Page
* THE · CHINA
MAIL;
SATURDAY, MARCH
1957.
SUDDENLY, THE SAILOR MRS. PARKER MARRIED IS A COURTIER
THE QUEEN
QUEEN TRIED
TRIED TO HELP -BUT EILEEN PARKER SHRANK FROM THE PALACE PARTIES
ROON....that little Ayrshire town still paya more surtax than any other part
T of Britain, saving only Mayfair. And it was there that Michael Parker, the
young naval oflicer from the suburbs of Melbourne, met the heiress he was to
marry.
Eileen Allan was the daughter of the head of a rope firm. He was a man of considerable means. She was pretty, good humoured, and—lke so many Scottish
girls of her class a good golfer.
Term time she spent at Calder Girls' School in Cumberland. And each hollday she came home to one of the biggest houses on the ex- pensive South Beach, the place where every good Scotsman hopes to live after he has made his fortune.
And life was gay for her, not in the brittle fashion it is for so many of the debutantes down South, where behind the facade there is a frowning father tolting up the bills.
Victorian happiness
much
was happiness based on the firm rocks of a aubstantiality that was almost Victorian,
Then came the war. And Eileen, her school days ended, settled down changed Troon. The bridge parties had gone under cover, even the scent of Havana cigors was rarer on the evening air.
Beach were The great houses of South commandeered, and those local boys who were still at home were overshadowed by the cheer- ful young naval officers who led the town.
Troon had become a repair and mainten- from The anco base. The yachts had harbour.
their Overworked naval escort ships took place. The Allans moved out of Windygas, their big house, and took a flat in town.
It was almost inevitable that Elleen should get caught up with the atmosphere of rather feverish gaiety that the Navy had brought to Troon. Like so many of her friends she joined the Wrens and went to work at the signals office.
Michael Parker first met Elleen when the battered destroyer in which he was serving put in for repairs. He we bluff, he was hearty, he made Eileen Allan laugh,
There was nothing of the naive stranger About Michael Parker. He was very much at
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home In Beltaln—in fact he just missed being born here. From 1781 his family home wna a incllowed house IT the village of Upton Cheyney, almost exactly halfway between Bath and Bristol.
Parker's father-now 78-was the son of Charles
Joseph Parker, one time canon of Gloucester Cathedral and principal of tho theological college there. He had settlext in Australia after he had been invalided out of
WDS the Navy and just before Michael
born. He started to grow apricols and oranges in the sunshine until the Australian Navy started to expand and he was welcomed into that service.
No, Michael Parker was far from being a wide-eyed visitor from the other side of tho
world.
One day in the autumn of 1842 he asked Eileen for a date.
No one remembers all the dating that went on at that naval base. There were 600 Wrens, and young sub-lieutenants and lieutenants came and went with remarkable rapidity,
But everyone recalls the courtship of Eileen Allan and Parker, They seemed inseparable. There was hardly a up's party they missed. And Parker, 12,000 miles from home, hud his first introduction to the wealthy folk of Troon.
Engaged
VERY soon afterwards Elleen was wearing an
engagement ring.. a blue sapphire, sur- rounded by diamonds. Mike Parker had pro- posed and there was one Wren in that signals office who sang at her work,
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94
U
His
A remarkable young man, Michael Parker, closest friend marries a Princess who is to be Queon. He is called to serve them.
What was the impact of that call on him— and his war-time marriage to 。 wealthy Scotsman's daughter? This analysis
out to find the answer . . .
There were almost as many marriages as there were dates in Troon at that time, bui people still tolk of Elleen Allan's wedding. Millionaires and sailor rubbed shoulders at the ceremony at St Ninian's Episcopal Church. And oul- side there were raised and a guard of honour,
swords
What a match i was! They were deeply in love. ite was handsome, assured, without any money it la trus, but with all the evidence of being a man who knew where he was going ・・・ and cuough ambition to go far.
Wns
Eileen
altractive. educated, and she had the money to sponsore her husband's hopes.
sots
of
the humdrum life in front him turned up oy his first day a few minutes before nine n.m., when the office opened.
This was no new-boy keen- months he ness. For the 18
ho Arm
was was with the
AL punctual as an inetronome. first he lived in lodgings Hampton Court and spent his time, like so many young shands do, looking for a fat so that he could house hts family. He found a home Kensington and Elleen Parker joined him.
