Britannia Rules as Royals Hit Town

Is this a fun couple, or what?

The Yorks have hit town for a few days, and if you liked them in Westminster Abbey, you’ll love their road show in L.A.

Anyone who does his reading in line at a supermarket knows them as Andy and Fergie.

But the House of Windsor’s extroverted exports, formally titled the Duke and Duchess of York, will trundle off the royal yacht Britannia this morning in Long Beach to start their Southern California sojourn as patrons of UK/LA ‘88, a British arts festival.

Heavy Security

They flew into Los Angeles Friday afternoon.

Under hazy sunshine, the royal couple stepped off the plane at a remote section of the airport, with only dignitaries, reporters and numerous police, Secret Service and British security personnel on hand.

They were greeted by Mayor Tom Bradley, Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana, British Consul General Donald Ballentyne and their wives.

Security was rigid, as usual. More than an hour before the couple went aboard, an unclaimed briefcase found a block from the royal yacht was detonated by U.S. security men, and turned out to be--a briefcase.

Heavy trucks, loaded with dirt, were drawn around the regular British Airways 747 flight with the couple aboard as soon as it landed at Los Angeles International Airport to reduce the risk of snipers.

The couple set out for Long Beach in a Rolls Royce limousine in a motorcade of nine vehicles, led by a police car and motorcycle escort. They planned a quiet night Friday aboard the royal yacht at the Long Beach Naval Air Station.

This is Andrew’s second royal visit to Los Angeles and the first for Sarah, who are accompanied by the usual royal entourage plus a gynecologist for the duchess, who is three months’ pregnant.

And if there is any doubt as to who is the big draw, some merchants in Chinatown, where they visit today, ordered up a banner reading, “Welcome Fergie and What’s His Name.” Why? Well, says Don Haley, owner of the Kai Mei Shop, because “she’s adorable.”

In a busy nine-day schedule whose daily mid-morning start times apparently allow some latitude for morning sickness, the rollicking 28-year-old Yorks will, among other things:

- Chat with UCLA film students and film stars.

- Be serenaded at City Hall by Los Lobos and the Trojan Marching Band (which will be standing still).

- Helicopter onto an American aircraft carrier (both are qualified copter pilots, and he dodged missiles in the Falklands War).

- Survey a Scottish sculptor’s composition of 600 Barbie and Ken dolls.

- In a real test of royal charisma, try to draw a crowd in downtown Los Angeles on a Saturday.

They will also be greeted with trumpets at a magnet school where students are coming in on a Saturday to hear first hand about their latest class project, “Life in a Castle.”

Schoolchildren there and at a private West Los Angeles school for the learning disabled were drilled in royal etiquette for the visit and warned not to call them “Fergie” and “Randy Andy.” One student, exhausted by the strain of royal favor long before they arrived, grumbled, “I don’t even like ‘em already.”

Supporting the Home Team

Hoping to kindle U.S. business interest in Britain, the couple will gaze dutifully at almost as much British stuff here as they would see at home: British fashion, British cars, British stamps and antique watches, a British food promotion at a Vons market (sort of a “Bundles From Britain”), and the duchess’ father, Maj. Ronald Ferguson, playing a benefit polo match in Indio, where Sarah will lob out the first ball.

Even the weather looks British--the same dank gray skies that greeted Queen Elizabeth II on her visit here five years ago.

If they have time to send a post card, it will probably read, “Great place--hope to come back and see it some time.”

True, most frisky young newcomers to California don’t spend time with the heads of Arco or Occidental Petroleum, and the only beach they’ll be seeing is Long Beach.

And true, this is the handsome, skylarking duo who drove off to their honeymoon with a teddy bear in the royal landau. She poked her umbrella at people at Royal Ascot and pelted her Andrew with rubber chicken legs for charity. As a boy, he teased his royal mother’s dogs and reportedly put itching powder in her bed.

On his 1984 visit here, Andrew angered news people by spraying them with white paint; the exasperated queen paid the damages. The closest Andrew should get to paint on this trip will be David Hockney’s works at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

He will host two investment seminars aboard the 412-foot royal yacht, whose dining room alone seats 56. If royal charm works, they’ll more than make up the fuel costs in future investment.

On this trip, women probably won’t toss him bouquets with their phone numbers tucked inside, and the gifts that fill the hold of the Britannia on any royal trip will doubtless run to toys and baby clothes, instead of souvenirs like the surfboard, the Marilyn Monroe T-shirt and the troublesome paint sprayer he was given in 1984.

Andrew is now a father-to-be and full partner in what his grandfather, King George VI, called “the firm,” the royal family. The titles alone are soberingly orotund: Duke and Duchess of York, Count and Countess of Inverness, Baron and Baroness Killyleagh (the name of a spot in Ireland where some of Sarah’s forebears hail from).

Duke of York is the traditional title for the monarch’s second son, but the last two Dukes of York have wound up as kings. The first, King George V, ended up on the throne because his elder brother died, and the second became King George VI when his elder brother, later the Duke of Windsor, abdicated to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson.

But odds are slim that Andrew, now fourth in line, will face that. Their baby--due in August and to be titled Prince or Princess of York--will be fifth in succession.

Besides, as a courtier quoted in one book about the royals said of the high-spirited but unintellectual Andrew: “Andrew as king would be like (Princess) Margaret as queen--it would put us all out of business.”

The irrepressible Yorks will no doubt manage to break out of the choreographed solemnities of protocol for some memorable impromptu moments.

The best chance for the public to greet them is to join local British clubs at a “walkabout” this morning outside City Hall, and city and British officials have been working to turn out a respectable crowd. Spectators are asked to arrive by 10:30.

The usual weekend habitues of the Civic Center are street people, who stretch out under the trees or in the sunshine. Clancy Imislund, director of the Midnight Mission, says the Yorks’ visit is not “a burning object of thought” for them. “It’s not at the moment a topic of conversation on the street,” but come Saturday, he added, perhaps a few will stop by “to see how things are--ask about Charles. . . .”