The King's Speech (18 page)

As a life-long stammerer who has only recently obtained release, I can appreciate better than anyone the struggles his Majesty must have experienced in overcoming his impediment, and this consolidates my deep respect for him. I know nothing of Mr Lionel Logue but have heard of at least four other gentlemen who also claimed to have cured the Duke of York of stammering.

Hullick’s letter provoked a spirited response from several other correspondents, including an Esther Moses and Eileen M. Foley of Bondi, whose letter was published on 24 December:

We wish to inform the secretary of the Stammerers’ Club of a few facts concerning Mr. Lionel Logue, of Harley Street, formerly of South Australia, and of his undoubted successful treatment of his Majesty, King George VI, then the Duke of York.

During a visit to London in 1935 and 1936, we were the privileged guests of Mr. and Mrs Logue in their private home at Sydenham Hill, and are therefore in the position to prove to your correspondent that without doubt Mr. Logue did cure his Majesty of his stammering, after all other specialists had failed.

In vindication of this statement we have read letters, personally written by his Majesty, to Mr. Logue, in which he gratefully thanked him for the success of his treatment. This was effected just prior to the Royal visit to Australia of the Duke and Duchess of York in May, 1927, and greatly contributed to the success of their tour.

Much credit is given to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, who during the entire trip, untiringly carried out instructions, personally given her by Mr. Logue. Your correspondent writes that he has heard of at least ‘four other gentlemen’ who claim to have ‘cured the Duke of stammering.’ Can he, or any of these four gentlemen, produce similar evidence of the success of their treatment?’

CHAPTER NINE
In the Shadow of the Coronation

Windsor Castle in 1937

O
n 15 April 1937 Logue received a call asking him to go and visit the King at Windsor Castle four days later. He was not told the purpose of the visit, but it was not too difficult to guess. ‘Hello, Logue, so glad to see you,’ said the King, dressed in grey clothes with a blue stripe, coming forwards with a smile as he walked into the room. ‘You can be of great help to me.’ Logue, ever the professional, was pleased to notice that his former patient’s voice had become deeper in tone, just as, all those years ago, he had predicted it would.

The reason for the invitation soon became clear. On 12 May, after five months as King, Bertie was to be crowned in Westminster Abbey. It was to be a massive event, dwarfing in scale George V’s jubilee in 1935 or indeed his coronation that Logue himself had attended more than two decades earlier during his round the world trip. Every town had decorations in the streets, while shops in London were competing with one another to produce the most impressive displays of loyalty to the monarch. Huge crowds of people were expected to converge on the capital.

For the King, the main cause for concern was the ceremony itself, particularly the responses he would have to make in the Abbey. Would he be able to speak the words without stumbling over them? Just as daunting was the live broadcast to the Empire he was due to make that evening from Buckingham Palace.

As the occasion approached, the King became increasingly nervous. The Archbishop suggested he try a different voice coach but Dawson, the physician, rejected the idea, saying he had full confidence in Logue. The King agreed. Alexander Hardinge, who had been Edward VIII’s private secretary and was now fulfilling the same role for his successor, wondered if it might help to have a glass of whisky or ‘some other stimulant’ before speaking; this, too, was rejected.

At their first preparatory meeting, teacher and patient went through the text of the speech the King was to deliver in the evening, making considerable alterations. Logue was pleased to find that the King, although a bit stiff about the jaw, was in excellent health and, he recalled, ‘most anxious to do best’.

Before he left, Logue remarked how much better the King seemed – to which he replied that he wouldn’t have taken on the job twelve years earlier. The conversation also turned to Cosmo Lang and the unfortunate remarks he had made about the King’s speech impediment. It was, said Logue, ‘a terrible thing that the Archbishop had done’ – especially since there was a whole generation growing up who did not think of their monarch having problems with his speech.

‘Are you gunning for him, too?’ laughed the King. ‘You ought to hear what my mother says about him.’
⁷²

Such concerns began to fade after the King went, together with members of the royal family and Lang, on Friday 23 April to unveil a monument to his father, making his first speech as monarch. Logue, who went along to watch the ceremony, was pleasantly surprised to hear how many people openly expressed astonishment at how well the King spoke. Particular satisfaction came when he overheard one of the onlookers say to his wife, ‘Didn’t the Archbishop say that man has a speech defect, my dear?’ To Logue’s amusement, the wife replied, ‘You shouldn’t believe what you hear, dear, not even from an Archbishop.’ The following Monday the King went downriver to Greenwich to open a new hall. He had a wonderful reception and spoke well, although Logue noted he was having trouble with the word ‘falling’. Two days later, at Buckingham Palace, there was another speech, this time to acknowledge a gift he was given from Nepal. It was, Logue recalled, ‘a nasty speech’ and had some particularly awkward words in it.

Nevertheless the main challenge still lay ahead: on 4 May, at 5.45 p.m., Logue met Sir John Reith to check that the microphone was properly installed. It was fitted to a desk to enable the King to broadcast while standing up, as was his preference. He tried it out, speaking some of the words from the text of the planned broadcast speech. He had also been at a rehearsal at the Abbey and had been amused that everyone there seemed to know their job except the bishops.

After a few moments the two princesses came in, saying ‘Daddy, Daddy, we heard you’. They had been listening in a nearby room where a loudspeaker had been installed to relay the two men’s voices. After staying a few minutes the little girls wished Logue what he described as a ‘bashful good night’ and, after shaking hands with him, went to bed themselves.

