Spouting
PRESIDENT Trump's faux pas of naming Prince Charles as the "Prince of Whales" on social media reminds us of The Diary's own affectionate stories about the Royal Family, including the reader who bought a lovely Prince Charles commemorative teapot and said the manufacturers had missed a trick by not adding the slogan, "It never reigns, but it pours.”
Treated royally
ONE year at The Herald's Politician of the Year Awards, STV's Colin Mackay, who was MC'ing the shebang, told the audience: "When Nicola Sturgeon met the Queen as First Minister at Buckingham Palace there was some discussion over whether she should curtsy or not. Nicola said, 'Just please yourself'.”
Steering the conversation
A BOOK about Prince Philip's rough good humour explained it was just his way of breaking the ice when meeting people for the first time, and told the story of the Duke being introduced to a driving instructor in Inverness and Philip asking him: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?”
Then there was Prince William, visiting the Faslane submarine base on the Clyde, asking a chief petty officer what life was like on submarines and he replied: "There are ups and downs."
Game on
A READER once recalled visiting London in the 1970s when the billboard for the London Standard that day declared "Queen in rumpus at Palace". Said our reader: "Only after parting with their pennies did buyers discover it related to former St Mirren and Kilmarnock striker Gerry Queen getting into trouble at his then club Crystal Palace.”
THOSE WERE THE DAYS - 1963: "Too many wandering pedestrians," the policeman sighed
Finally
TALKING of football, a book about Glasgow-born former Scotland manager Tommy Docherty revealed that when Tommy was briefly manager at Rotherham he introduced some friends to the team before a cup-tie. When the club chairman asked what was going on, Tommy told him: "I'm getting the lads used to shaking hands with the King for when we go to Wembley." "It's the Queen, Tommy." "It'll be the King by the time this lot get there.”
Not a Boer
FORMER MP Gyles Brandreth, when compiling the new Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, included a comment from the late Queen Mother. When she was introduced to a South African Boer who said he could never quite forgive the British for conquering his country, the QM replied: "I understand that perfectly. We feel very much the same in Scotland.”
Suits you
WHEN Princess Anne visited a charity shop in Sauchiehall Street in Glasgow during one of her official visits, the then Lady Provost Peggy Lally, wife of Pat, was standing outside with the princess's lady-in-waiting. Making small talk, the lady-in-waiting expressed her liking of a tweed suit in the window. Peggy pulled her into the shop, past the princess, and got an assistant to disrobe the mannequin and give it to the l-i-w who tried it on and bought it. The lady-in-waiting – a ceremonial role undertaken by well-connected friends of the Royal Family – was not merely being polite as the next time she visited the city she was, indeed, wearing the tweed suit.
Battle royale
OK, a bit further back in time than the current Royal Family but we end with the story of the Glasgow guide on a tour bus pointing out the site of the Battle of Langside, where Mary, Queen of Scots suffered a bloody defeat. "Why was it fought there?" asked a visitor. "Handy for the Victoria Infirmary," replied the guide.
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