The People's King

Long before Diana, King George VI took the lead in bonding with ordinary people in surprising ways

Sally Bedell Smith

April 1, 2023

In the late spring of 1939, when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth took an extensive tour of Canada, they repeatedly mingled with the crowds—to the point that American reporters remarked that no American president would have engaged with ordinary people as much as they did. Lord Tweedsmuir, the British governor-general in Canada, even called George VI “a people’s king.” 

It’s hard to know the precise origin of King George VI’s democratic streak. Perhaps his modesty and humility were inborn, as they seemed to be in his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II. Or maybe his stutter, which afflicted him from the age of eight, played a role. He connected with people by observing and listening,  if only to avoid being compelled to speak.

Getting to know the real world

During his boyhood at the royal family’s Sandringham estate in Norfolk, the future king—then Prince Albert (“Bertie”)—and his older brother Prince Edward (“David”) played soccer with the sons of the estate’s employees. This first exposure to ordinary boys was arranged by a local schoolmaster who wanted to break through Bertie and David’s isolation from the real world.

In the Royal Navy, Bertie endured hazing as one of the lowest ranking midshipmen (nicknamed “snotties”), and he pitched in to carry heavy bags of coal to the engine room. He suffered not only from his embarrassing stammer, but from seasickness and a painful stomach illness that kept him bedridden for months at a time during the First World War. King George V had the good sense to recruit an empathetic Scottish doctor, Louis Greig, to oversee his son’s care and serve as his mentor. Greig was fifteen years older than Bertie, solidly middle class, sensible and loyal. His down-to-earth nature made an imprint on the boy whose father was both remote and intimidating.

 When Bertie and Greig joined the newly formed Royal Air Force after the war, the prince stayed with Greig and his wife Phyllis and their baby daughter in a small cottage four miles from the base. In that setting, Bertie experienced life in a modest British household for the first time. He puttered around the garden, bathed and played with the baby, and helped with chores.

I was reminded of the future King Charles III at age seventeen when he had a similar experience with David Checketts, a middle class military man chosen by Prince Philip to supervise his son’s stay at Timbertop, a wilderness school in Australia. Charles spent his weekends with the Checketts family on a nearby farm. Like his grandfather, Charles relished the informal atmosphere. He played with the three Checketts children and watched television in his pajamas.

No “red carpet” for Bertie

Bertie’s older brother was the heir to the throne, and as Prince of Wales he traveled the world as his father’s ambassador to the empire. As Duke of York back in England,