Diamond jubilee celebrations (From The Argus)
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Diamond jubilee celebrations
12:38pm Thursday 2nd February 2012 in Comment and Analysis
I shall never forget the moment when children at my Church of England school were quietly marched into the hall for a second assembly of the day.
We knew sad news was about to be declared when the vicar’s wife strode sadly towards us and announced that the King was dead.
For the first time we all sang God Save The Queen and it sounded strange as we all thought of the young woman whose life of public service started that day.
The National Anthem was an accepted feature of life in the 1950s and woe betide anyone who didn't stand up for it at cinemas or theatres.
It was played constantly on the radio back in 1952 as all programmes were taken off the air and replaced by solemn music.
There was immense goodwill towards the monarchy, proved each time a car carrying the royals made an official journey.
Cheering crowds would line the streets.
That spirit continued into the Coronation, staged on a cold, rainy day in 1953, and I was lucky enough to be among those on the Embankment in London watching the procession.
There have been tremendous changes in society over the last 60 years but the Queen has remained remarkably constant.
Imperturbable and immovable, she is at once known to everyone while remarkably little is known about her.
As she approaches her diamond jubilee on Monday, we know she is fond of horses and dogs.
She is keen on the Commonwealth and a great supporter of the armed forces. She liked the royal yacht Britannia.
But because she never gives interviews and restricts her public utterances to anodyne Christmas messages, we know nothing of how she views her governments or her role.
As monarch she has met every prime minister since Churchill. It is rumoured that she liked Jim Callaghan and wasn’t too keen on Margaret Thatcher but no one knows for sure.
Duty
Twice I have sat close enough at official lunches in Brighton to hear her conversation which was perfectly normal but unmemorable.
Once I was on the same table but did not exchange a word because of the convention that she always speaks first. So I have no royal secrets to reveal.
She has generally conducted herself well over those 60 years and even the most devoted republican would find it hard to criticise her immense sense of duty.
Two decades or more past retirement age, she still travels the world carrying out engagements. If she sometimes looks a little sour or bored, it is scarcely surprising.
The only time when she fell seriously out of step with public opinion was during the days after Princess Diana had died and she wisely took advice from Tony Blair to show a bit more sympathy.
Even then she may in the end have been right because it now seems that the nation vastly overreacted to the news.
Monarchs are not always liked. George IV, in his Brighton days, was considered by many subjects to be greedy and feckless.
And while the Queen may be held in high regard by most people, the same cannot be said for all the other royals. Minor figures are often seen as parasites or pushy bores, sometimes both.
The Duke of Edinburgh has shown commendable loyalty to his wife but otherwise appears to be a gruff martinet, gaffe prone and often rude.
Princess Anne can also be famously acerbic and when I have seen her in Sussex has not cut a sympathetic figure.
Princes Andrew and Edward are widely perceived as being a right royal waste of space.
Then there is poor Prince Charles, growing old while waiting for a role he will not inherit, if at all, until he is ancient.
With his anachronistic manners and habits (it is rumoured that a valet squeezes his toothpaste onto a brush each day), he is the last of the old style royals.
Everything about him is stiff and unnatural in an informal age.
The all too obvious failings of the royal children make me wonder what the Queen and Prince Philip were like as parents. I imagine them being remote and aloof.
Few monarchs in the past have reigned into old age, George III and Victoria being obvious exceptions.
But now everyone is living longer including the royals, changes may be needed.
Respected
Since the Second World War, Dutch monarchs have abdicated to let their children succeed to the throne before the onset of old age.
The Queen is unlikely to quit but future monarchs will have to consider it, otherwise royals, like popes, will only be aged.
It would help the monarchy no end if Prince William could become king while still young and touch with people.
There will be celebrations this spring and summer to mark the Queen’s jubilee, although there will be nothing like the affection shown to her on her accession that cold February day 60 years ago.
The Queen is respected rather than loved by many. Most of her subjects will wish her well this year while realising that the monarchy like all other institutions, has to modernise.
So two rather than three cheers for the jubilee.
