Katya & The Prince of Siam

My parents were deeply concerned and troubled, faced with a prospect they could never have envisaged for one of their four daughters. They had also, of course, to face the pain of separation, for Lisba inevitably would spend much of her future life in a country and among people of whom they knew next to nothing. My father, in particular, felt unhappy and bereft, for he was especially fond of Lisba. For myself, as I have said, convinced that theirs was an enduring love, I gave them unreserved support, which in no way prevented me from understanding how my mother and father felt. It did mean, however, that inwardly I thought little of our relations – unanimously ‘shocked’ and ‘dismayed’, writing letters of ‘condolence’ instead of congratulation, telephoning their ‘sympathy’ and in one case calling personally to enquire if Chula was really black.

Today, over fifty years later, now that prejudice against mixed marriage has weakened, these attitudes seem strangely narrow and exaggerated, but then it made for a fraught and trying situation, which in a way was relieved when the wedding took place and became an accomplished fact. But although my father remained cordial and composed at the Registry Office and the Siamese Legation afterwards, I can still remember his lonely figure as he wandered away on his own to hide his feelings.

Katya and Hin were not among the family and few close friends who were present, and Chula explains in one of his books that ‘My Mother did not come over from Paris due to the tenseness of the political situation as we expected war to be declared at any moment.’

But I wondered then and still do whether this was quite true, or whether it may have been a kind of jealousy that kept Katya from the marriage of her only son? Not so much the traditional animosity of the mother-in-law against the usurping daughter-in-law, but perhaps Katya, now plain Mrs. Stone, may have been unwilling to witness Lisba become Princess Chula, as she had become Mom Katerin so long ago.

After a brief honeymoon in the West Country, Lisba and Chula returned to the London flat and, in October, taking advantage of the still prevailing though uneasy peace, together with Bira, Ceril and Abhas, they sailed to Siam – for the last time as it happened – for they returned in March 1939 and in June that same year the country’s name was changed to Thailand.

After the false promise of the Munich Agreement, the outbreak of war on 3rd September 1939 brought customary life to a standstill while people considered how to meet the occasion: what if anything could continue as before and what was irreparably changed and would never be the same again. As Thailand had declared her neutrality, Chula at first thought of returning to Bangkok, but sailings were so difficult, and even when arranged, liable to postponement or cancellation, that after packing and unpacking three or four times, he decided to stay in England.

He advised his mother, now living at her country property, Le Mesle, to take advantage of her American citizenship and depart with Hin to the States. But Katya and Hin, with blind faith in the ‘impregnable’ Maginot Line, at first refused to move. However, to Chula’s great dismay and surprise, Thailand was invaded by the Japanese in 1941, swiftly capitulated and, worse still, declared war on Britain and the United States. Feeling that this untoward event put him in a most delicate position, Chula came to the conclusion that his best move would be to retire from London and live quietly and unobtrusively away from the capital for the duration. Lisba and I were therefore despatched to Cornwall to search for a suitable furnished house. After some adventures and many misadventures inspecting numbers of dirty, dilapidated places, inhabited by people of repellent habits to judge by the broken furniture and grimy kitchens, or vast dank mansions unheated but for rickety oilstoves, we began to despair and face the unenviable prospect of conveying to Chula that our mission had failed.

Hunting through our pile of glowing descriptions of properties which we had found eminently ‘undesirable’, we spotted ‘Lynham Farm, Rock, a charming modernised farmhouse, small, well-established garden and tennis-court, overlooking a beautiful estuary’. We drove off with no confidence in the description but, as we crossed the threshold, we felt at once we had come home. It was quite delightful: low-ceilinged, thick-walled, furnished with great taste, fresh chintzes and pale unemphatic wall paper and paint; it was also roomy enough to contain a considerable household.