HOW THE ROYAL BABY WILL BE
BROUGHT UP
W
HIEN a 36-year-old Scots- woman, Helen Lightbody, daughter of a tweed mill- hand, is called in to look after Princess Elizabeth's baby after the maternity nurse moves out, the peculiarly British process of bringing up a possible future. heir to the throne will have begun..
For next to Princess Eliza- beth herself, Miss Lightbody. aa nauny, will be the person closest to the child for the first six years of its life.
Because she had the gift of man- aging children and know how to foster the best in their natures, she was allowed to take charge without supervision.
wao k
Mrs Knight-the "Mrs" courtesy title, for she never married -devoted her Bfe to the Princesses until they were seven, and untit they were six
aho never spent a holiday away from them.
Under the Queen, she was the un- disputed mistress of the nursery 145, Piccadilly, White whether at Lodge, Buckingham Palace or any other royal residerice.
Never Fussed Over
E permitted no one to enter the nursery unless escorted, usually by the Queen herself. During their . The
two women young babyhood she would make sure no mother of exalted station, ex- ane pleked them up (unless it was perienced nurse of humble birth a close relative), or stood near the -will between them be responent if the visitor had merely come
-to peep. sible for the development of While she herself was waited on the infant through its early by other servants, Mrs Knight and
the
Miss Margaret unuler-nanny, formative period.
MacDonald, washed all the baby Grandmother, even greal nen, prepared and cooked the food
grandmother. may help advice. A doctor is at should the baby fall ill.
An undernurse- maid will be pre- sent to assist. at all times. A governess and a corps of special tutors will arrive when the child Approaches
seven.
But no one will interfere during the vital
years before. No ladies- in - waiting 01 other Court functionaries, no retinue of ser-. vants, and no 'dietitians and
baby
psycholo-
gists with the latest fnds and will theories
enter into the
natural homely life that is planned.
with
In the nursery kitchen, and never
hand
let the Princesses out of their night. Mira Knight or Miss MacDonald in variably slept close by.
Nanny Helen Lightbody, with Prince Richard of Gloucester
Mrs Knight would deelde when to take the children
out or how to dress
them according to
the weather,
As the children Krew,
gently she enforced " strict routine. Not mere-
ly were bed and ineal. times pune- observed, tually but the little girls were taught to put away their toys, to fold their clothes,
to
·THE HONGKONG 'TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1948.
EXPRESI
SCOUT
QUES
LATE COUP
"The Sport of Kings-that's what they call it, m'dear"
THE V2 TELLS
FORT BLISS, TEXAS.
V2.
E man who devised and
German built the which was to have won the war for Hitler, was once on the receiving end himself. A V2 crashed to earth at close on 3600 m.p.h. a bare 100 yards from where he was standing.
"I was quite frightened," he change their shoes told me at Fort Bliss, Texas- affer a rainy walk, where he is now one of the
their teeth, elenn
eth, leading lights of the super-secret and generally
Little Peenemunde that the become
practical just as the daugh-Americans have created behind ters of busy hundreds of miles of barren farmer's wife desart, cluse to the Mexican. would have to be.
border.
21
KIBK
INVENTOR SECRETS
By Frederick Cook
WERKHER VON BRAUN ... injured whom we tried to escapa capture. paid and.
von I found
"They were efficiency people who had a certain success in Jamming things Into
production. But In science they knew nothing"
One recollection Is especially clear in the well ordered mind of Mr W. V. Brown. It is of the right when he saw, his dreams for Peenemunde Klisintegrate
in a storm.
of flame
New Model
work on
THE 'UNKNOWN' WILDE LETTERS
By Horace Thorogood
[Nhia Mayfair flat Lord
were
there
They have extraordinary Interest, by the contrast between those
wrillen before and after his down- me his unique collection of fall. One of the former refers to the relics of Oscar Wildo and Lord sensational incident on the first night Alfred Douglas, a collection that of The Importance of Being Earnest
"Dearest Boy, Yes, the Scarlet has never seen the sale room.
Marquis made a plot to, address the and, apart from a privileged audience...Algy Burke revealed it, private circle, is unknown.
and he. Was
not allowed to enter. Ha Books, letters and original MSS. left a grotesque bouquet of vegetables
that threw
his now for me! This, of
of course, makes fight on the tragedy that flaked the conduct falotie, robs it of dignity," lives of two goniuses. They will Always Douglas · Is addressed in form part of the material of n new adoring terms "Dear, dear boy," book that Lord Queensberry la pre- "gilt and graceful boy," "you honey- are the Incarna- paring on the subject.
helred boy," "you "you uniqueness of the collection tlon of all lovely things." But in the last two or three, from exile In its intimacy. Most important are three batelies abroad, the light has gone out, il of letters, by Wilde to Dougins, by and poor, "I feel Douglan to Bernard Shaw, and by he writes, "that
Iles
is only with you."
