THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1058.
Safe in Switzerland with the three children she helped to rescue, Nanny Hazeldine reveals now for the first time how she escaped from the Bagdad massacre
ROYAL MURDER: The truth
Nanny Hazeldine's own story
A TWINKLING, white-haired English nanny, Mrs Florence Hazeldine, gave me the first personal, close- up report on how King Faisal and other members of Iraq's royal family were shot down by the army rebels on the steps of the palace in Bagdad.
The lurid horror of this assassination is matched only by the slaughter of the Russian
I SAW FAISAL'S BATTLE by...
4.W. Hayeldnie
SUNDAY, July 13 last, was one of those happy, busy days which come in the life of a royal nanny. Everything was going just right.
Nothing seemed further removed from the tragedy and terror we were to face next day.
We were all looking forward to beginning a holiday trip to England. King Faisal had chartered a plane to take the party first to Istanbul and then to Europe.
With him were going my employers-32-year-old Princess Badia (King Faisal's aunt and sister of Crown Prince Abdul Illah) and her husband, Sherif Hussein, their three young sons, and my Pelf.
The king's grandmother and two other aunts would also be In the party, and in England Faisal was to meet his fancee, Prin- cem Fazliet and formally announce their engagement. I was look- ing forward to seeing MY son and daughter and their families.
Magician At
Work
Most of the packing was done and much of the luggage had
gine on abend.
So there was time that Sunday evening for ine to accept
From FRANK GOLDSWORTHY
Lausanne.
royal house by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Mrs Hazeldine, aged 60, is nanny to the three young children of Princess Badia, King Faisal's aunt. From the balcony of their villa she saw the palace attacked.
children calm, Nanny To keep the Hazeldine encouraged them to play cowboys
and Indians. Then, amid the real gunfire, an aide escaped the palace massacre, ham- mered on the villa door and shouted: "Fly for your lives. The rebels will be after you next.'
Nanny Hazeldine helped Princess Badia, her husband Sherif Hussein and the children
Royal story-time-Nanny Hazeldine reads to (from left) Mohammad, Ali and Abdullah.
uitle
At the end of the magician's to watch an Indian maglelan
twa card king did perform in the royal palace 600, show the
1 Look the and then yards down the road from our tricks
Bagdad.
children home. villa
King Faisal went off with the Sherif to
"The Pojama Game" in his private clacme.
He saw a flin almost every evering, but he had no taste for Bagdad's night spots.
Sherli
Hussein (the Sherif indicates a noble family) went too and so did the Crown Prince, with restless lttle Ali wriggling on his lap.
always liked King Faisal. He was 23 and the nicest boy усли could meet-quiet, courage- ous, sitiuere, and easy to ect on
King Falsal's invitation to take the children--Mohammed, aged with. He treated me like one of seven, Abdullah, aged, six, and curly-haired, two-year-old Al- his family.
Could it be Roundworms?
Microscopic roundworm cggs are everywhere. In vegetables, fruit, water. Even in the best ordered families there is always the danger of infection. And
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dangers in uncooked foods and contaminated water.
Happlly, there's a simple, proved remedy
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see
i was up at four next morning. There was anal packing to do and I wanted the children rondy in good time for the plane at 8
About 5.30 I heard Aring lu the distance, but there is a bar- racks not far away and I thought little of it. Then it got louder and
the I heard
stutter ol tommy-guns not the single shots you hear on a rifle range.
Lorries Line Up
• Princess Fazilet who Was engaged
to Klog Faisal- she is niili at her parenta home Parla
In
}
that
calm and wald:
"Do you need protection? Shall sand some of my guarda? The princess told him we had only a policeman stand While the children were being ing outside the gate, but nobody coaxed to get on with their seemed interested in attacking
outside and us. The breakfast I looked
king needed all the saw little puffs of dust kicking guards he had-and many up in the road. Bullets, I know
more. that from what I had seen on
The Sherlt took the phone again and said: "Sir, is there The king,
tio fume.
We believe that,
king might have unnoticed
alone, the slipped
out the
ut the side of palave but he would not leave the women.
we-or
So that was the last anyone else in the outside world ever heard from that gallant young man.
All this time two of the children, Muhammed and Ab- dullah, were excited by the noise of firing and playing cowboys und Indiane upstairs.
They shouted "Bang, bang, bang--you're deud" at cach other while real guns were take ing Ives a few hundred Yards up the road.
I encouraged the boys in their game. It kept their attention off reality and prevented them seeing how scared the rest of us The noke Increased. From the balcony we saw a bomb burst near the royal stables.
were.
to escape to Switzerland. Nanny came to England. For two months she waited to hear from them.
Then Sherif Hussein phoned and said: "The boys want their nanny. How soon can you come to us here?" Mrs Hazeldine rejoined the family in Switzerland and told me her story.
don flat waliing and booked for three monitis,
The firing died away. Only now and then did we hear a few Single shots, or a short burst.
