The King's Speech - Mark Logue [56]
Writing back, Logue insisted the final decision was up to Hardinge, but added, ‘A good record is essential, just in case of accidents, loss of voice etc, and the third one with the treatment you suggest, should make an excellent record.’
While the records provided a useful insurance policy of sorts, the King was further encouraged by eulogistic reports in the newspapers the next day of a speech he had made in Westminster Hall. It was, Logue agreed, ‘a good job it was not in front of a microphone. It is partly his dislike of the microphone, it must have been engendered when he returned from SA [South Africa] and made his first speech in Wembley Stadium. It was a terrible failure and the scar has remained ever since.’
While there would be no dreaded microphone in the Abbey, the King would have to make his speech into one that evening. Logue was not sure whether it would be better to have a dozen people present or for him to be there alone with the King. ‘In an ordinary speech, he is ever nigh perfect, he makes a good speech, and enjoys it but loathes the microphone,’ he wrote in his diary.
Logue decided the room on the first floor opposite the King’s study was an excellent room for broadcasting, because it looked out onto the main quadrangle and was very quiet. A steward had discovered an old desk in the basement, which had been covered with baize and its sloping lid raised up by two blocks of wood until the top was level. Two gilt microphones and a red light were mounted between them. ‘We have tried sitting down to a small table, but he is better on his feet,’ Logue wrote. ‘He is indeed a gallant fighter, and if a word doesn’t quite go right, he looks at me so pathetically and then gets on with the job. There is very little wrong with him, the only big thing is “fear”.’
The same day Logue received a call from his friend John Gordon, now already six years into his tenure as editor of the Sunday Express. The coronation, and speculation about how well the King would speak his lines, was inevitably reviving the newspapers’ interest in his speech impediment – and in the assistance Logue had given him in fighting it. Gordon read him an article about the King which, Logue was pleased to note, did not mention him at all by name. Even after all these years, he was still trying to avoid rather than seek out the limelight.
An hour later, Gordon called him to say that a Mr Miller, who claimed to be a reporter on the Daily Telegraph, had sent in an article to the Sunday Express about the King that began: ‘A black eyed grey haired man, aged 60, an Australian, is in constant attendance on the King and is his greatest friend. They ring each other up every day, etc. etc.’
It was, Logue considered, ‘all wrong. Very scurrilous and would do a tremendous lot of harm. John asked if he had my authority to act. I said of course, that it was a damn shame that such a thing should be written. John sent for him and said that the article was quite wrong and could cause a lot of harm. He put the fear of hell into Mr Miller and said that if he sent it to anyone, he would never have another article published. Mr Miller left the article with John and said that it would not happen again. John rang me up and told me the good news. Thank Heavens.’
On the morning of Monday the tenth, with two days to go before the coronation, Logue went to the Palace. The tension was clearly getting to the King, whose eyes looked very tired. ‘He said he was not sleeping well and his people didn’t even know what was the matter,’ recorded Logue. ‘Think he is very nervy.’
That evening, at eight o’clock, there was another twist. Logue received a telephone call saying he was being recognized in the Coronation