I can do anything
Lord Alfred's father, the Marquess at all-do remake my ruined life for
ot Queensberry, of the Queensberry me."
Rulca" Passionate; tragic, plny-
ful, frantic, they, intimately reflect
the characters of the writers and the
THE WIFE OF C33
changing moods of the sombre story, A POIGNANT relic of this period
'THE SCARLET MARQUIS'
UEENSBERRY'S,
mostly
Qaddressed to his daughter-In- which Mr Wilde presented to Otto
among the signed and Inscribat first editions is a copy of the Ballad of Reading Gaol (written in Pira),
It has her inscrip- of " "C33" number.
C33.
Lord Alfred's elder Holland Lloyd. law, wife of brother, make a big bundle. Written ton"From the wife when Lord Alfred's association with was her husband's convict
The third batch of lotters-in
Wilde hud become an open scandal, they are amazing in the violence of
"The their language.
Scarict Contemplation of his Dentit-were
Marquis," as Wilde contemptuously writica by Douglas to Shaw after he
renlised that his end was called him, was doing all he could to
hound
quarrel
near.
Wilde out of society. He had Shaw was "My dear St Christopher,"
they all came in for his abuse.
Here is a sample. He is, address ing his daughter-in-law;
is utterly to anything to do or
"My only protection is refuse to have
to
Gay
to any of this awful family
of mine. : On the top of this he"
Douglas "My dear Childe
Fre tells Shaw he might drop dead at any moment," but he faces the prospect calmly, fortified by hts religion. He Was
devout
Catholic. In a
passage he wrote:
strangely-worded
"I am quite happy about it as
"comes here and I've banked on Jesus for 40 years (her husband)
nkes sides with this wretched dia and I am certain He won't let me graceful brother of his, actually down." had the Impudence to defend him in his threats to
All
shoot me. They
come and
3
pauper im- who
Earliest
CHURCHILL'S THANKS
The
They argued back and forth about are all mad and this boy ought to be death and religion and immortality, lucked up, he will be sooner or later. Shaw with kindly raillery, Douglas
fake no notice of him, but shall with impregnable faith.
fellow Wilde. Har
item in the collection, settle with this ever a man been placed in such hitherto unknown, is a tattered Latin edition of Sallust, the Roman poslion and then for another of my good-for-nothing sons to and steel, by courtesy of the RAF. quarrel and attack me and to dictate storian, which Wilde had when a He interleaved it throughout with his "From that moment, Peenemunde to me what I am and an not to do student at Trinity College, Dublin. was finished. Hitler took everything in this awful position.in." Lady antes and comments, which give it
thla are in
strain. underground..
Douglas Anally sent him a lawyer's value as revealing his early interest
he which
wrote to her not only in the low morals of that letter, on
time, but' In its politics. father, a clergyman, beginning:
"I have had occasion to write to Von Braun's gloom lightened. you before, and I now do so again,
V2 was Anished
about your stuckup
THE £40 a week for the "Our
turned E major original MSS consist of
Wilde's Poems in Prosc. some- then, anyhow," he said. "We hari pertinent daughter. When
"I think I am one of the very highest and which average
zornothing much bigger in prospect. herself upon my family with no con- House of Judgment. The Selfish Henry VI.
was few men living who have seen a where around £25 a week.
for one sent of mine.
Glent, and The Happy Prince, those Braun perfectly A model actually existed nine, in 1430, V2 actually descending. It was
and fairy tales in. "It is intolerable to be dogged by charming essays mlics, gone 270
a truly "lord published
manlar," wrote Wilde in his corres which he wan Letters Patent
perhaps more." under the during a test launch in Poland. ready-almost cager-to talk about that would have
his
als work on V2,
pondence with Lord Alfred. But it language. The hand-writing "I was much shaken. It isn't
in rockets began Grent Seal granting
"My interest
But as a weapon it did not exist? ts impossible to read these frantic clear and easy, hardly his murse "licence pleasant to be on the receiving when I was still in school," he said,
letters without sympathy unfairly altered." reasonably 10
smiling affably. "Interplanetary I inquired.
he con- denied him by most writers on the a weapon, 'nic,"
less importando are travel you know, journeys to the
Of scarcely father's tormented ceded.
"But we were all ready. It subject--for the
original MSS of Lord Alfred's moon and so on.
