Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019 Page 19Hard-working: The Princess Royal and Sir Tim Laurence.
Above, the new bridge at Tintagel Castlesector roles. Aged 64, he maintains
a schedule on a par with that of his
famously busy wife (with 518 pub-
lic duties in 2018, the Princess
Royal still tops the Royal Family’s
league table of engagements).
Until his term of office finished
this summer, Sir Tim was also vice-
chairman and de facto head of the
Commonwealth War Graves Com-
mission which maintains the
memorials and graves of 1.7 million
men and women all over the world.
There, too, he ushered in a pro-
gramme of innovations. The son of
a Royal Navy officer who served in
World War I, Sir Tim is keen to
ensure we never forget those killed
in all conflicts. In 1982, he was serv-
ing as navigation officer in the
destroyer HMS Sheffield, when hewas summoned to Northern Ire-
land to lead a maritime patrol
against IRA gun-runners. In his
absence, Sheffield headed to the
South Atlantic without him. On
May 4, 1982, she became the first
major casualty of the Falklands
War when an Argentine Exocet
missile killed 20 men and sent the
ship to the bottom of the sea. ‘I
vividly remember watching the
news,’ he says.
‘My first thoughts were of friends.
Several officers were killed, all of
whom I knew.’
They are always in his mind when
he attends the Remembrance Sun-
day service at the Cenotaph (a
monument which, oddly, is main-
tained by English Heritage rather
than the War Graves Commission).At the age of 28, Lieutenant
Laurence received a Mention in
despatches for his work in North-
ern Ireland and was marked out
for higher things. He was seconded
to be Equerry to the Queen in 1986
(meeting his future wife in the
process) before returning to sea in
command of his own frigate.
In december 1992, he married
the Princess Royal in a low-key
winter ceremony at Balmoral (a
moment of respite at the end of
what the Queen had, days earlier,
called her ‘annus horribilis’).
‘Everybody who marries a mem-
ber of the Royal Family has to craft
their own way of doing things,’ says
Sir Tim. ‘There’s no book of how to
behave when you marry the Royal
Family.’ The experience has lefthim with a deep admiration for two
royal consorts.
‘I’m a huge fan of Prince Albert.
He designed and built Osborne
with William Cubitt. He also
designed and built Balmoral Cas-
tle. He had an incredible mind.
Bearing in mind how young he was
when he died and what he achieved,
he was an extraordinary man.’
So is Albert his inspiration? He
smiles and points to a more recent
role model. ‘I think I’ve gained
more from the duke of Edinburgh
obviously because I know him very
well. He is somebody who has sup-
ported the Monarch, but also done
a huge amount in his own right.
Think of the duke of Edinburgh’s
Award Scheme and the number of
young people who have been
through that.’
The duke had been one of the
Navy’s rising stars when the sud-
den death of George VI put a
stop to all that.S
IR Tim has great sympa-
thy for his father-in-law.
‘The difference for me,
personally, was I was
determined to stay in the Navy and
I was able to do that. That gave me
a career in addition to supporting
my wife for many years. It was sug-
gested that the duke should leave
the Navy when the Queen became
Monarch.
‘I think, looking back, it might
have been possible for him to stay
for a bit which might have been
good. But anyway, that’s what hap-
pened.’ Sir Tim’s first close encoun-
ter with the Royal Family came
during a short stint in Britannia as
a young ‘season’ officer.
He joined the Royal Yacht in the
Gulf in 1979, with an early setback.
‘I came back through the Suez
Canal on my back because I’d
picked up a stomach bug in Saudi
Arabia.’ His favourite memories
are simply of making an entrance.
‘The impact of the Royal Yacht
coming in with the Queen on board
is unbelievable,’ he says.
It is now more than 20 years since
Britannia was decommissioned to
become a tourist attraction in
Leith. Millions of us would dearly
love to see a replacement.
Sir Tim thinks it could be a long
wait. ‘I don’t think, at the moment,
it could work,’ he says. ‘I won’t say
that it won’t in the future because
the tradition of royal yachts goes
back to Charles II.
‘The Queen is probably not going
to do trips in the way that she has
done in Britannia in the past. In a
new reign, perhaps the moment
may come when they say: “Well,
come on, We’re a maritime nation.
We are good at the sea. We connect
with the world through the sea.
Perhaps we should have a ship in
some form that can represent our
nation overseas.” ’
Britannia, like the monarchy, the
English language and so much else
— including our great historic sites
— are examples of soft power. So
do we make the most of them?
‘Probably not. I think we could
make more of them,’ Sir Tim
reflects. ‘The story that we try to
tell through our English Heritage
properties is of a nation developing
from its roots, developing the rule
of law, developing good governance,
developing civilised structures.
‘I think that is something whichmost countries overseas appreci-
ate more than many people in
Britain actually.’
He points to some conversations
he had during this summer’s state
visit at the Palace.
‘I spoke to several people in
President Trump’s camp who
appreciate what Britain has
contributed and can contribute.’
does it bother him when, say, a
hectic royal tour with the Princess
goes unnoticed back home?
As one who never sought the
limelight in the first place, he is
relaxed. ‘My observation of those
trips is that they have an impact
overseas, which is very significant
and not always appreciated.
‘There’s a great poem called the
Laws Of The Navy, written in about- One of the verses is: “If you
win through an African jungle/
unmentioned at home in the Press/
Trouble not, no man sees the pis-
ton/ But it driveth the ship, none
the less.” I love that. Sometimes
you have to go overseas and do
your bit and just accept that peo-
ple won’t notice it. It’s part of life
— as frustrating as the fact that it
rains on Mondays!’
So what next after spanning the
chasm at Tintagel Castle? Sir Tim
is keen to see a broader range of
names on Britain’s blue plaques.
As for new sites, he’d like to take
on some ‘brilliant’ old Lancashire
cotton mills, despite friendly com-
petition with the National Trust.
And he would dearly love to
house the Bayeux Tapestry at a
purpose-built site at the Battle of
Hastings in Sussex when it makes
its long-awaited first visit to Britain
in the next few years.
H
E sees no reason why the
capital should hog it.
‘It’s good for people to
get out of London — and
Battle is not that far.’ He also
wants to see English Heritage push
its £5-a-month membership
scheme — with free entry to all
sites — over the one million mark.
Some might lament the fact that
great landmarks such as Stone-
henge, the Cenotaph or dover Cas-
tle depend on rattling a tin.
Sir Tim sees it as an opportunity:
‘It’s much clearer, now that we are
a charity, for people to know what
they are giving money to and how
we’re using it.’
At Tintagel, the results are plain
to see. Sir Tim believes the new
bridge would probably never have
happened in the days of state con-
trol. ‘It would have been difficult,’
he says. ‘We needed the independ-
ence of thought.’
Walking across the slate-lined
pathway over the dizzying void —
in fact it consists of two bridges
with a three-inch gap in the middle
for thermal expansion — I have no
doubt this will be a splendid addi-
tion to the Cornish landscape.
Project manager Reuben Briggs
points to the steel ‘dampers’ which
will prevent a wobble like that
which plagued London’s Millen-
nium Bridge and says that the
design can withstand a hurricane.
The main problem I foresee will
be the queues flocking to pay hom-
age to King Arthur, Sir Lancelot,
Sir Galahad and the other knights
of the Round Table.
Being gallant chaps, I trust they’ll
make a space for Sir Tim.RYING
YALTY
Pictures: REX/DAVID LEVENE