four hours of conversation, you begin to understand the
link between him and the Royal Family. I should think that the Queen finds
him a highly entertaining maverick. Of her, he says: "I find her enormously
good company. She has the most wonderful sense of humour."
He adds that she is always the first to spot anything amiss in a show. "She
actually notices things that other people don't and I find it fascinating, even
though it catches me out. She might be the only person to notice the one
Drum Major who didn't quite do the right thing."
I ask if the Queen has ever ticked him off. "I'm sure she has, yes. I think you
get to know immediately if you're on the wrong track." He insists that he has
no control over what the Royal Family will do or say on a given occasion,
although he does hint at a little gentle steering. For example, the
announcement this week that the Queen Mother will say a few words during
the July 19 pageant came as no surprise to Parker. "I'd always hoped that she
might."
I ask if he suggested it. "You're asking me to give away trade secrets. I wasn't
going to push it until nearer the time. But when they said she would, I said,
'That's great - I just happen to have a microphone ready.' She won't read
anything. I think she'll just say a few words of thanks from the heart."
Some describe him as the royal equivalent of Steven Spielberg, using the
members of the Royal Family as actors in his extravaganzas. Parker snorts
when I put this to him. "Without the money!" he exclaims, then adds. "You
must get it right. I'm not asked to do things by them; they very kindly come to
see things I happen to do."
But there is more to it than this. To a certain extent, he does stage-manage the
Royal Family. For example, the idea of having just the Queen Mother, the
Queen and Princess Margaret appear on the balcony during the VE Day
celebrations was a masterstroke, coming at a time when the image of the
Royal Family had suffered a series of blows due to the marital problems of the
younger generation. Did he suggest it? "Yes. I just thought it would be right to
re-create the scene of VE Day itself, when there were four people on the
balcony. Since then, of course, George VI had died and I thought it would be
rather nice to have the three remaining ones."
The perception that he suggests to members of the Royal Family what they
might wear, or that they advise him beforehand of what colour they will be
appearing in, is wrong, he says. "The only time clothes came up was at the
Queen's Silver Jubilee and all the girls were asking what to wear. And I
thought, 'I've no idea. What do you wear for lighting a bonfire?' The message
came back that 'night-time point-to-point kit' would be suitable. And I thought
that is the most wonderful answer, because it means everything and nothing."
I ask if the message came from the Queen. "Well, it sort of came back
through the ether," he says diplomatically. "In fact, the Queen did turn up in a
headscarf on the night, which was great." But, I coax, would he try to ensure
that the royal guest did not turn up in bright pink if everything else was in
scarlet? He looks at me, perhaps remembering that the Queen wore pink
during her own birthday parade last weekend, an event - not organised by
Major Parker - that was studded with scarlet uniforms. He raises an eyebrow
and says, smiling: "I won't say a word."
He is less restrained when talking about people outside the Royal Family. For
example, when Margaret Thatcher came to the opening of the World Chess
Championships, which he organised in 1986, he suggested to her office that
she might like to turn up in black and white. "And she did. She'll probably say
that it was her own idea. I'm sure it was. But on the whole, you don't really
prescribe such things. To be honest, I've got better things to think about."
At the moment, his biggest concern is that his re-creation of the Charge of the
Light Brigade and the Charge of the Heavy Brigade at the Royal Military
Tattoo will run amok. "It's very easy to start but it's quite difficult to stop. If it
goes wrong, one lot will end up in Admiralty House, and the other lot in the
Scottish Office."
As for the Queen Mother's Pageant, he has a whole menagerie traipsing down
Horse Guards Parade. Anything, he says with relish, could happen. He is
pulling together all the Queen Mother's interests, which include at least 320
charities, in one vast parade. "There'll be dachsunds, bulls, sheep, racehorses,
chickens, camels, even winkles. There are a mass of things that could go
wrong. But that's the fun."
The next major event looming on the Royal Calendar is the Queen's Golden
Jubilee in 2002. Parker will have retired by then as he does not think his
health will stand the pressure much longer. "The Queen Mother's Birthday
Pageant is going to be my swansong." But he says he will take a backseat
advisory role for the Jubilee. Any plans as yet, I ask? His eyes light up.
"Maybe the largest horse show ever. I'll have to have another bath and think
about it."
~*~
Boy to star in Queen Mother's pageant(Electronic Telegraph)
By Andrew Alderson, Chief Reporter
A FAIR-HAIRED blue-eyed child actor has been chosen to help Queen
Elizabeth the Queen Mother at her birthday pageant by blowing out the
candles on a 30ft-wide mock birthday cake in front of more than 12,000
guests.
Ross Malloy, six, will perform the role at the hour-long ceremony at Horse
Guards Parade, central London, on July 19. Ross, dressed in a chef's outfit,
will call to the Queen Mother through a megaphone: "Happy birthday, Ma'am.
Do you want to blow out the candles or would you prefer me to?"
