Royal Visitors Get Taste of L.A.’s Way : A Delay in Traffic, T-Shirts and a Straw Hat Mark 1st Day in Southland for Duke, Duchess

With letters attached by hat pins whimsically spelling out “LA” on her black hat, Britain’s red-haired Duchess of York charmed her way through downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, collecting bouquets and a baby shirt from royal-watchers, and laughingly explaining to young history students how Windsor Castle’s “old-fashioned” toilets flush.

Britain’s Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, and his wife, Sarah, who is pregnant with their first child, were welcomed by about 400 invited guests at City Hall and another 1,500 waiting outside, where women in jeans dropped curtsies to the Royal pair during a lively “walkabout” under damp skies.

“I said I named my birds after him and her, and she was surprised,” said Erin Ashman, 10, of Glendale, who wore a white lace dress for the occasion.

And Beverly Greaves, who came up from Anaheim, exulted that she managed to touch Sarah’s hand, “even though she said I couldn’t.”

Visit to Magnet School

Later, when a ninth-grader at a magnet school near USC asked whether Sarah had any house pets, she said she has a Labrador--”apart from him ,” she said, glancing mirthfully at her husband.

“I thought this was about medieval castles,” Andrew complained, smilingly.

Saturday was the first full day of their nine-day Southland visit as patrons of UK/LA, a British arts festival. And the Yorks learned first-hand about Los Angeles life: traffic slowed them by about 20 minutes Saturday, and a water-pump problem Friday in a vintage Rolls Royce forced them to switch to a backup Cadillac halfway between Los Angeles International Airport and Long Beach, where the royal yacht Britannia is berthed.

And as they set off Saturday morning from the yacht, a burst of winter wind threatened to tear off the duchess’ wide-brimmed black straw hat, prompting her to retreat to the yacht to secure it.

In City Hall chambers, they entered to the same fanfare composed for Queen Elizabeth II’s 1983 trip. They were welcomed by Mayor Tom Bradley, who later hosted a lunch at the top-floor downtown Tower restaurant, from which they could see most of the cloud-swept city, including the Hollywood sign.

In his six-minute speech, Andrew apologized for the “slight hitch” that delayed them, and praised the “endless” array of British goods they will survey during their visit.

While it is “natural,” he said, for Los Angeles to “look across the (Pacific) ocean” for its trade, “we in Britain have also grown and prospered,” and “we hope that you will continue to look in the other direction (toward Britain) as well . . . We would like to increase our trade with this great city.”

Responds to Music

Sarah, wearing a black and white lacy suit by the same designer who made her wedding dress, looked animated during Los Lobos’ rendering of “La Bamba,” from the movie.

After their performance, the group, which hails from East Los Angeles, invited the Royal couple to attend their London show in July. Sarah, who told the musicians it sounded like “great fun,” paid special attention to the children, patting band member David Hidalgo’s 11-year-old son on his crew cut head and telling him teasingly: “I like your haircut; you should make your dad do it,” indicating Hidalgo’s own longer hairdo.

Outside, where the USC marching band greeted them with “March of the Gladiators,” the Yorks chatted with waiting British Club members and bent to speak to their children, like 5-year-old Lacey Madjorac, who found them “nice.”

Nora Kariya, 29, came from Bellflower with her sister, Laurie, 26, especially “to get a good look at him . . . He’s gorgeous!”

Sarah spoke briefly with red-haired look-alike Laurie Schoellkopf, 27, of Rancho Palos Verdes. And at one point, the Duchess made one of her well-known “Fergie faces” when Andrew whispered something, and she widened her eyes and pretended to bat at him with the roses and spring flowers in her hand.

Saluted by Dancing

Whisked from City Hall to Chinatown--where merchants had hastily furled the banner that read “Welcome Fergie and What’s His Name”--they watched children dancing dragon and lion dances and, significantly, as rain began to fall, an umbrella dance with paper parasols.

Saturday’s highlight was a tour of the 32nd Street School, a fine-arts magnet school, where students performed modern dances and a Jalisco Mexican folk dance.

In one classroom, full of drawings of medieval manors and booklets about the Tower of London and the British line of succession, nine history students who have studied “Life in a Castle” got to quiz the couple--politely--about the real thing.

As they waited, the children, wearing name cards with castle crenelations drawn on them, panted nervously.

“They’re just people!” exclaimed Meleah Bolton.

‘Personal Things’

“We’d like to know more about personal things, but we have to be more discreet,” said Robynne Royster, 14, before the Duke and Duchess arrived. She ended up asking them whether they did much rearranging of furniture at Windsor Castle. And Ariel Espinosa, 14, asked just how primitive modern castles really are.

“Would you like the cynical answer?” joked Andrew, who pronounced castles comfortable, although some of the wiring work needs “sorting out.”

There are, put in Sarah, “very good old-fashioned loos that actually work really well,” which “you don’t flush, you just pull it up from underneath.

“It really works very well,” she assured the students.

As for dungeons, “there is no use for dungeons nowadays,” Andrew assured them, and one in Windsor Castle has “been brought up to date and is now a disco.”

People Are Watching

Asked if it was hard keeping up with her friends, since her marriage, Sarah replied, “Not at all, not at all, you just have to be a little more aware that people are watching you.”

“Like that lot,” said Andrew, indicating the reporters in the room.

Another student asked Sarah what her most important duty was now.

“Have you got a pad and pencil” the duchess deadpanned. “Oh, my husband, he’s the most important responsibility. He comes first, and then my life. Well, also running an office. That’s quite important. And living in the palace, and just living up to being the Duchess of York.”

She praised American children as “very easy to talk to; very friendly.”

And student Chris Nguyen praised their answers as “very good.”

As they left the school, they were presented with a green ceramic frog, two school sweat shirts--and a tiny T-shirt for the coming baby.

USC students across the street cheered “Fergie” as the couple sped away. But not all were pleased. After some students went to bed Friday night, police evidently posted “no parking Saturday” signs in front of the school, and towed off more than a dozen cars, which will cost $60 or so to free up.

“I look out (the window) and think this is cute,” said Tina Jones, 21. “Then I realize . . . my car is gone . . . I’m kind of peeved.”

The Royal couple will attend a Long Beach church this morning and the UK/LA gala dinner at the Biltmore tonight.