The Michael
Parker
nt
story
in
Michael Porker was doing well as a salesman, and if the Duke of Edinburgh had #at sent for him a lot of shipping companies tociny
would have than they rather more горе need.
The change was
PART TWO
famous and entertaining peoplo In the landı
told.
settled staff
As Michael Parker
soon got
used to these down he brought efficiency to expeditions. No wonder their eyes shone
Winter- bright that day.
He was flowering.
the Duke's affairs and laughter "Murgatroyd ; and But he was sent for. And the The depth of
bottom," they would say, "have Michael
In the warm company of the into the Household, auburn-headed Elicen Parker Parker's emotions can be clearly and her husband said goodbye found a new vocation.
illustrious and the great, he There are many stories to be popped out for a stroll? This
There
became a catchphrase, and soon illustrated. He wes a Roman once and for all to the tranquil Catholle with a very devout life of middle
new confidence, E now Sometimes people he met on Phillp bogan to announce that class comfort was a
longer Was it background.
a royal tours would write to him "Murgatroyd and Winterbottom and solidity that
surely. No had been His first school was a convent planned for them,
question of his being a success and he was often strangely don't agree with that" er. After that he
who's family
Winterbottom in Melbourne.
business, addressed. On his desk one day "Murgatroyd and in his for harder
Michael Parker was creating a was a letter to "Commander think differently was educated at Xavier Roman
Mrs Parker than it Was for the Aus the
Parker, Royal Seat, Buckingham Catholle
new career for himselt.
Parker himself was appreciat- College.
Duke's now equerry.
Palace." This was too much ing the importance of his job. tralian equivalent of Downside,
She L# A cashmere-twin-sel- Where would It lead? for him,
of He rapidly went to He was fond
using the royal He renounced his faith to be
and-tweed-skirt girl. She likes Obviously it was impossible to the door of the Duke's room "We," Ho often carried married outside hla own Church.
ballet and the opera and horse be the Duke's shadow for all and made barling noises like a bulging briefcase with a royal After the honeymoon the racing. And as the years went his life but there were wider seal.
monogram. Even when ho marriage look its normal war- time pattern. Parker was away at sea, and he appeared in Troon only on leave.
The Navy was the young Elleen Parker shrank from lleutenant's life. And entirely the Court.
WIE
on she never look advantage of fields and Cyth brighter A quiet voice called "Picaso recently few home after his all the opportunities she had prospects.
do come in." He pushed the resignation that briefcase for being on the fringe of royalty.
accidentally it was to mould his The Queen, well aware that future. Doing just the same the Duke was fond of Michael hardworking, thankless but Parker, went out of her way tơy proud Job in a sister ship was cultivate the attractive Scots- the blond-haired Prince Philip wo
of Greece. They met. They woman.
It was not really successful.
fused in an eruption of high Elleen Parker would have been spirite and explosive humour.
bo
Between them they created: af the Invitation, to
équerry had never been made enough happy mischief for half to her husband. She attended
a dozen ships. And as there the Palace She Crank tea.
THE GOUROCK KOPEWORK COMPANY,
Eighteen months as a
rope salesman. . . . This
Michael Parker's
handbook.
་
and mixed a little with the rest of the Court, But she would have been happier still at home, with her own guests and a cn to five husband,
Her star was waning.
The King's Rebuke
Stops The Sliding
On Palace Rugs
There were dreams that door open and was startloi to still with him.
Lito
So she made her own circle Michael Parker might even And a laughing Queen ting All the time he worked with of friends and often entertained have become a leading diplomat there. He hastily explained the energy of two men, them at the Parker house....a of his own rapidly "dourishing "I was only being the Royal for the Duke ran castly, and cream painted terrace dwelling country-Australie,
in Launceston Place.
a plearant house, a ultie
Scal"
His brother Peter hes shown
old-fashioned. On the ground what the Parkers floor is a hall which leads into that direction
can do in Awarded the
a large living-cum-dining-room. D.F.C. for alnking a Japanese
The furniture is a
a mixture of cruiser contemporary and antique, and squadron,
his with
bomber O
the
in
he 19 IKIW
Attache
the colours are subdued.
Air On Australian either side of the fireplace are Washington. bookshelves filled mainly with war stories,
On one wall is a painting of Elleen Parker. There is also
was no one to match them, they on oil portrait of little Miko became imited In a manner and a bust of daughter Julie, which was to mean much to
Then be called
them later on.
