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Mark Logue smiles now when he recalls the jumbled assortment of papers, crammed into an old filing cabinet in his parents’ home.
Unearthed in 2001 following the death of his father, Anthony, the collection of old letters and diaries, penned mostly in barely legible writing, did not seem hugely significant at the time.
Busy with his young family, Mark promised himself he would take a proper look at a later date. It took five years for him to make good that vow, but what Mark found then both astonished him and moved him.
Family history: Mark Logue discovered that his grandfather Lionel had a very special relationship with King George VI as his speech therapist
As he began painstakingly transcribing the documents, he realised they were an intimate record of his grandfather Lionel’s relationship with King George VI.
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ShareThat relationship has, of course, now been beautifully portrayed in the Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech, which tells the extraordinary story of how the King turned to Logue, the son of an Australian brewery accountant, to help him with his speech impediment.
Yet in 2006, Mark had no knowledge that a script was being prepared, and instead became consumed by this private family story. ‘When I started to read through the papers I didn’t think, “Hey, this is Oscar material,”’ Mark recalls. ‘To me this was my grandfather’s life. I knew very little about him so it was a personal voyage of discovery.’
True story: Mark Logue is pleased that his grandfather Lionel's relationship with King George VI has been portrayed in the film The King's Speech
And it has continued to this day: for over recent months, 45-year-old Mark has delved further into his grandfather’s royal friendship, You loved the film, but the events that came after King George VI made that speech were even more poignant travelling across the globe to trace his family history and uncover what turned Logue into the man we meet in the film.
The results can be seen in a revealing documentary that extends Lionel’s story beyond the end of the film and gives the viewer access to the hitherto unseen letters and diaries.
Making it proved an emotional experience for Mark. He says he first ‘met’ his grandfather on screen, in the form of Geoffrey Rush, who he also interviews in the documentary. ‘Watching him in the film was a rather poignant, slightly other-worldly experience,’ he reflects.
Documentation: Mark began painstakingly transcribing documents, realising that they were an intimate record of his grandfather Lionel’s bond with King George VI
‘It doesn’t replace having met him for real, and I wish I had, but it was wonderful to hear my grandfather’s words being spoken by an Oscar-winning actor.’
Mark was born 13 years after Lionel died and says he knew very little about his royal links. ‘My father didn’t tell us much,’ he recalls.
‘I knew he was the King’s speech therapist but my grandfather had kept his professional relationship with him quite secret, and as a result it wasn’t really discussed within the family. We did have autographed photographs of the then Duke and Duchess of York, with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, but I had no idea of the existence of an archive.’
That, in fact, had been guarded by Mark’s Uncle Valentine, before being passed onto Mark’s father after his death in the late 1990s. When Anthony died, it fell to Mark to become its custodian.
‘It was in disarray and out of chronological order. There were all these document folders packed with what seemed to be quite random stuff,’ Mark recalls. ‘It took me ten minutes to wade through one paragraph, and I thought, “I don’t have time to read this.” To me it was just Grandad’s stuff. No bells were ringing.’
King's affection: George VI had a special relationship with his speech therapist and addressed him as 'My dear Logue'
That only happened in 2006, when Mark started to do some research into his family tree. As he transcribed the letters and diaries a picture started to emerge: of the time his grandfather had spent with the King – from October 1926, when the then Duke of York first arrived at Logue’s Harley Street offices, until George’s death in 1952 at the age of 56.
‘There were appointment cards, journals and letters from the King, most addressed to “My dear Logue…”, which showed their mutual affection,’ says Mark. ‘Often they had little private jokes – like in one where the King thanks him profusely for the “boooook”, spelled that way. And lovely moments are recorded in the diaries too.
'In 1944, when the King had made his first Christmas speech without Lionel standing alongside him, my grandfather writes how he told Queen Elizabeth that he felt “like a father sending his son off to boarding school”.’
Meanwhile, unknown to Mark, a parallel journey of discovery had been undertaken: by early 2007 writer David Seidler’s script for what would ultimately be The King’s Speech had arrived at production company Bedlam. As director Tom Hooper memorably revealed in his Oscar acceptance speech in February, the script had been flagged to him as a future film project by his mother Meredith, who had sat through a read-through in London.
Only in 2009, however, were the production team put in touch with Mark via Caroline Bowen, an Australian speech therapist who had written about Lionel and with whom Mark had corresponded.
‘A meeting was set up with co-producer Iain Canning and David Seidler,’ recalls Mark. ‘Iain was tremendously excited but I think David was worried he would have to change his screenplay significantly to accommodate new facts from the diaries. But amazingly, he had pretty much got it right, although they did introduce a couple of new lines after reading the diaries.’
They included, memorably, the one when Lionel gently points out to the King he had stumbled over a ‘w’ in his Christmas broadcast, and, with levity that would once have been unthinkable, the King replies, ‘I put that in otherwise they wouldn’t know it was me.’
‘That was taken directly from one of the diaries,’ Mark reveals.‘The King actually said it on a different occasion, but Hooper used it as he thought it was such a great line.’ Yet fascinating though the film proved to be, Mark wanted to know more. ‘Ultimately, here was an Australian man, not officially trained, who came to be teaching English to the King of England. I wanted to know how that happened, to trace his extraordinary journey. I believed it could make a wonderful documentary.’
The real King's Speech: Lionel Logue sat at his desk in Harley Street
When he first approached broadcasters at the start of 2010 there was little interest – but then the film went global. For the documentary, Mark visited Adelaide, his grandfather’s birthplace, to retrace his steps. Some of his discoveries surprised him.
‘Although he went to private school he grew up against a pretty rough backdrop. Adelaide was going through a terrible depression when he was a boy, and his family was under huge strain. His father made huge sacrifices to give Lionel a step up in life.’
This background, Mark believes, helped shape his grandfather’s determined forward thinking character, although he hardly died a wealthy man. ‘He left only £5,000 and no property,’ says Mark. ‘He certainly never profited from his relationship with the King.’
They remained friendly until the King’s death. ‘In some ways they had a father-son relationship,’ Mark reflects. ‘My grandfather was 15 years older than the King, and I was struck by his almost paternal attitude towards him.’
Sadly, none of Lionel’s three sons lived to see their father’s achievement recognised on such an international scale – although his eight grandchildren have done so. For Mark, making the documentary has, in a sense, been a process of reclaiming him for the family.
‘For a time he became a Hollywood figure,’ he says. ‘That was wonderful, but making this film has helped me think of him as a man, our grandfather.’
The King’s Speech Revealed is on Channel 5 on Tuesday, 3 May, at 8pm.
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