In high style, H.R.H. pays a visit to the New World
The children's lilting voices rose in unison: '"Dis long time gal me nevah see yah." Gilbert and Sullivan it was not, and the Gal the children were seeing and serenading was no ordinary dame but Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her Other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. At the crowded National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica, a children's chorus a thousand strong was singing a Jamaican folk song that the Queen had requested. The occasion was a gala celebration of Jamaica's 21st birthday and of the arrival of the Queen on the first leg of her month-long royal gallivant.
The most traveled monarch in history (she has logged and sometimes slogged more than 750,000 miles since her coronation in 1953) is making her most extensive tour ever in the Northern Hemisphere. She is also taking up President Reagan's offer to come-on-over-and-see-us-some-time. It will be her first foray to the brave new world of California, where for weeks the glitterati have been jockeying for gilded invitations. Yes, she is pleased to get out of dreary, drizzly London and into the sunshine, but the royal purpose remains the same: to strengthen ties among friends and show her subjects that the Crown is not merely an abstract symbol, but a kind, imperturbable and tireless Gal whose role is to serve rather than rule.
First stop: Jamaica. Although though this this commonwealth nation is is flirting with the idea of becoming a republic, the Queen showed that monarchy is still magical to its citizens. In the square of Montego Bay, the Cage, a historic brick structure that once held slaves, was covered with cheering Jamaicans, some twirling dazzlingly bright umbrellas for protection from the midday sun. Her days were spent, as they always are on these royal progresses, in walking about, smiling, shaking hands (Elizabeth offers only a demure three fingers) and murmuring pleasantries to all. As Queen of Jamaica, she also addressed Parliament. The speech, composed by Foreign Office gnomes, was hardly great oratory, but it was met with an awkward silence only be cause the assembled Members thought it might be bad form to applaud.
No slip-ups at the next stop, the Cayman Islands, the self-styled "world's No. 1 tax haven," with some 420 banks. Nearly a third of the island's 17,000 inhabitants, who pride themselves on their links to Mother England, came out to wave Union Jacks at the royal couple. But the Duke of Edinburgh, whose pet cause is the World Wild Life Fund, stole the show. On the windswept coast, he looked in on the world's first farm to breed the rare green turtle. Sporting a black tie festooned with tiny pandas, he left no doubt where he stood. "I'm on the side of the turtle," he said with a smile.