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Little Caernarvon is feverishly preparing for the July 1 festivities. Shops along Hole-in-the-Wall Street are chock full of souvenirs: badges and bookmarks, cuff links and key chains, pennants and princely paperbacks. Up at the castle, the clanging carpenters' hammers echo as grandstands rise. By the time the Prince arrives—along with 200,000 less exalted visitors—the town should be more or less fit for a king.
Castle Square, weekend site of an outdoor market, will be lit up by arches of electric lights and adorned with bunches of wild purple heather and blue hydrangeas. Thirty sets of banners will festoon the town streets, and fresh paint is being splashed everywhere. As Decorator-in-Chief Lord Snowdon, Charles' uncle, airily put it: "I have designed the whole thing entirely for television." That brought an angry retort from Sir Anthony Wagner, Garter King of Arms and chief authority for the ceremony's heraldic details: "I don't regard myself as part of show business."
Still, show business is a big part of the scene. Television cameras will document every step in the ceremonies for the delectation of Europe, the U.S., Canada and Australia. The world will have a better look at the ritual than many of the guests at the ceremony: 4,000 will be seated within the castle walls, but only 2,500 will be able to witness the actual investiture because of a protruding buttress. Space within the castle walls is so limited that directors of the six-hour production were forced to choose between feeding the guests or providing lavatories for them. There will be no food, so the assembled dignitaries will be forced to smuggle in their own champagne and caviar. If they want a memento of the occasion, they can take home their chairs as souvenirs at the price of $30. Onlookers in the stand outside the castle must ante up $24 each for tickets.
It will be the kind of show that only the British Crown can put on, with each member of the royal family playing his or her role. Elizabeth is perforce the straight man in the act, who underdoes everything with a flawlessness that creates its own suspense. At the other extreme, and refreshingly so, is her husband, Prince Philip, who looks remarkably like Stan Musial and is a self-confessed expert in the art of "don-topedalogy," as he calls it: opening his mouth and putting his foot in it. The Queen Mother is everybody's baby sitter. Lord Snowdon and Princess Margaret are the scandalous bohemians; they actually stay out late at night, have been known to drink, and it is widely rumored that on occasion they even have fights—and fun. Princess Anne, Charles' younger sister, is beginning to give her aunt and uncle a run for the tabloid money. Only 17, she has lately turned from a chubby duckling into a passably delectable swan, wings through London in exotic hats and miniskirts, and recently danced on the stage with the cast of Hair (clad).