The image I first saw was similar to the one shown on the left but in black and white. Suddenly I realized that I had seen many images of the King on postage stamps sent from England by my father to my mother in San Francisco.
My brother and I were born in the mid-30s in San Francisco when King George V reined in Britain. It was the time of depression and my father, who was British by birth and an engineer by trade, decided to take our family to England where he had been offered a job in the Ministry of Works in London. We spent several years in the late 30s in and around London until the German Luftwaffe made it too dangerous for us to remain in England; my father sent us back to San Francisco while he had to stay in England for the remainder of the war.
After growing up in California I entertained fond memories of my several years in England, while at present, many years later, these memories are reinvigorated by my new knowledge of King George VI who reigned during those years. The stories surrounding the Duke of York (Prince Albert), Elizabeth, his wife since 1923, and the central character of the film "The King's Speech", Lionel Logue, are brought to real life in a follow-up British documentary “The Man Behind The King's Speech” which reveals the lives of the real people in the family of Prince Albert.
Through the documentary we discover that Elizabeth was instrumental in developing the character of her husband who had grown up under the over-bearing discipline of his father King George V, bringing about a stammer, a shyness, a lack of self-confidence, a violent temper, and a smoking habit which, along with other health ailments, contributed to his death at a young 56. Elizabeth was a charming and vivacious woman who, through her love and affection for her husband, moderated his faults, gave him two girls Elizabeth and Margaret whom he dearly loved, and secured the help of Lionel Logue to control his stammer.
It was through these two people, Elizabeth and Lionel, that “Bertie”, the nickname for Prince Albert, seemingly against all odds, became one of England's greatest Kings. He had never wanted to be King because of his stammer but after the abdication of his older brother King Edward in 1936, he was next in line. But with the help of Lionel and Elizabeth, he threw himself wholeheartedly into the job of being the best king he could be for his people. Rather than move out to the countryside to escape the bombing of London, Bertie and his family stayed in Buckingham Palace throughout the war, suffering even a bombing of the palace (in which the King was nearly killed), so that he and Elizabeth could personally comfort his people in the streets of London after a bombing raid. He did everything he and Elizabeth could do to visit ordinary people suffering the raids; he took a direct involvement in the progress of the war, even making visits to troops in the field, with the knowledge given him by his friend and Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.
Sacrificing so much of himself during the war years took a terrible toll on his health, but to his dying day he never failed in doing his duty. He died in his sleep in February, 1952. On his wreath, Churchill put the words “with valor”, which is the inscription on the Victoria Cross, England's highest award to the brave in war of the same rank as America's Medal of Honor.
This is the BBC radio report of the unexpected and untimely death
of King George VI including a heartfelt Eulogy:
This is London.
It is with the greatest sorrow that we make the following announcement:
It was announced from Sandringham at 10:45 today, February the 6th, 1952
that the king who retired to rest last night in his usual health
passed peacefully away in his sleep earlier this morning.
Now he has laid the burden down
Even a king at last may rest
Now he puts off the unwelcomed crown
That heavy on his temples pressed
The frets of state, the bitter wars
The cares that filled that anxious breast
These marked him like a soldier’s scars
But even a king at last may rest
Grant him Thy peace, Oh Lord we pray
Who of us all has earned it best
Who wore for us his life away
Give Thou this king a Warrior’s rest
A poignant postscript is the request of Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, (George VI's wife and mother of England's Queen Elizabeth II), in 1981, that the film “The King's Speech” not be made until after her death; so much was the hurt, even then, at the loss of her husband.
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