In the 1940s, during the Second World War, the young evacuee Claude Whatham created a series of highly coloured pantomime decorations in order to spruce up the Waterloo Chamber. Due to the threat of bomb damage the Lawrence portraits were removed from their frames, leaving bare spaces in their stead. Mr Tanner, headmaster of the local Royal Estate school, directed various pantomimes in the Chamber, the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret performing alongside pupils from the little school. Tasked by Mr Tanner with adding the decorations, Claude Whatham, then a part-time art student at Wycombe Technical Institute and School of Art, produced the designs on rolls of wallpaper before they were pasted up by the Castle decorators. Whatham shared the Throne Room as a studio with Sir Gerald Kelly, later President of the Royal Academy, who was working on two portraits of the King and Queen's coronation. This story is made all the more interesting by the fact that Whatham turned out to be a very successful TV and film director; his best known works were Swallows and Amazons from 1974 and Cider with Rosie from 1971.