She will invite him to do the job for her. Ross will take a deep breath and
blow, then the stage lights will go out as if the candles were real. The little boy
is already used to big occasions. Earlier this year, when still only five, he was
on stage for an hour each night when he played the role of Sorrow, the son of
the main character, in Raymond Gubbay's Madame Butterfly at the Royal
Albert Hall. One reviewer described his performance as "beyond the cute,
even for a five-year-old", while another said he was "a real trouper, despite
his tender years, as Butterfly's son".
Ross, from Crouch End, north London, was chosen for the Queen Mother's
birthday pageant by Joan Lane, who is experienced at casting children. "He is
accustomed to large audiences," she said. "He is a bright little button. I
auditioned him for Madame Butterfly and watched him in performance. I
realised he could cope with an occasion like this [the pageant]. He has a
lovely personality and will not be fazed by addressing the Queen Mother."
Ross, who attends St Peter's school in Elm Grove, north London, is the son
of two musicians: Alasdair, a percussionist with the BBC Concert Orchestra,
and Pip, a viola player. Mrs Malloy said of her son: "He loved the part of
Sorrow in Madame Butterfly and slipped into the role easily. He is quietly
confident, without being precocious, and just got on with it. He knows what
his role will be at the pageant and he knows roughly what he has to say, and
hopefully he will just do what he has to do on the day. I don't think he will be
overawed by the occasion: he'll just enjoy himself."
Ross's three-year-old sister, Kirsty, is a "crumblet" - one of the children
making up part of the birthday cake. Forty children round the base and a
dozen beneath will burst out from the cake as it is "cut". The 25ft-high
four-tier structure is white with pink, blue and lilac trim and has been designed
by Mervyn Harridence, a prop expert and the scenic artist for the Royal
Tournament for the past 20 years.
Major Michael Parker, who is producing the event and came up with the idea
for the giant cake, said: "We wanted a cake with 100 candles on it and I
thought, at her age, the Queen Mother might prefer to have someone else
blowing out the candles for her." The Telegraph can reveal that the Prince of
Wales has been chosen to accompany the Queen Mother in her carriage to
the pageant.
The birthday will also be marked by the issue of a £5 centenary crown
depicting the Queen Mother smiling and flanked by flag-waving crowds. An
essentially private celebration will be held on August 4, her birthday.
Organisers are finalising the details, but she is expected to appear outside
Clarence House before spending the day with the Queen.
The pageant will begin when the Queen Mother and Prince Charles travel
from Clarence House, her London home, in their carriage escorted by the
Household Cavalry. As she arrives at Horse Guards Parade, the Queen
Mother will be greeted by massed and mounted bands, the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra and a 1,000-strong choir.
Nearly 30 members of the Royal Family and 1,000 readers of The Sunday
Telegraph will be among the guests at the pageant. There will be a giant
birthday card for the Queen Mother and a drop of 1,000 rose petals. Sir John
Mills, the veteran actor, director and producer who first appeared on stage in
1929, will make an address paying tribute to the Queen Mother, whom he
recently described as "the most wonderful lady in the land".
~*~
Diana's playground where every child
can be Peter Pan(Electronic Telegraph)
By Jo Knowsley
THE teepees are up, the pirate ship is finished, and a crocodile lazes on the
beach - although it has yet to start ticking. Nearby, totem poles carved by
Native American Indians guard the site, with the message: this is a sanctuary
for all children.
The Telegraph has been given an exclusive preview of the Diana, Princess of
Wales Memorial Playground, in Kensington Gardens, London, and
discovered how it has been designed to allow all children, whatever their
abilities, to play together.
The £1.7 million playground has some conventional play equipment - swings,
slides and climbing frames. It also has, however, more subtle features
designed to stimulate children's imaginations.
In the beach cove, concrete, sand-blasted to look like the real thing, carries
tiny footprints and imprints of fossils. Submerged in the main pool are plugs
which allow children to alter the direction of the water flow. A nearby rock
bears the imprint of a mermaid's tail, together with her handprint.
On the pirate ship, a fully rigged, three-tiered, hand-crafted wooden galleon,
there is a hidden passage between decks, and children can attempt to refloat
the beached vessel by shifting sand out of the hull on a trolley system.
There is the Movement and Musical Garden, where children can create tunes
on a variety of interactive instruments; the Tree House Encampment, suitable
for wheelchair users; "tree-phones" where children can communicate across
the playground. Even the sheep - hand-carved wooden figures that double as
seats - are friendly-looking.
An earlier playground on the site was funded by J M Barrie, whose Peter Pan
in Kensington Gardens was published in 1906. Barrie lived in the area and
walked daily in the gardens. The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial
Playground, designed for children up to 12, maintains this historical link,
although designers have taken great care not to turn it into a theme park.
Images from Thirties' illustrations of Peter Pan are etched into the glass in The
Home Under The Ground, where the Lost Boys live, which houses the
lavatories and the playground attendant's office. The pirate ship and the
crocodile (made of stones from a Welsh quarry) also echo the children's tale.
