Free Darling Georgie by Dennis Friedman Page B

shipboard routine. On Prince George’s arrival at Bridgetown, their first port of call, an elderly woman threw a spade guinea of George III wrapped in paper inscribed ‘A souvenir of Barbados’ into his carriage (Smith, 1932). He attached the George III coin to his watch chain, and the link with value and being valued, with time past and with time present, no doubt pleased him. The gold coin remained on his watch chain for the rest of his life. When the
Bacchante
reachedTrinidad, the next port of call, Prince George sent his mother some orchids, blissfully unaware that the name for this traditional floral offering by a male to a loved one is derived from the Greek
orchis
(testicle) because of the shape of its tuberous root.
    By the time the
Bacchante’s
first cruise ended in May 1880 both Princes had adapted to life away from home, although Prince Eddy’s educational progress continued to worry Mr Dalton. The two boys worked hard not only at their naval duties but in the tasks set them in the humanities and historyby their tutor, their ‘guide, philosopher and friend’. Mr Dalton was insistent that the boys keep fully written-up diaries, which occupied much of their leisure time. At the various ports of call sightseeing was obligatory and, as the boys became older, riding and shooting were also on the itinerary.
    At the end of nine months Prince Eddy and Prince George were pleased to return to Spithead, where they were met by their parents and their three sisters who came aboard for a brief visit. Their shore leave, involving a return to Marlborough House, was taken up with several visits to the dentist, after which Prince Edward, wary of Queen Victoria’s concern about the ‘contaminating’ effect of Marlborough House on their morals, took the family to spend a month at Sandringham. Although Prince Edward tried from time to time to reassure Queen Victoria on the subject of her grandsons’ morals, his mother – who had had a taste of her son’s cavalier attitude to ‘morality’ – was not so easily reassured.
    On 22 May 1880 Prince Edward wrote to Queen Victoria, who was in residence at Balmoral, in an effort to placate her. ‘We entirely agree with
all
you say about our two boys. Our greatest wish is to keep them simple, pure and childlike as long as possible … All you say, that they should avoid being mixed up with those of the so-called fashionable society, we also entirely agree in and try our utmost not to let them be with them.’ Despite his further reassurances the Queen wrote to Prince Edward again on 6 July reinforcing the message in her earlier letter: ‘I must also return most seriously and strongly to the
absolute necessity
of the children, all of them,
not
mixing with the society you are constantly having. They must either take their meals together
alone,
or you must breakfast and lunch alone with them and to this a
room
must be given up wherever you are.’
    Hovering over the family, like a cloud, was the knowledge that in a few short weeks the boys’ leave would be over and the long two-year cruise begun. Despite Princess Alexandra’s feelings in the matter she did nothing to prevent their departure, although there must have been moments when she would have longed to do so. When the time arrived, the Princess’s two little boys, as she continued to refer to them (despite the fact that theywere now fifteen and sixteen years old), prepared themselves for their longest separation yet. Prince George was crying when he wrote his farewell letter to his mother.
‘So goodbye once more my darling Motherdear
please give darling Papa and sisters my very best love and kisses and much love to dear Uncle Hans.
So goodbye darling Motherdear, dearest papa and sister.’
    The two boys returned once more to sea, but this time they found themselves sailing into a war zone. The
Bacchante
had received a message to sail at once to the Cape of Good Hope in case she was needed in the dispute with the Boers over