“You are probably one of the few English persons in Bangladesh who remembers the death of King George VI and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth,” said a friend a couple of days ago. She went on to ask, “Why don't you write down your thoughts, memories and if you had any meetings with royalty?”
Therefore, I have tried to write a few things down.
I have memories of being told by my parents of the death of the Queen’s father, King George VI when I was approaching my seventh birthday. They explained quite a lot about death, why people die, why some die young, why some die old; all a bit difficult to understand for someone so young. And we listened to the BBC news and the details of the funeral on one of those old radios powered by an external battery which needed distilled water.
By the time of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in June 1953, at eight years old, I was staying with my family at the South Australian farm of my uncle and aunt and I remember lying on a rug in front of an open fire in the middle of the night listening to the commentary of the coronation ceremony.
By 1960 I was attending Westminster School and our school choir, of which I was a member, used to supplement the Westminster Abbey Choir on big occasions. In May 1960 I found myself with other members of the choir singing from the Abbey’s organ loft on the occasion of the wedding of Princess Margaret. Very unexpectedly, within about two weeks, the Westminster School singers each got a letter from the Queen thanking us, saying she appreciated how much practice we had to put in.
Later in 1960, the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, came to the school to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the school -- which had been founded by Queen Elizabeth I. I had the responsibility of knowing what to do in case of a fire!
As the royal party filed into the school hall, the Duke of Edinburgh saw me at the side and asked me what I was doing. As I was explaining the location of the nearest fire extinguisher, a royal security person came to hurry the Duke up. When the celebrations were over and the royal party filed out, the Duke of Edinburgh called out in my direction, “Thanks for keeping us safe.”
In 1974, when I was working with Oxfam and based in New Delhi, my Indian wife and I were on leave in England. The Director of Oxfam, Leslie Kirkley, who had just retired from Oxfam, and his wife, invited my wife, Sushmita, and I to accompany them to one of the Queen’s Garden Parties at Buckingham Palace.
When Leslie was presented to the Queen, he introduced me to the Queen and mentioned my work with the Bangladesh refugees in 1971. “Oh that must have been so depressing and tragic and do you have any news of the famine in Bangladesh?” I was able to brief her a little bit and just as she was going to move on, Mary Kirkley introduced Sushmita to the Queen who asked where we had met. My wife told her, “We were next door neighbours.” The Queen smiled broadly and said, “Oh, most sensible and so very convenient.”
Later in the 1970s Prince Charles paid a visit to India and was accompanied, as a sort of a guide, by Earl Mountbatten. I remember speaking to Prince Charles at a reception in New Delhi and he talked about the dangers of mono-cropping and deforestation, long before people were talking about “going green” or sustainable development.
It will be interesting to see how much King Charles III can influence narrow-minded politicians about climate change, sea level rises etc.
Julian Francis has been associated with relief and development activities of Bangladesh since the War of Liberation. In 2012, the Government of Bangladesh awarded him the ‘Friends of Liberation War Honour’ in recognition of his work among the refugees in India in 1971 and in 2018 honoured him with full Bangladesh citizenship.
