UN-PRINCE-EDENTED!
A Rude Awakening
The first - and possibly only - instalment in what may become an ongoing series chronicling Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s legal woes.
“What would mama do?”
Oh that’s quite a hubbub isn’t it? It sounds like there’s a multitude of boys outside and they’re knocking on my door awfully excitedly. I wonder what on earth they might want at this time of the day? Don’t they know I never rise before noon? Not for less than a hundred grand, anyway! I suppose I am the new neighbour - the village boys don’t know me yet. I have been meaning to make some friends here. I suppose this is easier than knocking on every door to ask the mamas and papas if their boys can come out to play, or hanging around the bandstand in the park waiting for them to have a ‘kick about’, as they say. Yes, I know it’s what mama called a “silly game for the commoners”, but needs must! Now that wretched baldie William and old Charlie have had me thrown out of the family I must adapt. I have no other choice. I’m just a Mountbatten-Windsor now. A plebeian like all the other little people.
By Jove, they’re still going at it down there, aren’t they? I suppose I’ll have to bloody well rise and open up for them. Sounds like they’re going to kick the door in if I don’t, gawd!
“Steady on, boys, I shall descend the stairway forthwith and see to it that the door opens!”
It feels so unnatural, doesn’t it? The touch of a door knob against the palm? So cold and ungiving. These hands haven’t come into contact with brass since brother Ed’s short-lived attempt at learning to play the trumpet. Oh how jarring the sound! I’ll never forget the way he grimaced when I attempted to insert the mouthpiece into his bum after a week of endurance on my sorry part. That brought an end to that folly, oh yes it did! Anne disapproved, of course, the do-gooder. She ran straight to ‘nanny’ - the old rotter - and told on me. Mercifully, when papa returned from his engagements the following day it was not I who was in for a lambasting, but that softie Ed. Papa wanted to ensure he’d not “turned homosexual” thanks to what I had done with that blasted trumpet! The whole rotten mess led to much displeasure on the part of mama. Later that day I could hear them having such a shouting match over it all. I’ll never forget papa screeching that little Ed “already had a nancy disposition” and that the trumpet could “prove to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back!”. I just couldn’t stop chuckling to myself at that, of course. Oh papa, how I miss you….
“Good morning, boys, it’s awfully early is it not? Are you arranging a good ‘kick about’? Is that what this din is regarding?”
….“Oh.”
….“OK.”
….“Mmm.”
….“Jolly well.”
