Prince Philip - My small encounter…
I was sent to school in Windsor from the age of 9; Windsor is a small town which meant that you could very often come across a patron or two in a Royal cart or car with the little flag flying from the front bonnet & a regal occupant inside. The Royal family were always around & about it was not unusual to come across them occasionally. Not least my school - I loosely mention it as a school it was in fact a convent - Brigidine Convent, Queensmead House School, located on the edge of Windsor Great Park, right bang smack in the middle of the long mile to be accurate. Despite the schools affiliation with Roman Catholic nuns it accepted pupils of all faiths.
For the record, I am of no faith, my mother was religious to a degree, I know that in London she was courted by the local vicar who was according to my father ‘in love’ with her? However she turned to the dark side & married my father, leaving said vicar broken hearted.
It seems that I was yet another of my parents ‘surprises’ & as such I was not christened, which never bothered me as it was never on my radar as we were not a church going family, except when one of the family got married or for that matter got christened.
When we moved to Berkshire & I was sent to the private convent school having previously been schooled in London at non fee paying Brookland Primary School - East Finchley, NW11, or as my mother would call it Hampstead Garden Suburb. I can promise you it was monumental & quite a shock to find my self surrounded by at times the brutal negative regimes of the Roman Catholic nuns. I was ill prepared for such a regime, not to mention the endless curtailing of my character & natural exuberance. I was a modest child & eager to please, it seemed to me that you were taught that everything was considered a sin which at such a tender age was quite difficult to comprehend & extremely challenging. Of course there were much lighter moments when ‘normal’ teachers would take the classes & those I enjoyed.
On the second day of attending the school my mother dropping me off at the front door of the convent, which unbeknown to either of us was not to be used by the likes of the lowly pupils, but was reserved for special people & his reverence the local vicar visits, which to my memory when he pulled the front door bell sent all the nuns scurrying to see him even some of the elderly ‘mothers/nuns’ it was as if a rock star had arrived on a pack of screaming teenagers, the nuns dropped their haughty repose & descended on the poor man like bees to honey their faces turning red in hot flushes of slightly hysteric yapping & giggling, it was curious to me & even at that age - I considered it vulgar. Little girls can be very judgemental!
Back to the front door of the convent, my mother pushed me out of the car, shushing me with her hand to go up to the front door, I was hesitant & staring at her, then her face changed, clearly she had a second thought.. Anxious, she scooched over into the passengers side of the car reaching out to wind down the window, “Natalie, whatever you do - Do not tell them that you are not christened!!” .. Then as only my mother can do, she wound the window back up re-seated herself in the driving seat & shot off, hair & lipstick immaculate, no doubt off on a shopping expedition, that she so excelled in…
I was terrified, as a child you get a sense that something is very wrong, my mother was prone to just dropping me in it & hoping for the best & buggering off!! I rung the door bell, after a moment or two, one of the over excited nuns ripped open the door, there were audible the sounds of clattering feet scampering, running, jogging to get to the front door first. As the other nuns arrived in the hallway to their disgust & dismay they only found a tiny pork pie shaped child with a maroon pork pie hat on & maroon striped equally ill-fitting blazer at their front door - Their reaction to me was very much in the negative. I never entered the building through that entrance again. Also, thanks to my mother I spent my younger years in the school utterly terrified that in some way I would be ‘outed’ as ‘non-christened’ - sinner! It left quite an impression.
The school because of its location to Windsor castle would regularly get calls from the castle staff to request the convent school pupils to line ‘the long walk’ & cordially wave at the very many cars carrying the Queen & various members of her family & entourage, when they were going on visits to Ascot & the like, we would cross the road dressed in our blazers & straw boater hats, it was a requirement of the school uniform to also be wearing white gloves, mostly we all had lost one of the pair of gloves, so we would group together loan out what we had & as we walked past the nun checking our uniforms we would have one gloved hand on show the other non-gloved hand shoved in our pocket, when I see the old St Trinians films made in black & white it reminds me of what we all looked like! It was even then archaic!!
We stood on the edge of the long mile & waited, sometimes for ages for the Royal procession to slowly go past us as we politely waved & the Royals & their guest waved back at us sometimes looking a bit board, occasionally you would get a sort of smile, but at other times they would look stern or even to my mind a bit cross. We did this so often & were so close to the Royals, I just assumed that all schools did this type of greeting.
My mother very soon tired of taking me to school & quickly organised to get me off loaded with various lifts & school rotas from other parents in the local area where we lived. Eventually my lifts to & from school were taken over by one particular mother who did the school run with her own two children, her name was Gay & she was more than a bit eccentric, she was actually mad as a March hare. She was always talking & expressing an opinion, shrieking at the top of her voice to us three girls, she was excitable & would quite often wave her arms around to make her point, sometimes both arms, which obviously meant that she had no hands on the steering wheel, which would mean that her tiny car would weave madly to one or other side of the road, occasionally clipping or mounting the curb & often being hooted at by other vehicles on the road. To be honest as a child this type of driving never really bothered me that much, as my father had a penchant for falling asleep at the wheel of his six litre car, whilst speeding, before being brutally awakened by my mother. Gay’s driving was normal to me!
One morning we were off on our normal route to school, we passed through a small village called Datchet, just outside Windsor & there was the usual backlog of traffic, so Gay decided to take the residential ‘rat-run’ to get us back on the main drag into Windsor in an attempt to avoid the traffic jam, she didn’t turn the corner, she just bounced on the pavement at an angle & nearly hit the car coming the other way & had to slam the breaks on as did the large blacked out official car coming the other way. The car had the usual little flag waving on its bonnet, which was to signify that a member of the Royal family was in the car & on official duty. The car edged forward a bit around Gay’s car then came to a halt alongside of us, the back tinted window of the car came in line with Gay’s window, the electric window slowly came down & out came a long arm slightly bent - Which then very stylishly give - ‘the two fingered salute’ to Gay’s opened window. You could clearly see it was Prince Philip & he was cross, he held his arms & fingers there for a few seconds, then his arm withdrew back into the car, the window went back up & the car drove on.
I can not tell you what joy this gave me! I sat there in the back of the car in my little pork pie hat with matching body & striped maroon blazer, I was delighted …. The nuns would have found this behaviour an abomination, to me in my small mind it was so exciting… As I grew up through that school, I did become a bit of a wild child & rebellious to all it stood for, I can’t say that Prince Philip was is any way responsible for this - But I can say - To a small child at least he kept it real…
