Magyar Hírek, 1988 (41. évfolyam, 1-22. szám)
1988-03-18 / 6. szám
Ute l*üü£fcittk Y75 Prince Charming in Budapest in 1935. Anyone considered as well dressed as the Prince of Wales could feel assured of social success in Hungary in the mid-thirties. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, then Duke of Windsor, enjoyed extraordinary popularity. The heir to the throne of the British Empire had innumerable followers and imitators, photographs of the Prince in tails, in a dinner jacket, in morning coat, in tweeds, in an overcoat, in a fur-coat, in uniform, in a kilt and in any possible get up bobbed up at every turn in Hungarian newspapers. Yet minute descriptions in the papers, which offer a full picture of the dressing habits of the fashion conscious Prince reveal even more than the contemporary press photographs. László Bus Fekete, a popular playwright of the age must have had a close look at the Prince of Wales who, during a visit to Budapest, happened to be given Bus Feketes’s regular table in the restaurant of the Margaret Island Grand Hotel. He gave a perfect description of the illustrious guest in the journal Színházi Elet. According to him the Prince wore a bluish-grey, striped suit, fawn suede shoes and loud check socks. The lady in his company wore a furcoat worth a fortune. The Prince of Wales arrived incognito at Budapest in the evening hours of the 29th of February 1935. He stepped out of the Vienna Express at the Eastern Railway Station wearing a grey fur-coat, a grey flannel suit with a red carnation in its button-hole and a black bowler hat. He was smoking a cigar. Being a private visit there was no official programme. He used the pseudonym Lord Chester and was received at the station by the Police Commissioner and other police officers in mufiy. The Prince of Wales paid a courtesy call on Admiral Horthy, the Regent. A flying squad in tails The Hungarian aristocracy met the special guest with extraordinary interest but also with the tact appropriate to the incognito. Színházt Élet remarked with a sneer that a carousal was staged for him in Vienna in the Prater with show business participation but the Prince did not seem to appreciate the effort since, throughout, he stayed put in the Restaurant to the Three Hussars owned at the time by Count Pál Pálffy. High society in Budapest hit upon a more refined form. Hearing about the visit they organized a flying squad in tails escorting ladies in the latest Paris fashions to be wherever the Prince went. They joined him at his table when the Prince invited them, or just stayed in the background. By doing this—as contemporary reports emShopping in Váci utca Strolling in the City phasised—they wanted to give evidence of the attractiveness of the mode of living of the Hungarian upper class, as well as providing publicity for the places of amusement. Indeed, it might have been an attempt to rekindle British sympathies for Hungary to counterbalance the pro- German Official foreign policy of Gyula Gömbös, the Hungarian Prime Minister. As it happened, the illustrious guest showed scant interest in Hungarian politics, and concentrated his attention on Hungarian food and drink. This was understandable, since he went to Budapest to have fun. The first night in Budapest he dined at the Renaissance restaurant on Andrássy út, where he had consommé, grilled pike-perch with Sauce Tartare, roast chicken with Brussels sprouts, peas, potato salad, assorted cheeses, and Hungarian Taking a photo from Castle Hill fruit. He drank a Badacsony Riesling and red wine from Eger. Others say that he began this dinner with two glasses of wodka, had caviar pancake for starters followed by creamed paprika chicken, with egg dumplings, filet of steak with French garnishing, Worchester sauce, and ketchup, finishing with Camembert, fruit and Bull’s Blood of Eger. In fact he asked for the recipes of a number of Hungarian dishes, taking a Hungarian cookery book home as well. He took particular liking to the caviar pancakes, which he ordered repeatedly. He had breakfast the next day in his second-floor suite in the Hotel Duna Palota. He had tea with milk, toasted rolls with butter and jam, and repeated the whole performance two hours later. After breakfast the maitre d’hotel went to see him to discuss lunch. He chose some meet which he asked to be grilled, stringbeans, green-peas, asparagus and roast potatoes. He later had lunch and dinner also at the Kakukk restaurant on Attila körút, where Jenő Pertis and his Gypsy band played, in the Kis Royal restaurant in Márvány utca, and in the Hotel Palatínus on Margaret Island. He first tasted Kecskemét apricot brandy in the Kis Royal. Someone jotted down the name of this drink at his request and after dinner he ordered it in the Párisién Grill nightclub. This later spread the fame of this tasty Hungarian drink in America. Adventures of a photographer The press and enterprising photographers closely followed every step of the Prince. Juan Gyenes, who rose to world fame later, took numerous shots in spite of a general ban. Another photographer, Sándor Paál, endured situations worthy of a burlesque film. First he succeeded to take a picture of the Prince at the Arizona nightclub through an air vent, as he was just clinking glasses with Mrs Simpson. The house detectives caught him and confiscated the film. Next day he charged into an undergarments salon ín Váci utca, opened the window onto the screaming ladies and, sitting on the window-sill, he got a picture of the Prince as he left a shop opposite, then fled from the persuing detectives over the back stairs. But his greatest feat was squatting for an hour and a half on the glass roof of the entrance of the Operetta Theatre armed with his camera waiting for the Prince to leave the Moulin Rouge next door. He returned the next day to collect his plate, and hid it in a case of lump sugar in the store of a coffeeshop until the storm blew over. Finally he did in waiting under some bushes on Margaret Island, but they spotted him. The Prince personally saved him from arrest, indeed, he even allowed him to take a picture. Around the time of the Prince of Wales’s visit Hungarian and British genealogists published their findings showing that the Hungarian and English medieval kings were related. A daughter of Aba Sámuel, the Hungarian king, became the ancestress of the Plantagenet dynasty. In the 19th century Alexander, Prince of Württemberg married beautiful Claudia Rhedey in 1935. Her ancestors included a Prince of Transylvania. The son of this morganatic marriage was given the title of Prince of Teck and married one of the nieces of Queen Victoria. Their daughter, Mary, became the consort of George V, thus a number of Hungarian families still claim relationship with Queen Elizabeth II. LÁSZLÓ PUSZTASZERI 31
