The Peoples King Read Online Free PDF

sensitive child squirm from self-consciousness, and a severity bordering on harshness.' 44
    Queen Mary was keen to support Edward's efforts on behalf of the less fortunate people of Britain, and before he set off on his train journey to Wales in November 1936, she wished him luck for the tour. The first day of visits to the towns and centres of the valleys was completed by five o'clock, when Edward joined the royal train at Mountain Ash station and was taken to Usk, a quiet rural town. It was here that he and his party spent the night. A special cable had been laid to the King's apartment on the train, reported the South Wales Argus, because he wanted to make a telephone call; it was assumed that he wanted to communicate with Buckingham Palace.
    Edward had a bad cold and wanted a hot bath. His equerry, Lambe, had to telegraph the local station-master to buy a hip bath in the village, and it was filled with hot water in his sleeper. The local people were delighted that the King had 'a dip in a tin bath such as miners use!' 45 Had the King been willing to travel to Wales in the 'proper royal train', which was fitted out with every kind of amenity, this would not have been necessary - but he had preferred to travel on an ordinary sleeper. 46 As Prince of Wales and then as King, he always resisted special treatment. When on one occasion the royal car was driven onto a station platform, abreast of the train that Edward was about to board, he was furious. 'Why must they do this?' he complained. 'Do they think I can't walk 20 yards like an ordinary person? Oh God! they've got barriers up to keep the crowd back. Who on earth arranged this?' 47 He insisted that when he was travelling through traffic to royal events, policemen should not clear the way for him.

    After his bath, the King gave a dinner party on the royal train. It was a formal occasion - short coat and black tie. 48 As well as his ministers and courtiers, he invited representatives of the key Welsh government departments: John Rowland from the Welsh Board of Health and Captain Geoffrey Crawshay, the Commissioner for South Wales. Also invited was Sir George Gillett, the Special Areas Com­missioner for England and Wales, whose job - as directed by the Special Areas (Development and Improvement) Act of 1934 - was to alleviate the worst effects of unemployment through regional develop­ment in health, housing, social improvement and industry. A more surprising guest at Edward's dinner was Malcolm Stewart, the out­going Special Areas Commissioner, Gillett's predecessor. He had resigned his post just four days before. His reason, it was said officially, was poor health; but there were grounds to suspect that he had simply despaired of his job. He had published a blistering report a few days before his resignation, which argued that none of the measures provided for by the Special Areas Act made any real difference to the long-term unemployed. It supported hospitals, clinics, sewage disposal, allotments, and schemes such as children's school camps, physical culture and cookery classes. But it did not provide jobs, complained Stewart, which was the most fundamental need of the unemployed. 49 This was a major difference between the aims of the Special Areas Act and those of the 'New Deal' legislation passed in the USA in 1933, which also addressed the problems of unemployment created by the Depression.
    Next morning, King Edward set out on another fifty-mile leg of the tour, this time through the mining towns and villages of the Monmouthshire valleys. The countryside was bleak and bare. Every­where, observed the Pathe Gazette newsreel, 'It's a repetition of yesterday's scenes: roads lined by cheering crowds, narrow village streets packed tight with welcoming faces. ,50 In the bitter cold, bunt­ing fluttered over cottages and arched the streets of the route, and streamers bade the King welcome in English and in Welsh. At Brynmawr, a painted streamer strung across the main road