Author Topic: King of Thailand's visit to llandudno in the 1940s  (Read 1829 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline All Our Yesterdays

  • Member
  • Posts: 11
King of Thailand's visit to llandudno in the 1940s
« on: March 15, 2017, 02:52:18 pm »
Are there any pictures of the King of Thailand's visit to Llandudno in the 1940s or newspaper reports of the event?

Offline Hugo

  • Management board member
  • *
  • Posts: 13881
Re: King of Thailand's visit to llandudno in the 1940s
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2017, 03:31:33 pm »
There must be something in the Conwy Archives that covers such an historic event, possibly in the Llandudno Advertiser or the North Wales Weekly News

PS      I've just had a look at a book by Ivor Wynne Jones  " Llandudno Queen of the Welsh resorts" and at pg 29  he mentioned the Imperial Hotel Llandudno and it's most famous guest.was the exiled Queen Rambai Barni of Siam  (Thailand's previous name)  who stayed there until she, like everyone else was turned out in 1940 when the Imperial became the HQ of Britain's evacuated Inland Revenue Department.

No mention was made of a King of Siam or where the Queen went to afterwards


Offline Hugo

  • Management board member
  • *
  • Posts: 13881
Re: King of Thailand's visit to llandudno in the 1940s
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2017, 03:54:47 pm »
I've just copied this extract about the King and Queen of Thailand from Google but it doesn't mention his stay in Llandudno but does mention their stay at the Lake Vyrnwy Hotel in mid Wales

Life after abdication[edit]

A Statue of the King in Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, Nonthaburi
Prajadhipok spent the rest of his life with Queen Rambhai Barni in England. At the time of abdication, the couple was living at Knowle House, in Surrey, just outside London. However, this house was not suitable considering his health, so they moved to Glen Pammant, still in Surrey, a smaller house, but with more walking space. They remained there for two years. The couple had no children, but adopted the infant grandson of one of King Chulalongkorn's full brothers. The adopted son, Prince Jirasakdi, would later serve as a pilot in Britain's Air Transport Auxiliary. He died when the plane he was flying crashed in 1942.

They moved again to Vane Court, the oldest house in the village of Biddenden in Kent. He led a peaceful life there, gardening in the morning and writing his autobiography in the afternoon.

In 1938 the royal couple moved to Compton House, in the village of Wentworth in Virginia Water, Surrey.

Due to bombing by the German Luftwaffe in 1940, the couple again moved, first to a small house in Devon, and then to Lake Vyrnwy Hotel in Powys, Wales, where the former king suffered a heart attack.

The couple returned to Compton House, as he expressed his preference to die there. King Prajadhipok died from heart failure on 30 May 1941.