Why a Hospital Hid a Body During the Queen’s Visit
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Queen Elizabeth II unknowingly “shared a room with a corpse for 20 minutes” during a visit to a hospital in the U.S. Virgin Islands that had only one air-conditioned room, according to a new biography.
Writer Hugo Vickers described how Elizabeth and Prince Philip visited the island of Tortola on an “unbearably hot” day and staff at the hospital felt Her Majesty would need a moment in the cool air.
However, a patient had just died and “the only place to put the body was in a cupboard in that air-conditioned room,” according to Vickers’ latest book Queen Elizabeth II, out on April 9.
Why It Matters
Royal visits take months to plan but some of the most memorable moments are often the things that are not planned, including accidental breaches of royal protocol and now, thanks to Vickers, this rather unconventional approach to storing a cadaver.
What to Know
Hugo Vickers wrote: “It was unbearably hot, that day in 1966, when the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh landed on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.
“As the only air-conditioned room was at the island’s hospital, it was thought that the monarch might appreciate spending 20 minutes there.
“Unfortunately, the night before, Dr. Robin Tattersall had operated on a hopeless case and the man had died. The only place to put the body was in a cupboard in that air-conditioned room.
“No one dared tell the Queen, of course. Seven years later, Dr. Tattersall met Prince Charles and let the cat out of the bag. Naturally, Charles could not wait to tell his mother about how she’d shared a room with a corpse for 20 minutes.”
Queen Elizabeth II’s Visit to the British Virgin Islands
A 2016 Virgin Islands Government press release recalling the queen’s 1966 tour read: “During that visit, Her Majesty opened the Sir Francis Drake Highway and the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge.
“The Queen toured Peebles Hospital, Government House, the Territory’s secondary school, the Agricultural Station in Road Town and visited Virgin Gorda and the Little Dix Bay Hotel.
“At the official ceremony to welcome The Queen, the Administrator of the Territory, His Honour Mr. Martin Samuel Staveley presented Her Majesty with a gift, a Virgin Islands sloop made by Captain Ira Smith.”
Elizabeth’s visit was part of a wider five-week tour of the Caribbean in 1966, taking in British Guiana, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, St. Vincent, Barbados, St. Lucia, Dominica, Montserrat, Antigua, St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, as it was then known, the Bahamas and Jamaica. The couple traveled on The Royal Yacht Britannia.
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