Menu dated 3rd August 1935



Luncheon aboard His Majesty's Yacht, Britannia RYS, for His Majesty King George V racing in the annual Cowes regatta off the Isle on Wight.

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Pigeon pie, hollowed bread-rolls filled with chicken and gherkin; and a simple cherry tart were served to King George V in 1935 as he personally raced his beloved J-Class yacht, Britannia, one last time at the Cowes’ annual regatta.

Aboard the 37 metre-long yacht (121 ft), the King and his racing crew were provided racing provisions in the form of a large royal hamper that came with its own embossed menu-cards bearing the King’s gilded personal monogram (GRV) and the yacht’s name Britannia with the suffix RYS  for the Royal Yacht Squadron.

It is possible this menu is from the King’s last ever meal aboard the yacht as the vessel, which had been built for the King’s father in 1893, was retired forever at the end of this racing week.

A former royal chef to King George V, Gabriel Tschumi, remembered how the simple sounding Petits Pains a la Mayonnaise were bread rolls that were “round instead of oval”  for which “the centre of these rolls is scooped out and filled with minced chicken, tongue and gherkin and mixed in a rich mayonnaise and topped with parsley”.

Another of the King’s personal staff, Frederick Corbitt who served as the Deputy Comptroller of Supply at Buckingham Palace, recounted how the King’s favourite two events each year were Ascot and Cowes:

“These were the two weeks of the year which the King enjoyed, I think, more than any other. The same was not true of Queen Mary. Never a good sailor, she resolutely refused to accompany her husband aboard his racing yacht.

Instead she would go ashore to the Isle of Wight from the Victoria and Albert, and spend her afternoons looking at antique shops or touring the beauty spots of the island".

Corbitt went on to remember how at Cowes, “the King and Queen lived aboard their yacht, the Victoria and Albert, and the King went racing every day in his beloved sailing yacht, the Britannia”.

He remembered how “the best dessert fruit, and flowers, were sent daily to the harbor from the Royal gardens at Windsor and were brought over from Portsmouth in one of the Victoria and Albert's barges. So, too, were the King's specially made cream cheeses, which came from the Royal dairy at Windsor".