George and Marina: Duke and Duchess of Kent by Christopher Warwick

Author:Christopher Warwick [Warwick, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Albert Bridge Books
Published: 2016-01-02T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

YEAR OF THE THREE KINGS

Since the death of Queen Mary’s colourfully engaging, if maverick brother, ‘Frank’, Prince Francis of Teck, in 1910 royal wills have always been sealed and denied public scrutiny. On New Year’s Day 1936, however, one bequest from a royal will was disclosed when it emerged that Princess Victoria had left Coppins, her estate in Iver, to her nephew, Prince George.

Between March and June that year, considerable alterations were made to the house before the Duke and Duchess of Kent adopted it as their country home. A curiously shaped porch was demolished together with a verandah that Princess Victoria had built so that she might enjoy the view of the lawns and the countryside beyond; most of the original fireplaces were taken out in favour of modern replacements, while George, the keenest motorist in the family, had the existing garage pulled down and a new one, featuring high-pressure hoses and air supply, built to his own specifications. Inside the house, once Princess Victoria’s possessions had been removed, Prince George dispelled the Victorian gloom by again using delicate colour schemes, light pine panelling and bright fabrics. (One of the few objects belonging to Aunt Toria that the Kents did keep was a marble bust of Edward VII, which was allowed to remain in the entrance hall). To lighten the rooms still further, the duke tackled the garden’s heavy vegetation and helped fell trees that restricted the flow of natural light.

While the builders and decorators were at work George and Marina paid frequent visits to the house and, on one particular Friday in April, they were accompanied by Queen Mary, the Duke and Duchess of York, Princess Alice and her husband Lord Athlone (Queen Mary’s youngest brother ‘Alge’), with whom they had been lunching at Royal Lodge, the Yorks’ pink-stuccoed house in Windsor Great Park.

Of the rooms on the ground floor – which also included a dining room to seat fourteen, and two sitting rooms – the large music room with its tall glass doors opening on to the garden became the main salon. Here, George would listen to jazz records, play his Ibeck baby grand or the larger Steinway, or quietly sit and read while Marina painted at her easel, set up on a dustsheet spread over the carpet. Here also the Kents would entertain their friends. On any evening Noël Coward might be found at Coppins, as might other musicians, writers and actors such as Malcolm Sargent, Somerset Maugham, Douglas Fairbanks and an assortment of relations including George’s cousin ‘Dickie’ Mountbatten and his wife Edwina. Other guests included the Channons, who first visited towards the end of 1936. In his diary for 1 November, Chips Channon wrote, ‘We drove down to Coppins to call on the Kents. They have modernised and re-decorated [the house] with skill and success. The result is charming, and the rooms now glow with luxe and gaiety. It is entirely Prince George who has transformed it, and he now thinks of little else.

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