AS the royal wedding brouhaha works towards its Friday crescendo, we’ve seen and heard all the previous old favourites, from repetitive television footage and its newspaper counterparts to commemorative mugs and plates. And this time there are the newer additions; even soap opera-like films, lookalike face masks and so on.

So is there anything they haven’t mentioned yet, past or present? Yes, indeed. Some surprising, one or two even astonishing. Firstly, there are the numbers celebrating. On Friday the guests plus route spectators will number in the thousands. However, until the 20th century, all royal marriage ceremonies were pretty small and, more significantly, took place in private. A wedding breakfast for one of Queen Victoria’s daughters was held in a small marquee at a table about the size of the one in Jamaica’s King’s House dining room.

Down to earth

British royalty may seem to outsiders to do everything on a grand, ceremonial scale. However, in their daily private lives quite the reverse is usually true. The late Princess Alice, first chancellor of the University of the West Indies, became a close friend of Jamaica’s last governor and first governor general, Sir Kenneth Blackburne and after his retirement, stayed with the Blackburnes in 1975. In Lady Blackburne’s words: “She was a most delightful and easy guest, always insisting on making her own bed”. At age 92 — almost unbelievable!

In early 1945, before the end of World War II, the queen — then an 18-year-old princess — joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service (subsequently the Women’s Royal Army Corps). She was trained to service army trucks, stripping engines and the like, just like her fellow trainees.

Both the queen and Prince Philip are very modest eaters and at breakfast she used to, and perhaps still does, serve herself from the hotplates on the sideboard in her private dining room. Prince Philip likes a beer with lunch. I remember being asked to brief all the relevant service staff at the Montego Bay hotel, where the prime minister was hosting a farewell lunch at the end of the royal visit in 2002, and warning that Prince Philip might well decline the offered wine and request a lager beer instead. This was greeted with several, if courteous, comments of disbelief. Well, after the lunch and the departure of the royal couple, the hotel folk phoned me to say that not only had I been right but that Prince Philip had specifically asked for a Red Stripe!

Duke of Windsor

There’s been publicity in the last few days about the famous (or infamous, to some folk) marriage of King Edward VIII to the twice-divorced Mrs Wallis Simpson, and for which he had to abdicate, thereafter being titled Duke of Windsor. Like Diana Spencer, decades later a lot of people felt sorry for him but also like Diana he had some undesirable qualities which few knew of. The former king’s marriage ceremony was about the smallest of all royal weddings ever, with only a few courtiers present — and not a single member of his family.

Most who are old enough recall only that the poor king had to give up the throne for “the woman I love”. However, there was another more frightening side to the Duke; he was an admirer of nazism and the German dictator Adolph Hitler. A senior British official of the time said: “Thank God for Mrs Simpson”. Otherwise Britain — as the world neared the horrors of World War II — would have had an anti-Jewish, Nazi sympathiser as head of state.

Germanic past

The Duke often preferred to speak German rather than English. At a party in New York in the 1960s, he addressed the other guests in German. One of them said: “Duke, I don’t understand a word you’re saying.” His reply — in German — was: “That is my mother tongue.”

Surprisingly perhaps, there was some truth in the Duke’s response. Few are really aware that since the early 18th century, indeed just under 300 years, the kings and queens (regnant) ‘of England’ had virtually no British blood in their veins, and what little there has been was only Scottish. The present queen is the first British monarch since 1714 to have anything but German (and a little Danish), and that’s because her mother, the late Queen Mother, was a Scot.

The first British sovereign in over three centuries with any English blood will, all things being equal, be the young prince who’ll be marrying Kate Middleton this week, as King William V.

From king to prime minister

A footnote to the surprises; the former King Simeon of Bulgaria who became king in 1943 at age six after his father was possibly poisoned by the Germans, reigned for only three years before he and his mother were exiled by the victorious communists. His exile lasted for half a century.

What’s all this got to do with Friday’s events? Firstly, King Simeon is a direct descendant of the queen’s great-grandfather, King Edward VII, and is almost certain to be on Friday’s guest list. But he is unique in world history; he is the only monarch to return to his country, as he was allowed first in 1996 — and then five years later to become prime minister for a good four years. So, there are some of the interesting facts which they didn’t give you. Enjoy the wedding.