The King's Speech - Mark Logue [8]
By the time the speech was over, Logue was so worked up he couldn’t talk. The King handed Wood his Coronation Medal and, shortly afterwards, the Queen joined them. ‘It was wonderful, Bertie, much better than the record,’ she told him.
The King bade farewell to Wood and, turning to Logue, pressed his hand as he said, ‘Good night, Logue, I thank you very much.’ The Queen did the same, her blue eyes shining as, overcome by the occasion, he replied, ‘The greatest thing in my life, your Majesty, is being able to serve you.’
‘Good night. Thank you,’ she repeated, before adding softly, ‘God bless you.’
Tears began to well in Logue’s eyes, and he felt like a fool as he went downstairs to Hardinge’s room, where he had another whisky and soda and immediately regretted it. It was, he reflected later, a silly thing to do on an empty stomach, as the whole world began to spin around and his speech to slur. He nevertheless set off with Hardinge in the car, dropping him off at St James’s before turning south-east towards home. As he looked back over the momentous events of the day, Logue’s mind kept turning to the moment when the Queen had said to him ‘God bless you’ – that, and how he really ought to get his tooth fixed.
Logue spent the next day almost entirely in bed, ignoring the insistent ring of the telephone as his friends called to pass on their congratulations. The newspapers’ verdict on the speech was overwhelmingly positive. ‘The King’s voice last night was strong and deep, resembling to a startling degree the voice of his father,’ reported the Star. ‘His words came through firmly, clearly – and without hesitation.’ Both men couldn’t have wished for a better accolade.
CHAPTER TWO
The ‘common colonial’
Adelaide in the 1880s
Adelaide in the 1880s was a city overflowing with civic pride. Named in honour of Queen Adelaide, the German-born consort of King William IV, it had been founded in 1836 as the planned capital of a freely settled British province in Australia. It was laid out in a grid pattern, interspaced by wide boulevards and large public squares, and surrounded by parkland. By the time of its half centenary, it had become a comfortable place to live: from 1860 residents had been able to enjoy water piped in from the Thorndon Park reservoir, horse-drawn trams and railways made it easy to move around, and by night the streets were lit by gas lights. In 1874 it acquired a university; seven years later, the South Australian Art Gallery opened its doors for the first time.
It was here, close to College Town on the outskirts of the city, that Lionel George Logue was born on 26 February 1880, the eldest of four children. His grandfather, Edward Logue, originally a Dubliner, had arrived in 1850 and set up Logue’s Brewery on King William Street. The city at this time had dozens of independent breweries, but Edward Logue’s did especially well; the Adelaide Observer attributed its success to the good water and the ‘more than ordinary skill’ of the proprietor, who was able to produce ‘ale of a character which enables him to compete successfully with all other manufacturers of the nut brown creature comfort’.
Logue never knew his grandfather; Edward died in 1868, and his brewery was taken over by his widow Sarah, and her business partner Edwin Smith, who later bought her out. After several mergers, the original business was eventually to become part of the South Australian Brewing Company.
Logue’s father George, who was born in 1856 in Adelaide, was educated at St Peter’s College and, after leaving school, went to work at the brewery, rising to the position of accountant. He later became licensee of the Burnside Hotel, which he ran together with his wife Lavinia, and then took over the Elephant and Castle Hotel, which still stands today on West Terrace. It was, Logue recalled, a perfect childhood. ‘I had a wonderfully happy home, as we were a very united family.’
Logue