A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
0 F all the numerous and variegated accounts of how Princess Margaret spent her birthday, I prefer that in the Court Circular, which I quote in extenso: "Today is the twenty-first anniversary of the Birthday of the Princess Margaret." I like that even better than the information, proffered elsewhere, that on the auspicious day Her Royal Highness took a light breakfast. I like very much indeed the series of family photographs taken at Balmoral on the birthday, and the fact that it was the local Ballater photographer who was commissioned to take them. And I like the obvious ,desire of the King that what was essentially a family occasion should be kept as far as possible a family occasion, not a rare and valued type of news- paper-fodder. At the same time it was, in fact, both a family occasion and something more. The Royal Family can never be simply themselves. They belong in a peculiar way to the nation. They serve it unceasingly and they win respect and affection in return. That is true in a special sense of Princess Margaret, for with all her vivacity and charm there is, to the common observer, something-attractively undisclosed about her. The keenness of her intelligence is not in doubt. Her concern for the more serious aspects of public life is shown by the afternoons she spends from time to time in the House of Commons listening to very far from inspiriting debates. Her tirelessness in discharging, with great grace, those functions for which she is in universal demand provokes both admiration and gratitude. Is it in her character to have delivered (if she had been the elder instead of the younger sister) such a memorable address as Princess Elizabeth broadcast from South Africa on her own twenty-first birthday? It may well be so. Anyhow, the occasion has not arisen. Princess Margaret has her own particular part to play in the wide field of service that falls to the Royal Family. She has played it admirably in what may be termed the years of preparation. As she passes into the years of fulfilment, words spoken in Crathie Church, where the Princess and her parents worshipped last Sunday, meet all needs: " Put about her Thine everlasting arms, and may Thy peice dwell in her way." •
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