CRAIG BROWN: Changing of the guard at royal gift shop
King Charles II, it is said, first learned of his father’s execution when a courtier addressed him as ‘Your Majesty’.
Happily, we live in less bloodthirsty times. The transition from one monarch to the next, though still immediate, is less dramatic.
Nevertheless, every change of monarch signals a change of direction, however subtle.
For instance, within hours of the death of the Queen’s grandfather, King George V, his eldest son, King Edward VIII, issued a command.
His father, a stickler for punctuality, had always kept the clocks half-an-hour fast, but Edward was having none of it and ordered them to be changed back.
This weekend, nearly a year since the Queen’s death, I visited Sandringham. The gift shop is full of upmarket souvenirs, from Sandringham Cream Fudge to Sandringham Celebration Gin ‘distilled with myrtle, persimmon and other botanicals, celebrating many aspects of royal life’.
I visited Sandringham. The gift shop (pictured) is full of upmarket souvenirs, from Sandringham Cream Fudge to Sandringham Celebration Gin ‘distilled with myrtle, persimmon and other botanicals, cele-brating many aspects of royal life’
You can buy a Sandringham cuddly toy corgi for £14.99 and a Sandringham tweed cap for £59.99. There are Sandringham tennis balls and Sandringham mint humbugs, Bumpa the Sandringham Bear ‘lovingly made by hand in Shropshire’ and a Sandringham picnic blanket.
All pockets are catered for. Four gold-plated spoons are on sale for £40, while a wooden spoon is yours for £4.99. I was hoping for a King Charles III exploding pen. Alas, none were available.
I was struck by the way that products bearing the likeness of the late Queen have been relegated to lower shelves. The old guidebook with her photograph on the front is ‘no longer available’, even though a new one has not been published. The Queen is dead – long live the King!
There were plenty of books about King Charles III on display. They occupy more prominent positions than books about his late mother.
Most offer a strikingly rosy version of his life so far. One picture book scoots through his disastrous first marriage thus: ‘In August 1996, the 15-year marriage of Charles and Diana ended in divorce. Almost ten years later, on February 10, 2005, Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles announced their engagement, and married later that year on April 9, 2005.’
The children’s books are equally sunny. An illustration in one of them shows the new King, bizarrely, with the England women’s football team.
Under the heading ‘A New Face on every stamp’ comes this short paragraph: ‘Everyone knows the Queen’s portrait because it is on every banknote, coin and stamp in the country! The King’s portrait will be just as famous one day.’
‘Charles the Eco-King’ features a drawing of a smiley Charles pruning a tree while a little black boy and a little white girl look on delightedly. The text adds: ‘The King has always loved the natural world, from farming his food at home to speaking out to protect the whole planet.’
There are one or two children’s books about the late Queen on the lower shelves, among them Paddington At The Palace and Winnie-the-Pooh Meets The Queen. But there has clearly been an executive decision to show that a new monarch is now firmly in charge.
There are one or two children’s books about the late Queen on the lower shelves, among them Paddington At The Palace
A limited edition lithograph ‘based on an original watercolour’ of the Castle of Mey by King Charles III, individually numbered ‘and signed by the artist’, is £2,950, with ‘only 100 copies available’.
Also available – ‘EXCLUSIVE to Sandringham and for a limited time only’ – is a ’20-piece limited edition WATERCOLOUR SET . . . Everything needed to recreate the iconic watercolour of Sandringham House painted by HM King Charles III.’
Twelve tubes of paint, a paper pad, two brushes, a pencil and a ceramic mixing palette are offered for the majestic price of £159.99. They come with a quote from the distinguished artist himself: ‘Painting transports me into another dimension which, quite literally, refreshes parts of the soul which other activities can’t reach.’
Inside the main house, one of the largest rooms is filled with an exhibition of the King’s watercolours.
The dining room is now very much the King’s. Gone is the plain English food favoured by the late Queen – lamb cutlets, chicken and suchlike.
Instead, the ‘King’s Menu’ is on display. The main dish is an omelette filled with broad beans and courgettes and covered in a brie sauce.
Revolutionary times, indeed.
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