Death of a King

My mother is sketched above in one of her better recent moments.

I was reading her diary the other day for 1936  when she was a schoolgirl. It makes for interesting reading. Well it did for me. I would like to compare it to today's generation of schoolgirls diaries, okay well maybe I wouldn't. Anyway here it is recording the death of King George.

 29th January,
 "The King is weakening and his condition gives rise to the greatest anxiety.It is very windy tonight the snow has all gone. My cold is beastly. Mummie was horrid to me about it . Didn't sympathise when I was simply frozen.. Oh dear, what a life..."

21st January,
"Death came peacefully to the King at 11.55pm last night in the presence of her majesty the Queen, The Prince of Wales, The Duke of York, The Princess Royal and the Duke and Duchess of Kent. The Prince of Wales in now King Edward the eighth and the first bachelor King for 176 years the last being King George 111."

28th January,
"Daddie and I went to Carrs Lane to hear the broadcast service from Windsor. It was supposed to be 1.15 but was more than 3/4 hour late. There were six Kings in the Procession. King Edward V111, King Boris of Bulgaria, King Haskon of Norway, King Leopold of the Belgians."

The Broadcast refer to the newly formed British Broadcasting Company who wished to broadcast the wedding of Prince Albert Duke of York in 1923 but were refused. They were however  allowed to do a radio broadcast the funeral of King. Of course radio receivers were scarce so my mother had to listen to a public broadcast.

(During the procession the Imperial Crown fell off the coffin into the gutter).