The King continued to practise over the next few days but with mixed results. On the sixth, with the Queen listening, things went badly and he became almost hysterical, although she managed to calm him down. ‘He is a good fellow,’ Logue wrote of the King, ‘and only wants careful handling.’ The next day, with Reith and Wood (the BBC sound engineer) in attendance, they recorded a version of the speech. It was too slow and the King was disgusted with it. They tried again, but halfway through he wanted to cough, so they had to make yet another attempt. ‘He was quite pleased and departed for his lunch in good patter and with his normal happy grin,’ Logue wrote. ‘He always speaks well in front of the Queen.’

On the seventh, Reith, who was taking a close interest in the speech, was able to write to Logue that all the gramophone records made that morning were in a sealed box that had been left with a Mr Williams at the Palace. He suggested making a composite record of them, ‘which could be more or less perfect as to speech, by taking bits of the first attempt and bits of the third, so that there need be no blemishes anywhere’. This, Reith thought, would not only be handy in case anything went wrong on the twelfth; it could also be used for transmissions of the speech planned for the Empire throughout the night and the next day, and might also be given to HMV as the basis of a gramophone they were planning to sell.

Writing back, Logue insisted the final decision was up to Hardinge, but added, ‘A good record is essential, just in case of accidents, loss of voice etc, and the third one with the treatment you suggest, should make an excellent record.’

While the records provided a useful insurance policy of sorts, the King was further encouraged by eulogistic reports in the newspapers the next day of a speech he had made in Westminster Hall. It was, Logue agreed, ‘a good job it was not in front of a microphone. It is partly his dislike of the microphone, it must have been engendered when he returned from SA [South Africa] and made his first speech in Wembley Stadium. It was a terrible failure and the scar has remained ever since.’

While there would be no dreaded microphone in the Abbey, the King would have to make his speech into one that evening. Logue was not sure whether it would be better to have a dozen people present or for him to be there alone with the King. ‘In an ordinary speech, he is ever nigh perfect, he makes a good speech, and enjoys it but loathes the microphone,’ he wrote in his diary.

Logue decided the room on the first floor opposite the King’s study was an excellent room for broadcasting, because it looked out onto the main quadrangle and was very quiet. A steward had discovered an old desk in the basement, which had been covered with baize and its sloping lid raised up by two blocks of wood until the top was level. Two gilt microphones and a red light were mounted between them. ‘We have tried sitting down to a small table, but he is better on his feet,’ Logue wrote. ‘He is indeed a gallant fighter, and if a word doesn’t quite go right, he looks at me so pathetically and then gets on with the job. There is very little wrong with him, the only big thing is “fear”.’

The same day Logue received a call from his friend John Gordon, now already six years into his tenure as editor of the
Sunday Express.
The coronation, and speculation about how well the King would speak his lines, was inevitably reviving the newspapers’ interest in his speech impediment – and in the assistance Logue had given him in fighting it. Gordon read him an article about the King which, Logue was pleased to note, did not mention him at all by name. Even after all these years, he was still trying to avoid rather than seek out the limelight.

An hour later, Gordon called him to say that a Mr Miller, who claimed to be a reporter on the
Daily Telegraph
, had sent in an article to the
Sunday Express
about the King that began: ‘A black eyed grey haired man, aged 60, an Australian, is in constant attendance on the King and is his greatest friend. They ring each other up every day, etc. etc.’

It was, Logue considered, ‘all wrong. Very scurrilous and would do a tremendous lot of harm. John asked if he had my authority to act. I said of course, that it was a damn shame that such a thing should be written. John sent for him and said that the article was quite wrong and could cause a lot of harm. He put the fear of hell into Mr Miller and said that if he sent it to anyone, he would never have another article published. Mr Miller left the article with John and said that it would not happen again. John rang me up and told me the good news. Thank Heavens.’

On the morning of Monday the tenth, with two days to go before the coronation, Logue went to the Palace. The tension was clearly getting to the King, whose eyes looked very tired. ‘He said he was not sleeping well and his people didn’t even know what was the matter,’ recorded Logue. ‘Think he is very nervy.’

That evening, at eight o’clock, there was another twist. Logue received a telephone call saying he was being recognized in the Coronation Honours List for his services to the King. He didn’t believe it at first and rang Gordon, who confirmed its veracity. Later he and his family went over to Gordon’s house, drank champagne and celebrated. Clearly thrilled, Logue ended his diary that day, ‘Everything Splendid. “M.V.O.” – Member of the Victorian Order.’

When Logue saw the King the following afternoon, he thanked him for the great honour. The King grinned and said, ‘Not at all. You have helped me. I am going to reward those who help me.’ He then took the order out of his drawer, showed it to Logue and said ‘wear this tomorrow’. The Queen laughed and congratulated Logue.

While he was there, Logue and the King listened through the recording they had made of his speech. It was good enough to broadcast, but Logue hoped it wouldn’t be necessary to use it. ‘H.M. improves every day, getting good control of his nerves and his voice is getting some wonderful tones into it,’ he noted in his diary. ‘Hope he does not get too emotional tomorrow. H.M. offered up a prayer tonight. He is such a good chap – and I do want him to be a marvellous King.’

CHAPTER TEN
After the Coronation