Singular life
Royal comebacks
PetroneIla Wyatt
Simeon II, the former king of Bulgaria who was exiled for more than 50 years, has been making a comeback in his country's politics. Simeon Saxe-Coburg, 64, who is head of the National Movement party, has therefore become one of the most successful former monarchs since the collapse of communism, or indeed the collapse of the Habsburgs.
Simeon has promised to root out corruption. 'The king is our hope,' said a retired car mechanic, Todor Glavov, 64. 'We've had the others before and they are all liars.' It's not such a bad thing being an exking nowadays. King Michael of Romania returned from exile in Switzerland a year after the 1989 revolution that overthrew Ceausescu but was expelled by the ruling former communists. In 1992 the authorities allowed him back for long weekends and he was hailed by huge crowds. He is now allowed to live in Romania, with a state salary and a residence. Then there is Crown Prince Alexander of Serbia, son of the last Yugoslav king, who is quite a popular bird in his old domain.
It must be an odd sort of world, that of the ex-king. Etiquette is always a problem. Is there, for instance, such a thing as an ex-bow
or an ex-curtsey? One of my godfathers, who was very keen on .former Albanian monarchs, insisted that whenever they came to his house, guests should dip very low. One could say this was a form of reverse snobbery. My godfather loved an ex-monarch quite as much if he were still on his throne.
I remember being sent to cover the War and Peace ball in London one year. A lot of old-regime Russians dressed up as Tolstay (one of them was Tolstoy — Nikolai, I mean) — and danced the mazurka. Afterwards they went beserka. The Tsarist national anthem was belted out and there was animated talk of when little Serge or Cyril would be back in St Petersburg.
These ex-kings always seem to be called Cyril or Serge or Simeon. Why aren't they called Bryan or Mick or Zac? This might, anyway, be more fitting. When I saw the report on Simeon II, I mistakenly thought at first that I had read not ex-king but sex king. That would have been infinitely more piquant. 'Last night, sex-king Simeon was said to be surging back in his former country. Exit polls put him considerably ahead of his rivals.' It was said that under the socialists the Bulgarian economy worsened, leading to bread queues and an inflation rate of 1,000 per cent. But what if it had led to bed queues and an erection rate of nought per cent?
I can say that I have met only one ex-king or rather an ex-prince. This was Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. He and his wife, ex-queen Juliana, spent the summers in Italy. Every year there was a garden party to which they were invited. The host would attempt to dish up morsels for the prince as a keeper seeks fish for a seal. To his great excitement he heard that one of the guests was a famous man called Lamont. This was Norman Lamont, then chancellor of the exchequer. But for some reason the host was under the impression that Lamont was another man. He had confused him with a famous cyclist of a similar name and told Prince Bernhard he had won the Tour de France. Prince Bernhard was suitably impressed but puzzled. How could a man of Lamont's generous physique be a champion athlete? But he said nothing, displaying the politeness of ex-princes.
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