Evening star., 1936-06-21
KING EDWARD KEEPS FIT
DESPITE HEAVY STRAIN
Britain's Monarch, Who Will Be AZ ON
Tuesday, Can Claim Personal
Credit fOr Condition.

the war years, making bone and
muscle and sinew. but little flesh. He
came back eventually, IA pounds
heavier, but still as spare as steeple-
chase jockey. He had given small
thought to exercise. His strenuous
Life was exercise enough.
And then he started in his long
empire tours, and his rounds OF pub
lie duties; and he began to make some
weight, as men will who slow down
physically after leading abnormally
wearing lives in youth. Napoleon,
hollow-cheeked and Iath-thin as a
citizen general grew stout and de-
veloped a politicians paunch when,
as emperor, desk works and cere-
monials took more and more of his
time. The Prince of Wales could
| have gone the same way and, as
King, now own the curves unblush-
ingly displayed by his grandfather,
King Edward VII, who loathed exer-
else and loved the physically easeful
life.
But he had horror of fat; and he
started to do something about it.
His first efforts were crude He put
on heavy sweaters and took before
breakfast runs round the gardens Of
Buckingham Palace-a mile circuit.
In Winter he hunted hard, riding
big horses all the time, and taking
all the fences in his stride (if and
when his horses stayed under him).
He spent all the time he could at the
hunting quarters he had built at the
Craven Club at Melton Mowbray
And in and out of season he played
hard squash rackets, always in wool
lies, to work up a sweat.
Warned After Trip.
When he came back from that
round-the- world tour, which included
a stay with President Coolidge at the
White House, his first place of call
on leaving Buckingham Palace,
whittier he had driven from the sta
ton with his father, was the Bath
Club. For days he had been with
out facilities for exercise beyond those
afforded by a ships deck and GYM
nasium. He wanted a game of squash.
But he was taking too much out
OF himself Sir Harry Preston, sit
ting beside him at a Stadium Club
fight, ventured TO tell him so. Sir
Harry, the arbiter elegantium of Brit
ish sport, himself a claimant for the
amateur lightweight boxing cham
plonship as youth and now renowned
as the youngest 73-year-old man in
England, advised the Prince that he
was setting himself pace he could
not hope TO keep up after 40. The
Prince was then %.
year or two later something hap
pened that made the Prince think
again. At oxford after the war he
had lived with Wing g-Comdr. Sir Louis
Greig, the Scots naval surgeon, who
was his brother of YorkS controller.
Louis Greig was fine all-round ath-
lete who played for Scotland in inter-
national foot ball matches. He
thought he knew all about the tech
n1cal business of keeping ft
However, as the years passed he had
to give up foot ball. The bones get
brittle, and after 1896 a man may
break one in the rough -and-tumble of
rugby foot ball, when earlier he would
escape with a strain or bruise. Greig
was afraid he would make fat. and he
| started a daily run in sweaters to keep
the flesh down. Result, a strained
| heart,
Jerks Good Exercise.
That gave him a problem to solve.
He found the solution in a series of
physical jerks, a ten-minute session
done night and morning as regularly
and habitually as man brushes his
teeth. That, with some riding and
tennis and golf, did the trick, and did
it without taking any of the mental
or physical energy needed for a good
days work, and social, court and off,
cial occasions when a man has to look
fit and fresh (and feel it, too, if he
wants to survive).
The Prince discarded his sweaters
and his runs. He went on playing
squash, but in Singlet and shorts.
He adopted the highland morning
physical jerks routine He found that
a man can burn of superfiuous tissue
exercising naked: that the use of
heavy sweaters is a snare and a de-
luSion.
He rode harder than ever. But pres
emily he had to give that up, too, for
state reasons tafter all, eight or nine
fox-hunting folk regularly get killed,
and a score badly damaged, every sea-
son in England. What could he do to
fill the gap, now that he had sold his
horses, given up his hunting box? He
decided to take up golf. a game he
had never gone in for; and SO by way
Of golf he came to gardening.
He needed country home within
easy reach of town, and close to a golf
course. For a couple of years he
leased friends places; and then he
made his own country place at Fort
Belvedere, on the edge of the park and
forest of Windsor. and close to the
mighty pile Of Windsor Castle, chief
seat of the English kings for a thou
sand years.
Fort Belvedere lies in a belt of un-
spoiled country 35 miles west of the
capital, and within easy run of half
a-dozen golf courses. The King plays
regularly on the Sunningdale course.
He drives over with Cora, his favorite
Cairn terrier, plays a round, drives
back. He practices good deal. James
Braid-known among golfers as "the
doctor" because he is good at curing
faults-has coached him. His handi-
cap used to be 16; it is nearer 10 now.
Lack of care in putting and impetu-
osity with his iron shorts are his weak
nesses. But he may yet get down to
a single-figure handicap.
Likes Digging in Earth
In his garden he does not merely
discuss technical matters with his gar
deners-he knows lot about gardens
now. He himself takes a spade and
goes digging, and planting. He has had
a swimming pool built there
When he leaves Saint James and
moves over to Buckingham Palace he
will have his fathers tennis court,
which he can convert for squash, and
H. l. it. ~