The Duchess of Cornwall's Birthday Lunch - the poem, the speech, the cake!
My quote of the day: “Life is a mirror: if you frown at it, it frowns back; if you smile, it returns the greeting.”
― William Makepeace Thackeray. (I try to post a different favourite quotation on Twitter every morning: @GylesB1)
I am in a smiley mood today because it’s a special day - and not just because it’s so hot. On 17 July, HRH The Duchess of Cornwall turns 75 and today, with the Oldie magazine, my friend Dame Joanna Lumley and I hosted a birthday lunch in the Duchess’s honour. We held the lunch at the National Liberal Club in Westminster and, at the Duchess’s suggestion, we also celebrated others in their seventies, eighties and nineties who are still very much up and at it. Jeremy Irons, Michael Palin, Twiggy, Floella Benjamin, Sian Phillips, Nigel Havers, Penelope Keith, Zandra Rhodes, Sir Roy Strong, Dr Mary Beard and a hundred more, from Leslie Caron and Petula Clark, from Jimmy Tarbuck to Michael Morpurgo, a fine assortment of ‘old gold’ was on parade - including the great Thelma Ruby, who I saw in her sensational one-woman show at the Pheasantry in the King’s Road two weeks ago. Thelma is in her 98th year!
The poet Roger McGough is in his 85th year and he set the tone for the lunch with a special poem for the Duchess - a poem reflecting on some of the advantages of growing older:
The Living Proof
Speaking as somebody who knows a thing or two
about having been your age, let me say this:
You have reached a watershed, celebrate the fact.
Water is good for you and everybody loves sheds.
Yours are the days ma’am, with the promise
of many more ahead. So carpe diem,
but gently, for that way they last longer
And don’t count them, just be grateful.
In fact, days can be surprisingly perfect
arriving fully-formed when least expected.
A chance meeting may be involved, a compliment
out of the blue. You make somebody laugh.
The earth need not move, no call for
fanfares and fireworks. The perfect day
can be as ordinary as a stroll by the river,
as simple as the absence of bad news.
Happy to push yourself well within your limits
take no for an answer, and suffer fools gladly.
Content at last in the knowledge
that you are the living proof of yourself.
Last year The Duchess of Cornwall presented The Oldie of the Year Awards. Today, this is what she said in her speech:
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Thank you, Roger, for your lovely poem and your wise advice. And thank you Gyles and Joanna and The Oldie for organising this event. Dame Beryl Bainbridge once described The Oldie as “a Zimmer frame for the mind” – and I know that our minds, if not our bodies, will soon be whizzing round the metaphorical dance floor…
I am particularly pleased to be with you for the second year running – there are few consolations to being a confirmed “Oldie”, but an invitation to one of your very special lunches, particularly a birthday one, is surely a highlight!
In his brilliant piece, “The History of The Oldie”, Richard Ingrams wrote that, rather than commission articles on specific subjects, The best thing to do was to get the writers first and let them write about anything they liked. Well, today you’ve got me - not as writer, but as speaker – and I am going to honour Richard by speaking, briefly, about anything I like.
Firstly, I would like to thank you all – friends old and new - for being here to help me celebrate my birthday. You may not believe it, but I have actually been trying to keep quiet about reaching three quarters of a century – and, as you see, have dismally failed. I know that some of you were around in 1947 – a vintage year for wine. It was the year when the first of the Ealing Comedies was released, the school leaving age was raised to 15, Gardeners’ Question Time was first broadcast, the first Edinburgh Festival took place, the University of Cambridge admitted women to full membership and soft loo paper went on sale for the first time, in Harrods – much to the nation’s relief.
It was also in 1947 that the then-Princess Elizabeth married Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten – two of the most remarkable people in our country’s history.
The Duke of Edinburgh’s philosophy was clear: ‘Look up and look out, say less, do more – and get on with the job’ - and that is just what I intend to do. He and Her Majesty have always been the very touchstone of what it truly means to “get on with the job”, whatever our age, and an inspiration to each one of us here to do the same.
Ladies and gentlemen, remember that we all still have - in the founding editor’s phrase – a ‘snap in our celery’. Keep writing those books, painting those pictures, making those films, supporting those charities, giving service in the way you do. Gyles tells me that we have in this room just under ten thousand years of accumulated experience and endeavour. No wonder we are all exhausted!
But nothing daunted, on we go! Looking forward, looking up, looking out, saying less, doing more – and now, getting on with lunch.
Finally, forgive me if I have taken up too long with this speech. To repeat one of Dame Beryl’s favourite quotes: “I didn’t have time to make it shorter”. Thank you.
After lunch - and before the arrival of the birthday cake - Dame Penelope Keith read one of the Duchess’s favourite poems, “Matilda” by Hilaire Belloc, and the Right Reverend Lord Williams of Oystermouth - better known as Rowan Williams, who as Archbishop of Canterbury conducted the blessing after the Duchess’s wedding with the Prince of Wales - proposed to Birthday Toast.
Sir Willard White then got us all singing an up-tempo version of “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” as the Duchess’s son and granddaughter, Tom Parker-Bowles and Lola, wheeled in the Birthday Cake - featuring Her Royal Highness’s crest, her racing colours, some of her favourite books and her favourite Jack Russells. (The top tier of the cake we didn’t eat: at the Duchess’s suggestion, it is going to the Chelsea Hospital where two Chelsea Pensioners - Roy Palmer, poet, and Colin Thakeray, BGT winner - will be sharing it with friends.)