VISITING ROYALTY

As a recent Boston College Law School graduate, engaged to a handsome hairdresser on the North Shore, I accepted a one-year judicial clerkship in Superior Court – Criminal Session in Newark, New Jersey, my home state. Judge Harrison, my mentor, assigned me to escort Lady Kenyon, a visiting magistrate from England, on a courthouse tour. She was an engaging and elegant woman who took an interest in me, a fledgling lawyer, just as she had been a few decades before.

When I told her I was getting married in August and starting out in September on our honeymoon in England, she insisted that we visit in return for the attention I had shown her that day. Paul and I booked our trip to include a visit to London, where we stayed in a not so wonderful rooming house recommended by a friend.

Her husband, Lord Kenyon, headed the family business as Chairman of the Board of William Kenyon & Sons LTD (UK, USA, Canada, France, Italy, Zambia), originally manufacturing and now exporting rope and related equipment on an international scale for every known industrial and nautical purpose. Lord Kenyon’s family had been established in England as far back as the sixteenth century, according to parish registers.

Lady Kenyon invited us to stay at their townhouse estate in Manchester. We toured the gardens and lawns which Lord Kenyon personally managed, then toured the campus of his alma mater Manchester University where he held a position as trustee and benefactor.

In the evening, the four of us retired to the study for sherry and conversation in front of a crackling fire, with logs cut from the property. Early next morning, the cheery and most hospitable Lady Kenyon knocked on our bedroom door and quickly entered and exited, leaving a breakfast tray of tea and scones on the night table for her newlywed guests, who happened to be actively snuggling under the feather quilt and deeply embarrassed.

Even so, Paul and I felt like visiting royalty in the care of distinguished British nobility. We relived the experience every anniversary, the fairy tale that stayed true for forty-one years.

Later that day, our hosts took us to a village fair where Lord Kenyon judged the vegetable contest, an impressive display. Then they sent us off to visit their son, a young professor at Oxford who dutifully gave us a tour of the grounds and buildings. When we offered to have him join us for supper, he politely declined and wished us well, probably having had enough of the company of his parents’ guests, the young American couple.

We enjoyed a late afternoon drink at the oak bar and stayed overnight at the Randolph Hotel, a genteel institution that continues to operate to this day in the Oxford city center, and then continued our travels through the English countryside before crossing the channel to Paris and then Geneva. But not before we were hosted by their daughter for dinner in Cardiff, Wales. The Kenyons had enlisted their family to entertain and welcome the visiting – shall I say – dignitaries? And we posited that when Mum and Dad asked them to entertain us, saying no was not an option.

Lord Kenyon carried on the family name and traditions with distinction, expanding and modernizing business practices and dedicated to philanthropy in education and many other causes. As such, he was recognized by the British royal family for his prominence and contributions.

In 1968, Queen Elizabeth met with him, probably for some kind of charitable ribbon-cutting event that constitutes the responsibility of the working royals.

Four years later, I too had met with Lord Kenyon. This places me within One Degree of Separation from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. I am a huge fan of The Crown on Netflix, but while I was watching it, I had not thought of my real life connection, in 1972.

Move over Downton Abbey – Lord and Lady Levine conquer the Brits!