There was at that time in Berlin would have been a great success, state of mind.
ane. sonnets, In Excelsis, and the But the war camo to en
FIRST NIGHT PLOT the German-Rumanian rocket ex-
am sure.
In 1941, 10 years after he served six Joined end. It never got into production" VILDE'S letters to Douglas consist sonnet in eulogy of Churchill written pert, Hermann Oberth. I
W of Without too much persuasion, von
1 dozen written between
months for libelling him. Churchill's with Braun will talk-in
strictly 1892-07: They are in facsimile, in Baron Wernher von Braun. return to
speculative way, of course about a rare book luxuriously printed for acknowledgment of it to the pre- 10 sent Lord Queensberry, is included, a rockels that could be launched on. the owner of the originals, William brief note of thanks, ending:
the Californian
"Tell him from me that Timo ends this side of the Atlantle and brought Andrews Clark, Jr..
of remote control, within collector
"Wildeana," (The all things." down, by two miles or even less of a chosen famous ones quoted at the trial, Including that referring, to the "red target on the other.
Whether largely
they might one day rose-lent lips" and the "stim-gilt contain
burnt atomic warheads he will soul," were
by the judge' orders) not Bay.
no need of such authority.
Those who knew her Intimately told me that she never smacked
Film Star Face
A simple childhood in a happy chastise us." But Mrs Knight had fend, is it?" country home, far away from pomp and fuss, moulded the Queen herself. And that was the early upbringing lovingly but firmly enforced by the Queen for both Princess Eliza- beth and Princess Margaret,
The pattern of childhood is not likely to be changed for the
newcomer.
Country Lass
the Princesses. If perity it was necessary, it was generally to make them leave the table or go out of the room.
They were never fussel-over or picked up unnecessarily If they cried at night.
The Queen was always most an- xious that the life of her young children should remain private and secluded from the limelight of pub
THE rocket inventor's name is him on leaving school. He had to
Transylvania and
toas
our
carried He is 36, with bright blue eyes, other of his assistants. I handsome enough to be a film on with his work,
a small Outside Berlin we had star-and-knows it...
-development to which we admitted Some of his American co- the public. They paid a mark each. workers call him "a natty We were very poor. "Our cquipment dresser." But he is now tending to lose his figure in an unequal home-made; we did part of
work with a bicycle pump.
"Then Hitler came to power. At struggle with the mansize meals on which he manages to subsist once we were told to stop all pub- to вл were moved
In 1938 while planning, in this beautiful city. We
we were moved again, to Peene- munde. By 1937 we had some alled BO warmly bound and who
A master already of the peo
people working there. At the out- more hours in their lives than any other.person, was the safest barrier against the artificiality of Court American idiom-and already break of the path to U.S. 1500 and formalities which chilled the early launched on days of other royal children
Incitizenship von Braun (he has Our fiancial problems were ended
dropped his title now and calls previous generations,
WHEN Queen Elizabeth was born le acclaim.
W the Hon. Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon
The plain
humanity
of
Mrs
in 1900, at St Paul's Waldenbury, the Knight, to whom the children were spot, new pleasantries in rocket artillery range near Berlin
rose-red country mansion on the Hertfordshire estate of her father, the Eari of Strathmore (then Lord Glamls), the nanny selected was not West hired from some expensive End nursing establishment.
She was a country lass, 20-year
old Clara Knight, daughter
nearby yeoman farmer.
of a
Clara Knight was the sixth of 12 in her
development.
On Helen Lightbody, who is leav-himself Mr W. V. Brown) still post a nanny to the two has not quite broken himself of children, and she learned her craft boy princes of the Duchess of Gleu- the bow-from-the-waist. looking after her little brothers and cester after six years, will fall the sisters while her mother was busy same responsibilities.
About the farm.
even before she left
In Jedburgh, in the Scottish bor- Sho fitted perfectly into the cheer- der country, ful Glamis household of ten children, grammar school, she was volunteer- who were brought up to romp free- ing to look after the children of 17 in the woods and meadows, to friends of her family.
to feed the chickens, to rise early Join in the haymaking.
Early Training
of
200
war our staff numbered later it was thousands.
when war began,
Two
Failures
was
a wespon
T that time we were working on Wernher von Braun Is one about 100 Gennan scientists and
a third of the size of the V2. In for all man responsible technical specialists now assembled 1930 the
work
wus rocket
In in Little Peenemunde.
