THE Queen flew yesterday into Melbourne, the capital of
Victoria, which came the closest of Australia's six states to
overthrowing the monarchy in last November's
referendum.
She was greeted at the airport by a delegation of
Aboriginals, one wearing an overcoat of kangaroo skin
and another playing a long didgeridoo so close to her feet
that it looked as though it was the cause of her
lemon-yellow skirt billowing dangerously upwards. In fact,
it was the brisk breeze; Melbourne greeted the Queen
with a refreshingly English climate after she had endured
three days of torrential rain in Sydney.
Crowds of many hundreds rather than thousands greeted
her at her engagements across the city, with small knots of
well-behaved republican demonstrators present at each
occasion. At her first stop, the Royal Victorian Eye and
Ear Hospital, the republicans were on the verge of
mounting a boo when loyalists in the crowd, who greatly
outnumbered them, nipped them in the bud with a spirited
chorus of God Save the Queen.
Her motorcade had had to take a circuitous route from
the airport to the hospital. A trade union rally protesting at
cuts in industrial injury compensation was blocking key
streets, and organisers had declined to call it off or divert
it for a mere monarch.
Outside the hospital gates, Baron Wilhelm von Keet
favoured the monarchical view. Dressed in full Prussian
military uniform, including spiked helmet and Iron Cross,
the 29-year-old claimed to be representing the German
monarchy; his great-grandfather, he claimed, had been an
aide to Kaiser Wilhelm II, and he was wearing the
ancestral uniform. Police gently blocked him from the
Queen's view after asking for his address and finding it to
be a local mental institution.
When the Queen emerged from the hospital, she might
have been better able to hear the republican boos, for she
was carrying one of the strangest presents ever handed to
her - a bionic ear. although, as it was encased in Perspex,
it could be of no conceivable use to her.
She had been paying a brief visit to Graeme Clark, whose
clinic invented the cochlea implant - commonly known as
the bionic ear - in 1978. This is a remedy for profound
deafness that has revolutionised the lives of some 26,000
children and adults, including Lord Ashley, the veteran
Labour peer, who recently regained his hearing at the age
of 70 after years of deafness, because of one of the
devices.
The professor showed the Queen how his device had
been improved and miniaturised over the years because of
microchip technology, and how the latest research,
involving injecting growth hormones to make the damaged
hearing nerves of the brain grow anew, had only last week
returned highly promising results in guinea pigs. Implants
cost about £10,000 each. The device received its
nickname in its early days, according to Professor Clark,
because he happened to see an episode of The Six
Million Dollar Man.
The Duke of Edinburgh listened intently, telling the
professor that his own mother, Princess Andrew of
Greece, had been very deaf in her later years. "If you're
old you may lose your sight, but if you lose your hearing
you lose all contact with the rest of the world," he said.
On her way to lunch at Government House, the Queen
passed another small protest that she may not even have
seen. Demonstrators held placards protesting at the fact
that she held shares in RTZ, the global mining company
under fire in Australia for attempting to break the
collective bargaining power of local trade unions.
When the Queen paid an evening visit to the city's
immigration museum, which celebrates the 140 countries
from which Australia draws its population, the republicans
were out again, silently waving banners proclaiming
"Melbourne welcomes the British Queen" and "Yes to an
Australian head of state". The Queen waved spiritedly,
and the loyalists gave her three loud cheers. At the back
of the crowd, an unshaven man held up a republican
banner in one hand and the lion rampant flag of Scotland
in the other.
It's hard work being a republican these days: there's so
much of it about you can hardly keep up.
~*~
Duke drops in to reminisce with an
old sea dog(UK Times)
BY ALAN HAMILTON
THE Duke of Edinburgh was reunited with one of his
oldest and closest friends yesterday when he visited the
Sandringham Yacht Club in Melbourne.
Commander Michael Parker, 79, is a footnote to royal
history. As the Duke's private secretary, he was playing
squash with his employer on the night of November 14,
1948, when the Prince of Wales was born. He also
accompanied the Duke on his nine-month
circumnavigation of the globe in Britannia in 1957, which
at the time fanned speculation of difficulties in the royal
marriage.
When the pair returned to London, Commander Parker
found that his wife had filed for divorce, not a socially
acceptable move in those days. Princess Margaret had
only recently bowed to establishment pressure to abandon
her relationship with the divorced Group Captain Peter
Townsend. Parker, told that he would receive no support
from the old guard at Buckingham Palace, resigned his
post and eventually returned to his native Melbourne.
Yesterday the grey-haired and blue-blazered Commander
carefully avoided any talk of the past, except to reminisce
that he and the Duke had been brother officers in the
Royal Navy during the war, and that during a break in
hostilities he had brought the then Lieutenant Philip
Mountbatten to Melbourne for a spot of recreational
sailing at the club where he himself had learnt yachting at
the age of 12.
Commander Parker, now on his third marriage, said
yesterday that he and the Duke still met regularly. "I see
him once or twice a year; we have a lot of fun. It's great to
have him back on home ground - but I wish I had his
figure," the slightly portly but otherwise spry commander
said.
The Duke's primary purpose in visiting the yacht club was
to meet Jesse Martin, who last year at the age of 17
became the youngest person to circumnavigate the globe
solo, non-stop and unassisted. The Duke inspected his
boat Lionheart, and learnt that Martin planned to repeat
the voyage next year with his brother.
Asked if it had been worth putting on a shirt and tie to
meet the Duke, Martin said: "Frankly, no. I suppose it's an
honour, but I'd rather have been meeting supermodels."
~*~
Soap shock in store for royal corgis(Yahoo Reuters)
By Giles Elgood
BALLARAT, Australia (Reuters) - The royal corgis are in for a surprise when the
Queen comes home from Australia.
During a visit to a general store at a recreated 19th century goldrush town near
Ballarat in southern Australia the Queen was a little surprised to be presented with a
bar of dog soap.
"Would you like some dog soap?" asked Kerryn Morecambe, who had dressed up in
period costume to play the part of the store's historical owner, Mrs Clarke.
"It might be an idea, mightn't it," replied the Queen.
Tilley's "Timid Joe Dog Soap" was a favourite with the gold miners who flocked to Ballarat in the 1850s. Their dogs used to
sleep under their beds to protect the miners' tents. The dogs had to be washed to keep fleas at bay.
The royal corgis can expect a wash that "renders the skin healthy and soft and the coat smooth and glossy", according to the
packaging.
The Queen has four corgis and a number of other dogs. She disclosed earlier this week during her 16-day tour that one of the
Queen Mother's corgis had just had puppies.
Huge crowds turned out to greet the Queen as she drove into Ballarat.
She made two hugely popular walkabouts, where she was almost mobbed by the media pack. She chatted with local people
and accepted bouquets of flowers. But she declined one little girl's invitation to autograph the plaster cast on her wrist.
At the old goldmining town of Sovereign Hill, the Queen walked through streets populated by people dressed in 19th century
costume. They would normally work as tourist guides if the place had not been closed for the royal visit. K
One woman, Jane Nicholson, produced a mobile phone from the sleeve of her flounced dress and made a quick call --
something the guides are normally forbidden to do.
"I'll probably get sacked for that," she said after she realised a dozen photographers had taken her picture.