The link, however, is a loose one.
Jennette Emery-Wallis, an associate with Land Use Consultants, the
landscape architects for the project, said: "We wanted to create an innovative
playground, rather than take the traditional approach of tarmac and play
equipment, which tends to be sterile. Everything here is natural; the paths are
all bound gravel and the play areas are bark chip. Willow fences divide many
of the play areas. The aim is to let children decide in which way they want to
play, rather than having the way they play dictated by the landscape."
Those who knew the late princess say that it is a playground that she would
have adored. She loved Kensington Gardens and often walked or jogged
there. Sometimes she would sit quietly under a tree reading a book, enjoying
rare moments of anonymity. "Diana would have loved the complete and
unstructured freedom of this playground - it was so important to her in the
way she lived her life; the things she fought for," said Rosa Monckton, one of
the late princess's closest friends, who visited the site last week.
"It's wonderful to have a park for children to have proper adventures, rather
than stand in queues waiting to go on things. It is about as far from municipal
and as close to Swallows and Amazons as you can get. There is something
here for all children of all abilities. Diana had a particular affinity with children
and she would have loved this for everything it is."
The playground pays some homage to the past. The entrance takes visitors
past the Victorian drinking fountain, and the Elfin Oak, a gnarled, partially
hollow stump from Richmond Park, carved by Ivor Innes in 1930 with the
figures of fairies, elves and animals.
Ultimately, the park will be a feature on the seven-mile commemorative walk
designed to remember the life of the princess. Rosa Monckton's daughter,
Domenica, aged five, and the princess's last godchild, will help to open the
playground officially by cutting a ribbon at a ceremony on Friday, the day
before what would have been the princess's 39th birthday.
~*~
Duchess plays down talk of
remarriage (UK Times)
John Follain, Castagnetto Carducci
THE Duchess of York, fresh from her first appearance at a royal
function in three years, yesterday crushed the speculation, which
had been prompted by the Duke of York, that she might remarry her
former husband.
Three days after she had whirled the night away at Windsor Castle at
a ball to celebrate the birthdays of Prince Andrew, the Princess
Royal, Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother, the duchess made
her announcement at a lavish party staged by Count Gaddo della
Gherardesca, her close friend. This party was held on a hilltop estate
situated near his 11th-century castle at Castagneto Carducci.
"Andrew and I live in the same home with the children. Marriage or
remarriage is not discussed now," the duchess said. "The important
thing is the welfare of the children."
The count hosted the party, according to friends, to show that
although he did not actually want to admit as much publicly, the
duchess's "official relationship" was with him.
"He wants to show the world that Andrew was talking rubbish," said
an Italian friend of the couple.
The pair stopped short of an explicit show of their affections,
however. When Italian photographers shouted for a kiss, she shook
her head and the count stood stiffly by her.
Neither the duchess nor the red-haired Gaddo, 50, have confirmed
their two-year relationship. They have so far foiled the efforts of
Italy's notorious paparazzi to capture their intimacy on film.
The usually tight-lipped Gaddo has, however, poured scorn on
Andrew's hints, in a magazine interview, that he might remarry his
former wife. "On the scale of 100-1, the chances are 1. She confides
everything to me and she has said nothing of this," the count said.
Since Andrew told Tatler magazine that he did not rule out
remarriage, the duchess has spent almost all her weekends at the
count's sprawling estate, where locals know her as La Rossa, or "the
redhead".
"I feel as if I'm at home here. I've always been welcomed by the
people here in Tuscany, it's great to feel their warmth," she said.
Asked about her relationship with Gaddo, she said: "We are very
good friends, it's fantastic to be here together."
~*~
Charles abandons RAF over fee rise (UK Times)
THE Prince of Wales and other members of the royal family are being
forced to use commercial flights because the government has
increased the price of using the RAF squadros that was once
devoted to their service, write Michael Prescott and Christopher
Morgan.
Changes brought in by the Ministry of Defence mean that the royals
are now charged almost £8,000 an hour for using the British
Aerospace 146 aircraft of the royal squadron. Until April they were
charged £1,200 an hour, but paid a separate lump sum to cover fixed
costs annually.
The change resulted in Prince Charles flying to Klosters for his
skiing holiday in April on British Airways - only the second time that
he has used a commercial air service to travel abroad. Prince William
travelled separately from his father, who arranged for him to fly with
Swissair.
Buckingham Palace sources said the royals welcomed the change.
"The new system, with a single hourly rate, makes it much easier for
us to compare the cost of different types of travel and then choose
the most cost-efficient one," said an official.
Another source said the royals started cutting down their use of the
squadron last year in preparation for the new charging system.
He revealed that, partly as a result, the annual report by Buckingham
Palace will show the royals to have "significantly" underspent their
£9.3m annual travel budget when it is published this week.
"This government has always been quietly committed to
modernising the monarchy," one member of the government said last
night. "This reform is helping the royals to make changes that will
show them to be ever more in tune with the public.