To her credit was her deep devotion to him – although, with all his wonderful qualities, why wouldn’t she be devoted? And she was also devoted to all seven of their children, even Eitel, whom he could barely stand. There was also a natural stateliness about Dona, something he thought was largely due to her magnificent yard-wide, ostrich-feathered and flower-bedecked hats, which often had the addition of a small stuffed bird tucked amongst the foliage, and all of which he had designed.

May rarely, if ever, wore anything a yard wide. Mindful of her tightly curling fringe, she nearly always wore a toque, pleated and ruched to resemble a turban and adorned with a spiky Hussar plume or a small, jaunty ostrich feather.

No one, though, could wear jewels in the same way May could – and certainly no one could get away with wearing so many items of jewellery all at the same time. A tiara would be worn with a pearl-and-diamond choker twelve strands or more deep, which in turn would be worn with ropes of pearls hanging to her waist, brooches, bracelets and earrings of emeralds, or rubies or sapphires – and sometimes a collection of all three stones at once – and always a selection of fabulous rings. Why she didn’t look like an overdressed Christmas tree he didn’t know, but she never did. Instead, with her superb posture, she always looked the epitome of imperial glamour.

In many ways he thought her entirely lost on Georgie, whose only nod to flamboyance was to wear a white gardenia in his lapel, and who looked more like a well-to-do country solicitor than a king and emperor.

Willy had decreed that Dona and all six of their sons were to accompany him to the station where, as Georgie and May stepped from the train, a brass band would launch into the British national anthem. He and Georgie would then ceremoniously inspect a Guard of Honour before, in open carriages, making a state procession through crowded, banner-decorated streets all the way to the Neues Palace.

Tomorrow morning there would be a repeat performance for him, as he met Nicky from the train, the colossal difference being that where Georgie and May had travelled with a modest entourage, consisting primarily of Georgie’s private secretary and his equerry, plus the usual valets and ladies-in-waiting, he had been informed that Nicky would be travelling not only with his always very large entourage, but with more than a hundred policemen on an armour-plated train.