It’s always a treat to meet a fellow Brit expatriate — especially when you’re both really far from the old country, say, at a writers’ lunch in Palm Beach, Florida.
That’s where this week I met Liona Boyd (pictured) who, not only is almost exactly my age, but was born in my birthplace, London, and like me has written two books.
In her case, the books are memoirs about her enormously successful career as a classical guitarist. Liona, known world-wide as the First Lady of the Guitar, has played for princes and presidents — and for the one-time King of Late-Night TV, Johnny Carson. She has played with, among others, Chet Atkins, Eric Clapton and Olivia Newton-John, and has 28 albums to her name. She is now a naturalized Canadian citizen and divides her time between her homes in Toronto and Palm Beach.
Prince Philip’s Pen Pal
Among the princes for whom she has played is Prince Philip, husband of the Queen of England with whom Liona has maintained a pen pal relationship for the last three decades. She met the Prince through Pierre Trudeau whom she dated for eight years, and who as Prime Minister of Canada invited Liona to play for the Queen and Philip.
In her sequel, No Remedy For Love, Liona quotes from three-decades’ worth of letters from the Prince in which he comments on climate, hi-tech, and gives her advice on relationships, and even her stationery.
When they met in April 2013 for a private tea in the same Royal Suite at the Fairmont Royal York hotel, Toronto where “ironically” she had occasionally met up with Trudeau in the seventies, the Prince gave her his suggestion for a cover for her new album.
Three Maple Leaves
Writes Liona: “Prince Philip greeted me, a big smile lighting up his face as he warmly shook my hand. I noticed a dark purple bruise on his right eye and cheek, and when I expressed concern he told me his mother always had the same in her senior years […] I let him hear my patriotic song, Canada, My Canada.”
Then, Liona (pictured above with the Prince in 2017) asked him: “Do you have any idea of what I should use for the cover of my new album?” She adds: “Prince Philip chuckled mischievously and suggested I wear three maple leaves [the national symbol of Canada] and nothing else! We both laughed at his original idea, but I told him it might be more prudent to choose a typical Canadian scene with a lake and a canoe.”
A Memoir — & A Sequel
Liona wrote her first memoir, In My Own Key: My Life In Love and Music about her down-and-out years in Paris, her romance with Pierre Trudeau, and her concerts round the globe. In 2017, she penned the sequel, No Remedy For Love in which she covers her subsequent adventures and romances, her spiritual journey and her personal and professional struggles.
And, for those Netflix subscribers who have watched two seasons of The Crown, and know the Queen’s husband only as a “bit of a womanizer and lout” Liona provides a different perspective.
During their thirty-year pen pal relationship, Philip aired his views on a whole slew of personal subjects. Liona writes:
“He seemed to enjoy my letters in which I had recounted my adventures and misadventures. He wrote, ‘I can quite understand why ambitious men are anxious to attract your attention. Being alone and unattached has its advantages, but it also has its disadvantages.'”
On a new romance that eventually fizzled out, but about which Liona confided to Philip, “he wrote to tell me how he felt marriage was always a gamble and how ‘hugely grateful’ he was that his own had proven to be so successful. He told me that ‘at least with your guitar you can win many hearts.'”
Signs of Old Age
He also commented on his tech challenges: “After wrangling a new sound system in Balmoral Castle, he complained to me, ‘I find it maddening that, as soon as you master one of these gadgets, they bring out a new version with the book of instructions that is translated from the original Japanese by a Korean language student.'”
And he even gave her advice on her stationery. “Get some new writing paper,” Philip wrote, “a gentle admonishment , teasing me for still using my gold embossed Beverly Hills stationery. But it would be years before I did. Yes, Prince Philip didn’t miss a thing.”
“Referring to his advanced age, he told me jokingly that his body had started to give him “signs.””
Last Meeting for Pen Pals?
In 2017, Liona met with the Prince at Windsor Castle for what she thought might be the last time. Of that meeting with the 95-year old Prince, she writes: “I was pleasantly surprised by how very well he looked. I told him I was curious about to whom he dictated the letters he wrote to me, and who read mine to him. I wondered who typed his responses, and whether one of his equerries hand-delivered his mail on a silver platter.
‘Of course not,’ he retorted, ‘I read your letters myself and type my letters to you on my own typewriter.’ He told me he had never learned to use a computer or email.” Liona said that the letters are always typewritten except for handwriting “Dear Liona” and either “Love Philip” or “Yours ever Philip.”
Get Well Letter
I asked Liona if she had heard from the Prince since his car accident last month after which the 97-year old Prince agreed to give up his driver’s license. She told me that, of course, she had written to him.
“He always writes back,” she said. “This time he wrote that after all his years of playing polo and carriage racing he is quite used to crashes! But he said he was thankful for the airbags.”
Liona’s memoirs are available through Amazon in hardcover and e-book as are recordings of her music.
Photo Credit Prince Philip photo: AP/Matt Dunham