Pacific,
for
the
and in 1944 Eileen
Parkour left the Wrens to have. her first baby. Named after
Troon,
Abbey chairs
•
Caught
Locked in
N another occasion the Duke and Parker went swimming
without fuss. And above all he was not dependent upon some austere royal servant, but upon a man who was a real friend, with whom he had shared the war,
Because of that there was
in the Palace pool after a late perhaps more familiarily than
which dinner, at
there had other courtiers were used to.
been
speeches, mang
The servant in charge, never dream-
sense
Hit for six
house match Philip said between
It was smartly hooked for
Ex.
Colvic got to take the pin out of
ing that anyone would be using the pool so late, locked up as usual before going to bed.. WHEN the Duku fancied IFE for Parker was shining
They had a lot of trouble himself as a spin bowler with promise.
As the Duke zaid, then Mike Parker was, wicket- getting out. Once he got over his ner- afterwards, "It is lucky Mike keeper and at: one country vousness of meeting folk with has such a robust yell” titles he found his job eithrail-
Parker's
of humour overs: "Just watch....my frst ing. He could
hla employ
ball will shatter this chap's undoubted flair for administra encompassed the Palace staff. THERE are photographs by tion and at the same time From Nigeria he sent a picture wicket like a bomb. his father, he was bom in 1845. Baron, whom l'arker always indulge his boisterous sense of postcard to one of his friends, called "B" and described as humour without any fear of a
collection It showed a
of The war ended and
Parker
Africans running. On the back
Cried Parker: 'Didn't you Invalided out of the Navy his best friend.
had In the hall are the two simple frown from a board of directors. Michael Parker with ulcers... returned to
Not that he always escaped They've just scen
that bomb?" a job with his chairs with the blue velvet
seats on which the Parkers Bat unseithed. Wito grandfather's firm, the at Westminster Abbey during time leaping, an rugs and skid-
Commander
This Richard Colvillo is
cheerful relationship. He and the Duke spent much the Palace Press officer.
between servant and master Gourock Ropework Limited, ot
If Parker was finding a new 'goes back a long way. I the
from far
existed long before Parker was salubrious Port Glasgow. mast modern part of the house Palace corridors. This went on also leaming rapidly a new employed at the Palace.
But Parker was there only a
is the red and white kitchen until one day they crashed into way of tea life he had in the basement. Here Parker the door of the Kings's study. never known followed his royal master's For this they example and let loose his rebuked. The address might Bound
and passion for gadgets.
Normally the late King quite Under his wing for the bearded But if Eileen Parker took to liked the Duke's now aide. workaday place, on their change in fortunes with When Parker first arrived at T THE Duke took him coni- o race-course and asked him the first floor, over a restau- hesitation, not so her husband, the Palace he frequently rol pletely under his wing. He to identify himgoltate rant, and sandwiched between For him, everything was back lost in a maze of passages. One introduced him to all":hia; Philip said: "No, I'm not the shops which sell dresses and
to the happy days he had spent day the King found him groping friends. And sometimes a man you want, but I can point knitwear.
Who Service....with a his way around ond said, "I night the pofe would slip out of him out to you”. And he set Parker despite the family difference. Now he was on thought you Australians, were the Palace for an evening with them отк to Michael Parker,
behind him and familiar terms with the most used 10 the wide open spaces.” other acquaintances. The royal (Conta, on Pare 7, Col, -1),
Company the Coronation corooms. The ding down the highly polished froedom with the Duke, he was
faw weeks before he was trans ferred to the sales staff in the London office in Bond Street.
ording
influenco
but it is in reality an
In
There are
four
MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN
THIS NOTE WAS THROWN FROM THAT FOR THE GIRL THEY SAW MAY HAVE WRITTENTI
AND
HOT EXACTLY FRE-MORE LIKE A BALL OF SPARKS"- LOTHAR THERE'S SOME
THE CAR.
BRING
HERE.
WHAT-- ARE YOU GOING
sternly Wero
I'M GOING INTO THE FOB. HOW ELSE CAN WE SOLVE THIS?
By Lee Falk and Phil Davis
I WOULDN'T
Even when they were leave together In Australia
during the wo
war it Was there.
The Australians were looking Prince Philip of Greece, They found him, at
{
LOTHAR JE I DONT]
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