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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Bramley History Society and has been added to the website on behalf of Peter Allsopp with his permission and he fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

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During the War King George VI and Queen Elizabeth spent much of their time at Windsor Castle, where their daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, were living the whole time. Each December a pantomime was put on in the Castle, with (of course) the two girls taking the leading parts; other people living in the Castle and some local children were called in as extras.

There was quite a large audience, with the King and Queen in the front row. In 1943 my brother and I, then aged 5 and 3, had to appear as rabbits in fluffy white costumes (could the pantomime have been Snow White? I really do not know now. Perhaps I never did know.) At one point I had to bend over to pick up a fresh carrot to nibble. For some reason I chose to bend over with my back to the audience, so revealing beneath my rather short bunny outfit that I had forgotten to put on any pants before the show.There was — I was later told by my grandmother, who was in the audience — an audible gasp of horror round the room, while everyone looked to see how the King and Queen would react. For a moment — silence from the front row. Then the King roared with laughter — perhaps a natural reaction from a sailor; everyone else felt that they could also laugh; and the show continued. I was entirely unaware of how near I had come to committing lèse-majesté, for which the sentence in those days was probably life in the Tower of London; I do not even recall being chastised on my (entirely unprotected) backside.

And my abiding memory of the show — how good raw carrots tasted then, and still do to this day if they are fresh and organic.

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