A Royal Prospect

  Chancing upon photo snaps from twenty five years before, Heaney takes a new look at an excursion he and his wife took to Hampton Court. The piece pointed a long-distance lens at courtship and the early days of marriage (DOD323). Heaney and Marie had married in 1965 and spent their honeymoon in London. Both of them look overwhelmed by sun and circumstances (nearly sunstruck); a ‘he’ with a single thought in mind (wild for her) and a ‘she’, to-the-palace-born, with hair style to match (her neck bared in a page-boy cut); the ‘he’ effecting nonchalance (all dreamy  as if a thousand miles away) as they sail on the Thames. ‘He’ notes her alluring pose (Head to one side), her warm […]