Germany They live in tient three and four-
General Walther Dornberger. they pay
size. for which
"Dornberger's theory roomed flats rent to the U.S. Government of around £10 a month-considerably He always said the rocket would not
anything an amount to less than similar flats would com unless it was many times the size mand on the open market in nearby of the A5. In the summer of 1942 There was much laughter and
El Paso.
we tried to launch our first V2. We playing of pranks, but real naughti- news was rare and always promptly H years ago was as nurse to the stockade, but
wife had two failures. Their homes are behind a YER Arst job after leaving school
the rallitary BUZ- "But on October 3 that year we Chocloed,
Much of the Queen's case of children of a Jedburgh doctor. That velllance they must endure as the launched successfully. We fired it
light a price of being here lo so
over the Baltic. It fell in the sea. manner clousness and desire
it is said, springs from tho was her early training, for she was
to never a hospital nurse.
burden that they have only to board Not recovered the local bus if they wish to go into As he talked, von Braun fell into please engendered by this environ-
Later she looked after the chil-town for a film or to do a Buic
u staccato manner of speech. His ment,
which the young nursemald
dren of professional men in Rugby shopping.
ok. took on eyes helped to create.
n and other English towns until her
Most of the Germans have their
ho went on, "A flm was Clara Knight proved so good
wives and children here with them, "of the successful launch. Most nanny that she attended the future happy way with children came to
have been born valuable Inter. Until then Queen until she was 11. Then she the notice of the Duchess of Glou Several children
here, which makes them American
had not believed: in us. was summoned again as
nanny a cealer. of Princess month after the birth
citizens. One is the offspring of a "He had laughed at us It was when she was in chargo
postwar marriage between a German Elizabeth in 1920.
himself was permitted to return to while their parents were on a visit to Buckingham Palace,that Princess
Germany in 1947 to marry his 17- Elizabeth first talked with Mistyear-old second cousia, Maria von Lightbody and complimented her on
Quisdorp. the way she managed children.
Mirs Lightbody's frey-haired mother said: "Ever since she was a UEEN Mary once said of Clara has loved
Sho
was Princess
ཀ
Hitler
and our
Margaret's of Prince William and Prince Richard 60 and a local girl, Von Braun work. Sometimes criticised us, on
manny, too, and stayed with the her children reached Queen until
womanhood. Sho died in young January 1940.
Sure Touch
and after 20 years expert children
Knight: "She has as sure a touch
nurse the still lovos them. She is In training children as had Men Büll, nurse of the King and his brothers tremendously proud to have been
chosen by the Princess,"
And the royal nanny was so bojoved
Parents Too brought back with him not only
WE
his bride but his father (for- mer Minister of Agriculture in the Kalcer's Germany) and his mother,
child.
until you come back a success? old he was exhibited to the publle Government, They
be their
U.S.
'It won't work, he
"As
D
ot is word
book Lord Queensberry's
will permit us to see with final clarity... and final charity-the whole unhappy
story of the tragic friends.
FROM GENERATION "TO GENERATION
д
-MILD- MEDIUM
G
account of
the money. Depending on his nberger. It will naver had told
By, this
It was crazy thing. question, whether, he would let us go on, or draft us all into the army. "When he saw the film, it was that different. It was the mm
about my first meeting with yes, ye, with Hitler.
sant for. To was
his head- "At anco when I got there ha quarters, in Poland.
too. Now young Frau von Braun, started demanding the impossible. by the two Princesses that when FOOTNOTE-A retinue of nurses about to increase by one the popula. He had seen the alm. It worked. Ueir parents left for their Canadian under Lady Charlotte Finch took tion of their impeccably Nordic He wanted mass production at once. tour in 1030, Elizabeth sald to the charge of the future George IV. settlement: It will
Arst More than could be done. I ex- m: "You needn't worry
night about when he was born in 1762. Queen:
one. plained this. Told him us. Mira Knight will our mummy
All the Germans have signed did not mean cuccess.
tho When he was barely three years civilian contracts with
did not argue. "With Hitler one as she se
nra pald Why
hear about a Ho did not like to Clara Knight understood how to in .a Palaco drawing-room. Hla fraction less than the civil service difficulties, Not that sort of man. carry out the Queen's wish that the admirers trooped in to coo over scale drawn by Americans doing The result was, he took us over.at Princesses should bo, brought up him at a fixed hour in the morning. similar work. naturally, just like the children in
But they And no difcuity in "His, how do you say, strphy arm any other comfortable home in the
getting along on salaries which range boys took over. They moved in land.
between £14 a week for the lowest- and started pushing us about.
was
..
Sidney Rodin
Feenemunde.
FULL STRENGTHS
“IT'S GOOD TO THE LAST PUFF”
SKIPPER
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SKIPPER
BRITISH
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