Meeting the Duke
The country seems to divide fairly clearly between those who support the monarchy, those who are against the monarchy – and those who aren’t really bothered one way or the other. I’m one of those in the middle, and like many of those, I got very excited when I was invited to Buckingham Palace to meet the Duke. Was it curiosity? Did it give me a sense of importance? Was it a deep-seated sense of being involved, in however a small way, with this ancient institution? Or maybe it was just a curiosity to check out the Palace toilets. Apparently even ardent republicans will fall for one of these.
Rod Webb (on right) meets royalty
And apparently the Duke has met so many people in his lifetime that it’s been said that it’s easier to find someone who’s met him than someone who hasn’t. He was an odd figure in contemporary royalty, on the one hand seen by many as a distant buffoon and, on the other, someone who was engaged with all sorts of projects and always readily available to the public.
I went to see him when the publishing company I worked for won a prize in the English Speaking Union English Language Awards. In fact I went twice, once with my wife who had worked on one of the winning entries. First impressions were that he was smaller than he appeared in photographs, but perhaps that’s because I expected him to be larger than life.
He was very approachable and came out with one of his classic comments, something along the lines of: “I don’t know how anyone could read that stuff with such small print”, said in a way that could easily be taken as rude and dismissive. But that was the Duke.
After the event, the Palace supply you with lovely pictures of the day. We didn’t realise, or perhaps didn’t choose to realise, that these were not allowed to be used in publicity – so we included one prominently in our next catalogue.
Later, on a business trip to Beirut, I wanted to change some money in a bank. When I couldn’t find any ID I suddenly realised I had a catalogue with me and showed a picture of me with the Duke. But they didn’t accept this as ID, however much I insisted it showed my credentials. Perhaps he wasn’t as well known around the world as we like to think.
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