Royal Wedding 2011: I hoped David Cameron would know how to behave

Royal Wedding 2011: I hoped David Cameron would know how to behave

To my dying day, I’ll remember the loud stage whisper that rang out from my grandmother, filling the whole church, as my bride processed up the nave to join me at the altar 31 years ago: ‘My God! She’s wearing white!’.

Her point, of course, was that she believed the about-to-be Mrs Utley and I had jumped the gun, as it were, and that the more appropriate colour for the bridal gown would have been scarlet.

In fact, my grandmother was a frightful old fraud. Though born in 1899, and therefore one of the last of the Victorians, she knew perfectly well that nobody in the modern world paid a blind bit of notice to the old convention (always honoured far more in the breach than the observance) that only the purest of the pure should wear white.

 

Changing suit: David Cameron, pictured last November with wife Samantha at the Lord Mayor's Banquet in London, will now wear tails to the royal wedding

No, she just wanted everyone in the congregation to know she rather disapproved of my choice of bride, and that she felt her precious grandson could have done better.

Indeed, I strongly suspect she’d been rehearsing her bon mot for weeks beforehand, eagerly looking forward to her chance to draw attention to herself and sprinkle a little acid on our big day.

 

   

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But then there’s nothing like a good old British wedding for bringing out the very worst in everyone involved.

At this distance of three decades, I can almost laugh at all the dramas, tantrums and petty snobberies that surrounded the preparations for our wedding. Almost, but not quite.

There was the huge fuss made by one of my sisters on the eve of the ceremony, when she announced that nothing would induce her to wear the bridesmaid’s dress kindly bought for her by my mother-in-law to be.

True, the reluctant bridesmaid relented in the end, with a less-than-convincing show of martyred grace. But it made for a very uncomfortable scene, just when we needed it least (and even 31 years on, I feel it would be rash to confess that my sympathies lay just a little with my sister; after all, 1980 was a truly hideous year for fashion and it was very much a dress of its time).

Then there was the sharp intake of breath on my side of the church when my near and dear saw the names ‘Tom and Cindy’ printed on the order of service. The problem there was that my family called me Tommy, not Tom. As for the name Cindy, they thought it rather . . . oh, I can’t think of a tactful way of putting this, so I’ll come out with it straight: they thought it rather common.

Never mind that nobody had ever called either of us by our full Christian names. My lot let it be known, with much whispering, rolling of eyes and sighing, that they would very much have preferred to see our names rendered as ‘Thomas and Lucinda’.

All I can say is they should have counted themselves jolly lucky that my bride didn’t appear on the service sheet under the name her four sisters often call her, which is Sid.

Indeed, the way some members of my family carried on that day, you would have thought I was the heir to a Habsburg archduke, ensnared by a chorus girl he’d picked up on the back streets of Soho. In fact, I was the son of a penniless hack, marrying the daughter of an Army officer-turned-banker, who happened to be the girl of his dreams.

But ’twas ever thus. We can tell each other until we’re blue in the face that a wedding should be all about the feelings of the happy couple, not the sensitivities of the bridesmaids or the groom’s grandmother. But the truth is weddings in their very nature are social occasions, not private.

So the path to the altar has always been strewn with social eggshells — and I can’t remember any I’ve attended where there haven’t been voices off stage, distracting attention from the principal players.

Perfectly attired: Prince William and Kate attending a friend's wedding last year

If my bride and I had that trouble in 1980, think how much worse it must be for poor old Wills and Kate — sorry, William and Catherine — with a cast of thousands offering their unsolicited opinions (look who’s talking) and seeking to switch the spotlight to themselves in the run-up to next week’s big event.

But while I would have expected this sort of exhibitionist behaviour from many of the guests — not to mention the grand duchesses of Fleet Street, reeling back from the pub to tut tut over their lorgnettes about the evils of social climbing — there was one whom I believed could be relied upon to conduct himself with perfect propriety.

Say what you like about David Cameron, I thought (and I’ve said quite a bit in my time, not all of it flattering), but at least he’d know exactly how to behave at an event such as a Royal wedding. And certainly, he’d know what to wear.

If Eton had taught him anything, and to all appearances, it had taught him a great deal, he would surely know that this was one occasion at which the done thing would be to show proper respect by blending into the background. Without question, this would mean wearing formal morning dress, like most of the other dignitaries asked to the Abbey. To wear anything else would be a statement about himself, when all the focus should be on the exchange of vows between the happy couple.

Not for Mr Cameron, I thought, the gauche gesture of Gordon Brown, who in his days as Shadow Chancellor used to turn up at the Lord Mayor’s banquet in a lounge suit (though even he thought better of it by the time he became Chancellor, when he appeared at the annual event properly turned-out in white tie and tails. And very fine he looked, too, after a decade of sticking out like a sore thumb).

Besides, I thought the Prime Minister was bright enough to realise there was no point in pretending he was anything but a toff, because the whole country knew all about his background.

Indeed, I’d always given him credit for making no attempt to disguise his upper-crust vowels — unlike Tony Blair, who would adjust his accent according to his audience, slipping into mockney when he was addressing working-class southerners and sounding like Billy Connolly on his visits north of the border.

So how my heart sank, like millions of others, when Downing Street announced on Monday that the Prime Minister would be wearing a lounge suit for the royal nuptials. And I wish I could say it has risen since Wednesday’s statement that he’ll be wearing a proper morning suit after all.

How I wish I could believe the official line that the first statement was all a big mistake by a minion, who hadn’t consulted Mr Cameron. And a part of me — that ever-shrinking part which still believes the Prime Minister may be a Tory — thinks it is just possibly true.

But the trouble is that he has so much form on this, after turning up at so many of his posh friends’ weddings dressed for a routine day at the office, and even dispensing with a tie at the Conservative Winter Ball, which used to be a very grand occasion indeed. Who does he think he’s kidding?

Yes, of course we known he’s still haunted by that famous Bullingdon Club photograph, which brought out the Bolshevik even in my own, dyed-in-the-wool Tory breast. But come along, Mr Cameron, the secret’s out. You’re not going to convince anyone that you’re an ordinary man of the people, just by appearing improperly dressed at grand occasions or even by flying Ryanair on a mini-break to Spain.

No, my fear is that the Prime Minister was quite happy for his spokesman to announce he would be wearing a lounge suit for the wedding, and it was only when he saw which way the wind was blowing that he changed his mind. A bit like the NHS reforms, really. Or the forestry sell-off. Or any one of half a dozen other policies he’s thought better of, after reading the next day’s papers.

Either way, the damage is now done — and the question of what the Prime Minister will wear has become almost as much discussed as the bride’s choice of outfit for next week.

Oh, well. I’m pretty sure that, at least on this occasion, we can rely on the groom’s grandmother not to shout out in a stage whisper, when Catherine Middleton enters the Abbey: ‘My God! She’s wearing white!’