I binge-watched the Golden Globe-winning Netflix series “The Crown” over the weekend — complete with Claire Foy’s perfectly plummy-accented Queen Elizabeth II and Matt Smith’s perhaps too-endearing Prince Philip — and couldn’t help but be on the lookout for my grandfather somewhere in the background of the palace shots.
Not because he’s actually there, acting — he passed away almost 40 years ago — but because his character might be, played by some extra, marching around Buckingham Palace with a screwdriver and some cable.
My grandfather, Arthur Ridley, was the head electrician at Buckingham Palace from the mid-1930s through the mid-’50s. There was obviously a code of conduct among the staff that “what happens in the Palace, stays in the Palace,” but inevitably some of Granddad’s day came home with him. I grew up with stories that made the royal family feel like a part of the world the rest of us live in, so watching these shows that highlight their humanity is no eye-opener.
There was the time Granddad went into the Palace kitchens early one morning in the mid-1930s, only to find Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson attempting to make breakfast. They’d just got in after a night on the town, so they were a bit, well, worse for wear.
Though they were both in their early 40s, you’d have thought they were love-struck teenagers, laughing hysterically, throwing dozens of eggs at each other, as well as, inexplicably, the ceiling.
Edward VIII, the man who ended up abdicating the throne and almost sinking the monarchy, sheepishly remarked to my surprised granddad that “you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”
Prophetic, in retrospect.
Granddad’s job was to keep the lights on, but he took on extra responsibilities in 1938 when the newly crowned King George VI decided to do some home improvements.
Like a lot of dads, he wanted to put in a full-size pool. He was keen for his children, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, to continue with their swimming lessons at home now that they were way too VIP to splash around anywhere public. Granddad would have to oversee all the electrical additions including lights, filter and heater installations.
By the time the next generation came around, Granddad had invented a game. He would throw Prince Charles into the air above the pool, but then catch him just before he hit the water. As with all toddlers, that was met with the refrain of “Again! Again!” Not much work was done on those days, but what are you to do when under royal command?
There are no photos in existence of the pool, which is housed in a glass-topped conservatory around back, except for a few glimpses of it when the Palace was bombed during World War II.
Granddad was there for that, too, escorting the King, Queen and Prime Minister Winston Churchill around the extensive damage. A now-famous photo of the foursome is on display at Churchill’s country estate in Chartwell, Kent.
After the war, though, swimming briefly stopped when the water got strangely murky.
Granddad was taking some water samples to try to discover what was causing it when the Queen Mother came by.
“Hello, Mr. Ridley,” she said. “Have you found out what’s making the water dirty?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Granddad. “There’s been a lot of dirty people swimming in it.”
The Queen Mother, luckily, was amused.
Yet while “The Crown” has portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in a flattering light, it hasn’t been quite as warm to the Queen Mother. I prefer to think of her as Helena Bonham Carter’s incarnation in “The King’s Speech” — funny and down-to-earth.
Granddad reported that she was a wreck when her husband, the King, died in 1952. She walked the Palace corridors alone, howling with grief, her clothes and hair a mess. Yet when the time came for her public appearances, she’d go to her room, spruce herself up and go out with her game face on.
Just after that, my Granddad was admitted to hospital with what turned out to be colon cancer. He was woken up at 6 a.m. one morning to find the Queen Mother at his bedside.
“I’m sorry to be here so early, Arthur,” she said, “but I wanted to see you and I didn’t want the hospital to end up making a big fuss.”
Granddad returned to work shortly after, but retired within a few years, age 60. Though he wasn’t given a great life expectancy, the cancer never recurred and he died peacefully in his sleep at age 85. Considering he fought in the trenches of World War I from day one through to the bitter end (a feat only a handful of soldiers could claim) and survived the first gas attack at Ypres, not a bad inning at all.
But of all these memories, the greatest might be one from my mum, Betty, on Victory in Europe Day in 1945.
The royal family must have known triumph was in the air, because a wartime “telegram” (special post letters given out to send to the troops) from my grandmother to her brother-in-law fighting overseas in Christmas 1943 says, “Arthur is still very, very busy for V-night, don’t think it will be long now.”
Sure enough, when peace broke out in Britain on May 8, 1945, the Palace became the epicenter of celebrations with huge, jubilant crowds forming outside. The King, Queen and Churchill made multiple balcony appearances as the crowd yelled for more.
The air was so electric that Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret — accompanied by a few pals and protectors, including Peter Townsend, future doomed love of Margaret — snuck out of the Palace incognito to join in the ecstatic throngs in the Mall. It’s an event dramatized in the 2015 Channel 4 movie “A Royal Night Out,” starring Emily Watson and Rupert Everett. While the event is true, the film is pure (and incredulous) fiction.
But in real life, my 20-year-old mum was sneaking in.
Thanks to everyone being high on life, Granddad was easily able to get her into the tradesmen’s entrance, and past a solemn but empathetic bearskin-wearing Palace guard. He took her to the control room, and to the main switch for the palace lights. At about 8 p.m., as it grew dark, she threw the handle and, in one fell swoop, Buckingham Palace lit up after five years of darkness.
My mum told me many times about the roar of the crowd after she flipped the switch. The lights were back on. The blackout was over. The war was over.
I’ve seen footage of it all on TV, and while I can’t see the two of them there, I can somehow feel their presence, in the depths of the Palace, sharing that momentous event.
