The King's Speech - Mark Logue [67]
The King and Queen landed in Quebec on 17 May, a few days later than planned, and embarked on a packed schedule that took them across the country. At almost every point they received an enthusiastic welcome. As one Provincial premier told Lascelles: ‘You can go home and tell the Old Country that any talk they may hear about Canada being isolationist after to-day is just nonsense.’75 A week later came the Empire Day speech, which was broadcast back in Britain at 8 p.m. Logue listened to it and afterwards sent a telegram to Lascelles, who was by then aboard the royal train in Winnipeg.
‘Empire Broadcast tremendous success, voice beautiful, resonant speed, eighty minimum atmospheres. Please convey congratulations loyal wishes to His Majesty. Regards Logue’
The American leg of their journey, which began on the evening of 9 June, was if anything of even greater importance for the King: members of the royal family had visited the United States before, but this was the first time a reigning British sovereign had set foot on the country’s soil. A royal red carpet was spread on the station platform at Niagara Falls, in New York State, as the blue and silver royal train crossed the border and the King and Queen were met by Cordell Hull, the secretary of state, and his wife.
President Roosevelt was keenly aware of symbolism when he issued the invitation. If the Canadian leg of the King and Queen’s trip had been intended to underline Commonwealth solidarity, the King’s presence south of the 49th parallel would offer powerful proof of the strength of Britain’s friendship with the United States.
The reaction to the royal couple on the streets of Washington was extraordinary. An estimated 600,000 people walked the royal route from Union Station, past the Capitol, down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, despite temperatures that hit 94°F. ‘In the course of a long life I have seen many important events in Washington, but never have I seen a crowd such as lined the whole route between the Union Station and the White House,’ Eleanor Roosevelt, the President’s wife, wrote in her diary, adding, of the royal couple, ‘They have a way of making friends, these young people’.76
For the King, the highpoint of the visit was the twenty-four hours that he and the Queen spent at Hyde Park, Roosevelt’s country house on the bank of the Hudson River in Dutchess County, New York. Although the Royal Standard flew from the portico, the men put all formality aside and spoke frankly about the worsening international situation and its impact on their respective countries.
Both couples also hit it off on a personal level, drinking cocktails and enjoying a picnic lunch at which the King took off his tie, drank beer and sampled that great American delicacy, the hot dog. The Roosevelts, noted Time magazine, had ‘developed a father-&-motherly feeling towards this nice young couple’. The King and Queen seemed rather to enjoy it. ‘They are such a charming & united family, and living so like English people when they come to their country house,’ the Queen wrote to her mother-in-law.77 Wheeler-Bennett, the King’s official biographer, speculated that Roosevelt, who was confined to a wheelchair by polio, and the King, with his difficulties in speaking, had been brought closer to one another by ‘that unspoken bond which unites those who have triumphed over physical disability’.
The King and Queen set off for home on 15 June from Halifax, aboard the liner Empress of Britain. There was no doubting the importance of the contribution the visit had made not just to Britain’s relationship with the New World, but also to the King’s own self-esteem – a point noted by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. ‘The trip nowhere had more influence than on George VI himself,’ noted Time four days later. ‘Two years ago he took on his job at a few hours’ notice, having expected to play a quiet younger brother role to brother Edward all his life. Pressmen who followed him around the long loop from