PONTEFRACT IN 1952

8th February 1952
Royal Courage

"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown"

Tuesday night was quiet and calm. Wednesday brought another February day to the people of Pontefract and Castleford, but before the day was fairly launched it was marked by the sudden, poignant sorrow of a nation.

The world was not prepared for the stunning news of the death of King George VI. A people reassured by his recent progress towards health, by his appearance in public, and by the knowledge that Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh had left for an African tour, were caught off balance. The nation hung poised and incredulous, but soon the calamity was not to be gainsaid. Flags over public buildings rose to half-mast, radio programmes were silenced, places of entertainment closed, public meetings postponed, and in this hush which wrapped the land there came to everyone the sharp realisation of the order of the King’s endurance in recent months.

In the midst of universal grief, his own quotation is appropriate. In a Christmas broadcast, he spoke the words of an almost unknown writer with characteristic humility, before an audience spreading around the world. They distil, for thousands who never saw him, the gentleness and courage of one whose reign is revealed as a struggle against all odds. He accepted the odds, weighted as they were by inadequate health, and history will say that he emerged triumphant. In him, the Throne survived an abdication, and emerged as strong and as firmly established as at any other time in our history.

We may think that the light into the unknown was vouchsafed to him. It showed him, we must suppose, the wisdom of the course set by his father, King George V; the method and manner of embracing his unexpected call without reservation; the fortitude to meet with his people the peril of Armageddon; the tenacity and courage to face and overcome handicap and trial. With it all was bequeathed to him the common touch. He found it as a family man, in a country where the family is still paramount, and he showed it frequently; so with his passing it seems as though someone has gone from the midst of every family. The voice that sounded companionably in the Christmas family circle will speak no more. A tribute as strong as any was the manner in which, in spite of handicap, he used the opportunity provided by radio to come closer to the people.

For their most vivid memory of the King, local people will recall a drab day in October, 1937, which he and his Queen transformed into a pleasing occasion which made history for Knottingley and other parts of the Pontefract and Castleford districts. A visit to the glass bottle works of Bagley and Co. Ltd., was included in a three-day tour of the industrial West Riding. It is most rare that reigning monarchs set foot in the neighbourhood of the old town, though the Queen has visited the Pontefract Barracks on more than one occasion as the Colonel-in-Chief of the K.O.Y.L.I.. On this occasion, throughout the district, from Methley through Castleford, Airedale and Ferrybridge to Knottingley, and then through Pontefract, Purston and Featherstone on to Wakefield, crowds of people showed no uncertain appreciation of the life and work of their King.

As such memories are recalled, sympathy will go out from a nation which has lost a King, to the Royal Family which has lost a husband, a father, a son and a brother, and not least to the new Queen Elizabeth whose overseas tour, begun in such high hopes, has ended in such sadness. To her, standing now at the gate of an era, his chosen words will recommend themselves: -