Asked To Dance

The Lady Who Was

ON January 31, at 3 p.m.—weather and air-gremlins permitting—a charming and smiling woman will step off a large plane at Nadi, Fiji, and will be greeted by a big, smiling man in ceremonial uniform.

All Royal protocol will be rigidly observed, as is proper and necessary when Her Majesty the Queen Mother —the former Queen Elizabeth— meets His Excellency the Governor of Fiji.

But they will not meet as strangers, or even as official acquaintances. Nor will they be meeting in Fiji for the first time.

Both may remember another occasion when they met, away back in 1927.

She then was young and very pretty, and she had been married to the King’s son, Albert, for only four years. Before that, she was Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, daughter of the famous old Strath more family of Scotland.

He then was Ronald Garvey, fresh from Cambridge, a gay and popular young man in the service of the British Pacific Colonial Ad ministration.

The Duke and Duchess of York had been sent out by George V to open the new Commonwealth Capital at Canberra. The Duke was not then the Heir to the Throne; but he was the King’s second son

and, of course, he was received in Australia, New Zealand and Fiji as a Royal visitor.

The Governor of Fiji, Sir Eyre Hutson, was host to the Royal couple, and Suva organised the usual round of ceremonies and glittering social functions.

At the Ball

There was an official ball. It was a social success, and a very pleasant occasion. Among those present was young Ronald Garvey.

The rest of this is rumour—and 31-years-old rumour —and rumour is notoriously a lying old jade.

It is said that Elizabeth Bowes-

Lyon and Ronald Garvey had kno) each other slightly, a few yes previously, as teen-agers; and th on this happy Suva occasion, th renewed the acquaintance. Nothi more natural than that the goo looking young Administration offic should ask the very attractive you Duchess to dance with him* a dance together they did.

But (so says that lying old jac rumour) the incident was view with horror by certain stiff-neck folk, steeped in protocol a r tradition. How dare young Garv ask her to dance! Did he not knc that she was a Royal personage, ai that the invitation to dance mo come from her? One imagines th young Garvey neither knew n cared.

But, when I visited Suva in t] 'Thirties, a few years later, the were folk still sniffing and quackii oyer the memory of it. They told d mat, by his effrontery, young Garv had “utterly ruined his career”. 30 Years Passed Thirty years have passed. Mu( water has flowed under mar bridges. George V died; Edwai VIII abdicated; the Duke of Yoi became George VI; the the Duchess of York became Britair well-beloved Queen Elizabeth; ar now she is the Queen Mother, tha whom there is none in the Empi; more highly esteemed.

No blight fell upon the career ( Ronald Garvey. He went steadl up the ladder, and in 1941 he W£ Gilbert and Ellice Administrator i Ocean Island. He got away froi the Japs, about April, 1942, by t! skin of his teeth and the spee of the Free French destroye Triomphant. Via Nyassaland, tb West Indies and British Hondura he came back to Fiji in 1952 a Governor, complete with the KCM( title. It is anticipated that, befor 1958 ends, he will move on to British Governorship of still highe rank.

In 1953, Sir Ronald and Lad Garvey entertained the forme Duchess of York’s daughter, Quee Elizabeth II, at Government Houst Suva. She was exactly one year ol: when her mother met young Ronal Garvey at Suva in 1927. (My colleagues say that I shoul. not have written this article /o: publication—that it has within it tn\ germs of (< lese majeste”, or some\ thing. But that’s the story as first heard it 25 years ago, in Suva I had forgotten it, these many yean The announcement that the Quee?

Mother would meet the Governor at Nadi brought it back to memory I re-tell it, because—even if it isn’ true—we all like to think tha 5 Royalty and Vice-Royalty a r » human, after all.—R.)