The King's Speech - Mark Logue [30]
The Duke’s actual speech, broadcast not just in Britain but around the world, ended in humiliation. Although he managed through sheer determination to struggle his way to the end, his performance was marked by some embarrassing moments when his jaw muscles moved frantically and no sound came out. The King tried to put a positive spin on it: ‘Bertie got through his speech all right, but there were some long pauses,’ he wrote to the Duke’s young brother, Prince George, the following day.30
It would be difficult to overestimate the psychological effect that the speech had both on Bertie and his family, and the problem that his dismal performance threw up for the monarchy. Such speeches were meant to be part of the daily routine of the Duke, who was second in line to the throne, yet he had conspicuously failed to rise to the challenge. The consequences both for his own future and that of the monarchy looked serious. As one contemporary biographer put it, ‘it was becoming increasingly manifest that very drastic steps would have to be taken if he were not to develop into the shy retiring nervous individual which is the common fate of all those suffering from speech defects’.31
By coincidence, Logue was a member of the crowd at Wembley listening to the Duke’s speech that day. Inevitably, he took a professional interest in what he heard. ‘He’s too old for me to manage a complete cure,’ he told his son, Laurie, who accompanied him. ‘But I could very nearly do it. I am sure of that.’ By an equally strange coincidence, he was to get the chance to do precisely that – although it was not to be until a few months later.
There have been different versions of how precisely the Duke was to become Logue’s most famous patient, but according to John Gordon of the Sunday Express, the chain of events that led to it was set in motion the following year when an Australian who had met Logue afterwards encountered a worried royal equerry.
‘I have to go to the United States to see if I can bring over a speech defect expert to look at the Duke of York,’ the equerry explained. ‘But it’s so hopeless. Nine experts here have seen him already. Every possible treatment has been tried. And not one of them has been the least successful.’
The Australian had a solution. ‘There’s a young Australian just come over,’ he said. ‘He seems to be good. Why not try him?’
The next day, 17 October 1926, the equerry came to Harley Street to meet Logue. He made a good impression, and the equerry asked if he would be able to meet the Duke and try and do something for him. ‘Yes,’ said Logue. ‘But he must come tome here. That imposes an effort on him which is essential for success. If I see him at home we lose the value of that.’
There is another, more intriguing, version, according to which the role of go-between was played by Evelyn ‘Boo’ Laye, a glamorous musical comedy star. The Duke had had a crush on her since he first saw her on stage aged nineteen in 1920, and Laye, a lyric soprano, was later to become a friend of both himself and his wife. Five years later, she was appearing at the Adelphi Theatre in the title role of the musical play Betty in Mayfair and, after a gruelling schedule of eight performances a week, was beginning to have problems with her singing voice.
According to Michael Thornton, a writer and long-term friend of Laye, the singer sought the advice of Logue, who diagnosed incorrect voice production and prescribed some deep breathing exercises relating to the diaphragm– which quickly relieved her problems. Laye was deeply impressed. And so in summer 1926, when she met the Duchess of York and their conversation turned to the forthcoming trip to Australia and all the speeches that the Duke would have to make there, Laye recommended Logue.
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