Royalty Paid an Unexpected Visit

Charles had already left by the time I arrived, but I did get to meet Camilla during the royal couple’s visit to Canada last week. They arrived on November 5, appropriately enough to open a fair traditionally known as “The Royal.”

With a busy schedule in front of him, the Prince of Wales was quickly gone to another ribbon cutting ceremony in Niagara Falls. But the Duchess of Cornwall stayed on for a few hours at Toronto’s annual winter fair to see the exhibitions, the entertainment and, of course, the horses.

I hear often about the claim that Canadians today feel that our historic connection to the British crown is irrelevant. We no longer have an interest in the royal family. But it certainly didn’t seem that way last Friday as Camilla walked about the fair with an ever-lengthening crowd gathering behind her. She was the topic of conversation the whole day. People who claimed not to be interested were the ones talking about her most.

Royalty certainly brought crowds out to the train stations in Clarkson, Lorne Park and Lakeview back in 1926 to see Queen Marie of Romania pass through town, but residents in Port Credit got an unexpected treat.

Marie and her family were on a ten-day visit, mostly through the United States, but while on a trip to Niagara Falls (a perennial must-see for visitors – royal or not) the queen took a side trip to Toronto with her son, Nicholas and daughter, Ileana. It was about 1:30 in the afternoon, October 27. The royal train was just half an hour out of Toronto, making good time when unexpectedly, it came to a halt at Port Credit’s station.

After a brief silence, the door of the royal “palace car” at the far end of the train opened, and Prince Nicholas stepped out onto Stavebank Road. With a serried parade of men behind him, including a Mountie in full dress and CNR’s general superintendent R.H. Fish, the 23 year old prince walked the length of the platform, to the steam locomotive. The engineer of Number 5281 helped the prince climb up into the cab and then, with a shrill blast of the whistle, the royal train proceeded to Toronto with the prince at the throttle.

It was a moment of good fortune for Port Credit’s local royal watchers who gathered at the station expecting only to see the train whizz past at full speed. At best, the village’s excited young women could hope that maybe the handsome bachelor prince might wave to them from his mahogany-veneered coach.

Instead, they got their own personal royal procession.

It was all done on the spur of the moment, much to Mr. Fish’s dismay since it was his job, as superintendent, to see to it that CNR’s trains get to the station on time – especially this train. (The station in this case was Toronto’s long gone Union Station, built by the Grand Trunk in 1873 – west of today’s much larger terminal.)

The media was at the old terminal to meet the royal family, as was the mayor of Toronto, Thomas Foster and Lieutenant-Governor Henry Cockshutt.

Unaware of the change of plans 20 kilometres down the track, the paparazzi gathered at the far west end of the platform at Union Station expecting to see the whole royal family alight from the back of the train. Only one reporter, who apparently had his directions crossed, was at the other end of the platform and happened to see the prince climb down from the locomotive at the end of his cab ride in from Port Credit, with smudges of coal dust on his tailored suit.

“How did you like it”, the reporter asked.

“It’s better than a motor car. No need to get out of anyone’s way”, Nicholas replied fluently. (He learned English as a child from his British-born mother, who happened to be Queen Victoria’s granddaughter.)

Before his visit to Canada, Nicholas served as an officer in the British Royal Navy where he developed an interest in mechanics and technology. Nicholas saw innovation as a way of getting his backward country (suffering from years of misrule by his aging father and his indiscreet elder brother) back on its feet.

For Nicholas, the chance to be at the helm of one of Canada’s powerful steam locomotives was an education and a thrill. For the people of Port Credit, the thrill was meeting a prince who was only supposed to be “just passing through.”