Bosh on 9/9/2022 at 07:11

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Brits have a mixed relationship with the whole royalty thing - some are firm monarchists, others hate the institution passionately, and some are simply indifferent. We're not sheep blindly following and loving royalty, that's for sure. However, whatever an individual's stance, the Queen is largely thought of with much fondness and respect in the UK. Tocky - you summed it all up perfectly.

I personally am not fussed over royalty, I pay little attention to them. However, I have always admired the Queen and recognise her dedication to service - she promised it long, long ago and has delivered on that promise. I feel she gracefully listened, learned and moved with the times as much as that gilded cage permitted. Other members of the royal family can do one and some have behaved appallingly, but the Queen - a steady rock.

I feel strangely saddened by her death. She has always been there, and celebrating her platinum jubilee was much-needed light and fun in a time of covid and bleak world events. I don't know how I feel about Charles. He's always been there too, yet is some faraway person. For sure, it is definitely not going to be the same.

Aged Raver on 9/9/2022 at 10:37

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Well I’m sad. I never considered myself a Royalist but I think the older I get, the more affected I get and from re-reading this post it sounds as though I am. Who knows?

I was 9 when the Queen was crowned in 1953 and we all watched on TV, so she’s been there most of my life, like a foundation that you don’t think too much about, solid. No doubt my parents were sad when her Dad died because he’d been on the throne during the war and resolutely stayed in London even after Buckingham Palace was bombed by the Luftwaffe, something her Mother famously commented on "I am glad we have been bombed. Now we can look the East End in the eye" (the East End of London took much bomb damage and she visited them). As I’m reminded by today’s media, the young Princess Elizabeth enlisted in the military in the war as soon as she was 18. My own Mother and most of her girlfriends did the same as soon as able, avoiding the need for parental approval.

In 1953 not many in the lane where we lived had TVs but my Dad had made a little television (9 inch black and white screen) so when the Coronation was televised live (something never done before) my Mum invited neighbours in, sitting on rows of chairs in our little front room with the blinds drawn. There was a lot of TV commentary from Richard Dimbleby describing dignitaries arriving before the ceremony began such that an elderly lady in our front row stalls dozed off and on waking went out to the scullery where Mum was making tea for everyone and said how much she’d enjoyed it (it hadn’t started) and went home.

On reflection I’m now thinking perhaps she thought it was all a bit boring, as did I.

Every kid at school (and I think across the country) was given a Coronation mug (still got mine). Loads of stuff was aimed at kids, jigsaws, things you could make out of cardboard from the back of cereal boxes (the gold Coronation coach etc). It must have been a marketeer’s dream. We even got a load of flags including triangular ones on a cotton string that we hung up somewhere, perhaps on the outside hedge. I think my uncle brought those. Most people had served in the war so patriotism was still very evident and I guess spilled over into demonstrably supporting the Monarchy.

I don’t know when things changed, perhaps in the 1960’s, but after a performance (at the cinema or theatre, or end of day when radio/TV broadcasts finished) they played the national anthem “God Save the Queen”. Only one verse, but as a youth I remember standing up at the cinema when they played it at the end. It was what you did. You didn’t have to sing. Things were deferential (pre Rolling Stones etc.) Seems strange now. And “God Save the King” seems even stranger, like something out of Shakespeare.

How marketing depts will play things with King Charles, who knows? I can’t imagine a ceramic manufacturer trying to sell x million King Charles coronation mugs to the Dept of Education or whoever to give to kids in the current climate, but then the country wasn't exactly rich back in ‘53 after the war. And I’m way out of touch with woke society. I’m somewhere in the middle masses. But if marketeers think they can navigate all that stuff and there’s money in it they’ll be out in force. Tea-towels and mugs always do well when any Royal events happen. My parents weren’t Royalists but I still have and use a Silver Jubilee Tea Towel from 1977 that I inherited made from Irish linen (indestructible) and for a long time I had a very fine half-pint beer mug that my Dad gave me that I regularly used until one day like many of my treasured things I broke it.

Over the years I think the Queen made some very regrettable decisions (but so have I) and I don’t know the pressures, considerations and compromises involved. She also made some hugely noble gestures. I resist giving examples of either. We’re all a product of our upbringing and fate and from this distance on balance I think she did a very good job.

As correctly reported, she pledged "my whole life, whether it be short or long, will be devoted to your service." RIP faithful servant.

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PigLick on 9/9/2022 at 12:49

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they may have occurred before she was born but they certianly continued while she was queen for decades. Could she have done something to change, yes quite probably.
Also how much is the state funeral going to cost eh?

Harvester on 9/9/2022 at 13:44

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People are always like "monarchy is retarded, why should these people get all these privileges because they were born in a certain family". But as I see it, it's not that much of a privilege, it's a lifetime of service to the people and a life in the spotlight where everything you do or don't do is heavily scrutinized. And while you're wealthy and live in a castle, you're extremely limited in what you can do and say. I wouldn't want to trade with someone like Prince William (who is about my age) for the world.

For what it's worth, Queen Elizabeth II took up the mantle of serving the people very well, with the utmost dedication until the end. There has also been an impressively low number of scandals concerning her, and the scandals that were there mostly concerned the people around her, like prince Andrew, Charles/Diana and Harry/Meghan and not the Queen herself. The Queen has been a beacon of stability for the UK and the commonwealth. Rest in peace.

Starker on 9/9/2022 at 15:14

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I don't know, I would call having, for example, 20 chefs at your beck and call quite a bit of an indicator that you have privilege. Not that she was exactly without any choice in the matter either, as her uncle's example shows. And let's not forget that a not insignificant part of the "service" was to put a clean face on a bloody empire, some of the atrocities still taking place during her rule: (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/apr/18/britain-destroyed-records-colonial-crimes)

Yes, she was just a mere symbol, and a figurehead, but it's worth also keeping in mind what she was a symbol and a figurehead of. She may not have been a thief herself, but she was the queen of thieves and sat on the hoarded wealth robbed from subjugated people.