Overall: 45.5cm (18in) x 26.5cm (10.5in)
Black and white photograph of a ‘wooding party’ at Badminton, Gloucestershire during the Second World War. Signed and dated in ink on the image the Queen’s hand ‘Mary R / 1942’. Framed with a letter dated 16 June 1942, Marlborough House from Queen Mary’s private secretary Major John Wickham to royal biographer Louis Wulff MVO. Image: 13cm x 13cm.
From the first days of Queen Mary’s wartime sojourn at Badminton House, Goucestershire, she forcibly vented a life-long loathing of ivy and an obsession with cutting down trees. ‘She would go out in all weathers from two till five,’ the Duchess of Beaufort recalled. ‘The Ladies loathed it, Cynthia [a lady-in-waiting] lost her wedding ring, Major Wickham [her secretary] broke his wrist.’ Yet nothing deterred her. By the autumn of 1940 with no ivy in easy reach, Queen Mary turned her attention, most afternoons, to the clearance of areas of the local woodlands. A ‘Wooding Squad’ was established, mainly composed of the four dispatch riders and their royal charge. As Queen Mary rarely went to London due to the ‘Blitz’ (which had blown out most of Marlborough House’s windows and many interior doors), this diversion proved particularly welcome. The Queen was a thoughtful ‘employer’ and happily passed round cigarettes to her workers during their breaktime from chopping and sawing, always ensuring, of course, to have one herself. Mary also took great pains to find out the birthdays of her ‘wooders’, so that she could give them a small gift.