BBC Overseas Service – London Column – April 2, 1947 – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
What was going on in Europe, this week from April 1947. The Royal visit to South Africa. King George VI, his wife Queen Elizabeth and their daughters Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret visited South Africa from February until April 1947.
The Royal Family travelled to Cape Town on the HMS Vanguard, with almost 2,000 naval officers on board to care for the them.
During their trip, the family travelled extensively by train through South Africa and visited Swaziland, Basutoland (Lesotho) and the Bechuanaland Protectorate (Botswana). At the time, the King reigned over these nations as part of the British Dominions, and the trip was seen as an attempt to bring the territories closer to to the Empire.
Meanwhile, Britain was dealing with some of the worst flooding in decades as it was slowly thawing out from the worst series of snow storms which blanketed Britain during the Winter months. The flooding was further complicating on-going efforts to rebuild Britain from the devastation of the War. Rising waters from rivers overflowing their banks were turning villages into lakes and rebuilt homes into mud-soaked hulks.
And the process of rehabilitating thousands of orphaned children, rescued from Nazi Concentration camps and brought to Britain was slow and painstaking, even two years after the end of the war. But relief agencies were putting lives back together through school and physical therapy. Once rehabilitated, the orphans could choose to seek refuge in America, stay in Britain or join the thousands of Jewish orphans who were settling in Palestine.
And while the Royal Visit to South Africa was coming to an end, that’s some of what happened as reported on this weekly broadcast from the BBC World Service program, London Column for April 2, 1947.
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