Phone silent
What frightened us more than anything else was the fact that we could get no answor from the palace phone.
now
We realised the battle must be over. But we never thought the army-for this was no ex- citement-crazed mob would murder their klog.
be
We thought he would probably bundled off to exile. The Sherif decided WC must be ready to go with him.
Our bags were loaded into the car. I got the boys ready, tell- ing them we were off now on holiday.
Suddenly
Our nerves were shaltered by a loud 心好 the villa door, A muni
coln Badin's childran had bean killed,
Maybe prevented o moro intensive hunt for them.
front of the palace a wide flight of steps leads down to a courtyard with a fountain in The centre.
This courtyard and palace doorways were littered with the bodies of defenders and attackers us the king led his Durly out.
Arms linked
The royal familly went down the steps linked in a line and treing their enemies.
On the left wan Princess
white-faced Hiyam,
in the She WIS
scorching heat holding the hand
of her hus-
band and he was helping the
uld queen down the stops,
Above her head the old lady
thumping held the Koran the Moslems
shouted and sureared to be ad- mmitted,
He was a minor official from the palace, exhausted, drenched in perspiration, his eyes wide with terror, his speech barely coherent
Не pleaded between sobs, "Fly for your lives; don't delay moment. They have mur-
a
dered everyone at the palace, They will be after you next." Gradually we got his story. A loyal colonel had advised the king there was no hope of
rescue
'Follow me'
sacred book which is itself a
plea for sanctuary,
On her right, with a pro- tecting arm around her,
wee King Faisal and, hold. ing his right hand, with tho three orphan children aldee bahind her, was Princess Abdia.
Behind them came the rest of the household,
The rebel officer was a few pouty ahead. A tommy gun under his arm Other troops from the rebel brigade lined the courtyard.
Without warning the oflere swung round, raised his tormy gun, Bud fred a long burst into the royal group.
From all round the courtyard came a further murderous blaze
With many of his guard lying dead or wounded in the palace the king had said: "kan going of bulleta, to stop this fighting. No mora must ale for me."
The King want an aide out under white flag saying he was prepared to surrender and saking for a safe con. duct for his family and household,
Three escape
So far as I know only three people uscaped-the official who got clear to warn us, a Turkish cook who reached the Turkish Embassy, and Princess Hiyam. An officer from the rebel
She was bit in the thigh by brigade catered the palace with the first "bullets and propped the side and said: "Follow me. against a wall to be killed later. I shall escort you to your cars," The king gathered his house- hold around him.
Then she pretended to be only a friend of the royal family and The whole was sent to hospital,
party totalled between 25 and 30,
As the man from the palace Besides the old queen and the subbed out his story my
pour 43-year-old crown prince there Princess. Badia
WAS near was the crown prince's wife, collapse. At a single stroke she Princess Hiyam, a pretty girl of had
26, and Princess Abdialster of brother,
lost
her mother, ner a sister, her nephew my princess, aunt of the king the king, and a host of friends. and daughter of the old queen, smoke
the "Go, please go," sobbed Princess Abdia
52, a
Sherif ruan from the palace. Jundly spinster who helped Hussein said: "I think he is urpban famillies. She had three right. Let us go at once."
Thon black belched out of Queen Nafisa's room. A few moments later smoke poured out of a win- dow on the other alde. The troops were firing anti-tank bazooka.
פחיון
young children, all orphans,
with her, that morning. ALE
In the corridor I met Princess anything I can do?" Badlo. She saat: "There are whose courage never seemed to troops round the palace. I am waver, replied: "No, your duty It was still only 8am-the afraid it is Dorionts."
is to look after your wife and time we expected to be taking We went out to the vilin children. Don't worry about us.” off for our holiday with a Lon- balcony and through the morning,------
heat haze it was possible, with binoculars, to see a few toldiers lying on the ground, tin hats to- wards us, and Aring us from de fensive positions. But the main attack was clearly on the other Elde,
A guard of 180 men alware slept in the palace, and these men were resisting gallantly for King Falcal.
From the balcony we had an plmost cicar vdźw of the place, and trom the gates we coukl sea army lauries lined up bumper to bumper all along the road to the airport.
Policeman
Firing was almost continuous, but it was difficult to tell how the battle was going. Strangely, though, the phones were work- ing, and Shërit monoged to got through to an ɑkio-in officer-in a barrack-room inside the palace grounds,
army
This ofcor told us that o brizado of some 2,000 men was surrounding the palace and do manding the king's surrender. We now the defenders retreating Inside the palace, Being on they went.
The Sherif managed to get through on the phone to the royal family. They were grouped omewhere inside the palace, probably in a main corridor which has no windows.
Princom Badla spoke by phone to her mother, 36-your-old ex- Queen Nafios, grandmother of King Faisal. They comforted each other.
Then the
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BUTTON
It was probably because those children died in the slaughter" that word round the world that
went Prin-
MONDAY
Nanny Hazeldine tells of "the most frightening 36 hours of my life.”
“What--ban bangers forever? It wouldn't be fair to the children of the future"..