Doctor’s Orders

‘WE love our Royal Family and we can never imagine wanting to get rid of them, but nevertheless it’s comforting to know that we have someone waiting to step into the breach.

‘I suspect Sir Francis in the Florence Nightingale ward with the turkey baster…’

For the King of Norway, it seems, may actually be more British than the British Royals – which admittedly is a bit like saying something is more ducklike than Bombay duck.

Historian Tor Bomman-Larsen suggests that the late King Olav V was actually the son of an English physician called Sir Francis Laking, who artificially inseminated Olav’s British-born mother Maud with his own sperm when she visited London in 1902.

Princess Maud, who was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, apparently became pregnant during a six-week stay in a London hospital while her husband was in Denmark.

The couple had apparently been trying unsuccessfully for a baby for six years.

If this already sounds like an episode of Sunset Beach, there is more – Mr Bomann-Larsen says Maud may not have known about the artificial insemination.

Maybe not at the time, but you would imagine that she would have become curious when all of a sudden she found herself pregnant.

Then again, you can catch pretty well everything else from a stay in a British hospital…’

Posted: 15th, October 2004 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink