Katya & The Prince of Siam

Eventually after all business details had been settled, a cavalcade left London consisting of Chula and Lisba, Bira and Ceril, Shura Rahm (who had been an active member of the motor racing ‘equipe’), Chula’s Thai clerk Bian; a manservant, a cook, two racing-cars, two dogs and a remarkable bird, a Malaysian Grackle, black with a white waistcoat, who would puff out his chest and bow in stately fashion like a tail-coated butler.

The arrival of a Royal Highness with such an entourage caused no little stir in the village and, for weeks after they had settled in, the local house agents with the delightful and euphonious name of Button, Menhennit & Mutton, displayed a small hand-written notice in their window reading: ‘Lynham Farm, let to HRH Prince Chula of Thailand by us.’

As Chula still remained convinced that Katya would be better off in America during the war, he and Lisba managed to reach Le Mesle the day before his mother’s birthday, which was 10th May. Early next morning, his argument that she should leave was powerfully reinforced by the ground beneath their feet shaking with heavy gunfire – a grim warning that the ‘phoney war’ was over and the German invasion had begun. The fall of Sedan on 14th May finally clinched the matter, and eventually Katya and Hin, accompanied by Poum, reached the States via Spain and Portugal.

Katya’s letters to her son from Portland, Oregon, are uniformly dull, unenlivened by any personal touches, and might well have been written by anyone of the ‘dreary middle-class people’ amongst whom she found herself until the conflict ended. They abound in domestic detail: a row with the man next door about alterations to their garage; disparagement of American food; scandalously high prices. Concern over Hin’s health and relief when the doctor pronounces he is not going blind and, on another occasion, that a feared heart-attack was only bad indigestion. One hopes eagerly for some word of Poum – what did he make of Portland, Oregon? What did Portland, Oregon, make of him? But we only hear that he has been fitted with new spectacles! ‘People here feel I’m different from them, from a different rank of society’. ‘I don’t really like their houses though they all have much more money to spend than we have’. ‘There is always much work to do in the house but none offered to come to my help.’

Meanwhile at Lynham it was not long before the household was in running order, a fairly strict order so that it resembled nothing so much as a miniature court ruled by a generally benevolent autocrat. For although Chula had quite accepted his role as a private individual, he never really forgot that he came from a long line of kings and princes, and that his clear decisive mind and talent for organisation inherited from his admired father, might have been employed in a wider sphere.

He had inherited his family’s penchant for rising about noon and staying up late and sometimes, after the guest or guests had begun to droop and wilt as dawn chilled and infiltrated the convivial gathering, his mind remained alert, eager to hunt a subject through all the coverts of argument to a final conclusion he found satisfactory. He was extremely industrious and devoted himself for a set period every day to his literary projects: not only historical works in Thai, but a volume of reminiscences – Brought up in England – and several books on motor-racing in English.

Work finished for the day, he expected to be amused not only by his immediate entourage, but by the many visitors who came to stay or were entertained to a meal. These included characters as diverse as ex-Queen Rambai of Thailand, a widow now that her husband ex-King Prajadhipokhad died in 1941; Noel Coward who came to dinner, the recently widowed Duchess of Kent, who came to tea with her two children, Jack Buchanan the musical comedy star and, not only many of Chula and Lisba’s friends and relations, but also those of Bira and Ceril.

 

Rosemary Essen-Scott, Lisba, Queen Rambai, Chula, Bira and Ceril together with Joannie the terrier and Hercules the bulldog. Lynham Farm, Rock, early 1940s.

 

Local people also called including the Vicar, the last being favoured with a dissertation on Buddhism and Christianity, somewhat biased in favour of the former, and leaving him in no doubt that his exotic new parishioners would not be numbered amongst his congregation. However, they did involve themselves in village activities, as Lisba and Ceril worked at the St. John’s and Red Cross centre, and willingly assisted at bazaars and fetes in aid of the war effort.