Death of a Queen

 

We were of course expecting the death.  After all, she was ninety six years old and couldn’t go on for ever.   Nevertheless it still came as something of a shock in the early hours when I was once again not sleeping and wondering how sensible it would be to simply get out of bed and let the day begin.   But I hesitated and listened to Kate Hawkesby on radio instead and felt unexpectedly saddened by the news.   I was still listening an hour or so later and was then strangely cheered at the unexpected emotion showed by Mike Hosking.

 I’m one of a diminishing group who can remember when Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary became Queen all those years ago, the death of her father George VI following hard on the heels of that of my own father.  At school that morning the blinds in our classroom were down and Sylvia Smith said it was because the King had died but that turned out to be wrong – it was because we were, rather excitingly, going to watch a film show about the mountains of Scotland and possibly Wales as well.   We learned that Ben Nevis was the highest.  

We had never actually seen the Queen in the flesh of course and never expected to; she was only visible via Pathe News Gazette playing before the main feature at local cinemas.   There was great excitement therefore when it was announced that this glamorous new Monarch would be touring our area of North Kent and the points where she might be best seen were listed.    Molly from number 31 decided that we must definitely not miss out and that the best view of her would definitely be from what we still called The Old Roman Road.   It was quite a walk from York Road and we set off early one Saturday morning in high spirits.   We had to wait for a considerable length of time at the roadside, still relatively rural at the time and I don’t remember hordes of others.   The motorcade slowed down as we were noticed waving and cheering fervently.  The young Queen looked directly at us and smiled broadly.   We were ecstatic of course, could hardly believe our good fortune.   The real life Queen had actually noticed US – Jean  and Molly, two insignificant twelve year olds from Northfleet!  When we got back to school a day or two later we found that we were definitely not the only ones that the sleek black vehicle had slowed for, not the only twelve year olds the dazzling new Sovereign had noticed and waved at.

As the months passed we became more and more accustomed to catching glimpses of Elizabeth the Second, not in the flesh sadly but on newsreels and we even persuaded ourselves that we were desperate to see films that under normal circumstances we might have definitely avoided – simply to see the young woman who had smiled and waved at us as her car moved slowly by on The Old Roman Road.

The luckier ones amongst us came from families who during that year became the proud owners of TV sets and they regaled us with reports of viewing her regularly on News At Six as she went about her Queenly business, cutting ribbons and making speeches.   We weren’t unduly envious because she hadn’t smiled directly at them had she?   We definitely felt we had an important connection with her and this feeling did not wear off for a long time.  

We began to read The Young Elizabethan magazine, available at the local library which had emerged around the time of her wedding to Prince Philip and which until the encounter on The Old Roman Road we had largely ignored.   It became a favourite because it ran competitions, published poems and puzzles and recommended new titles by writers like Noel Streatfield and Monica Edwards.  

All these memories seemed to engulf me earlier today and I began to realise how great a supporter I have become of a constitutional monarchy.   This is in no small part because of the strength, stamina and resilience shown over the years by Elizabeth Alexandra Mary who had never really wanted the job of being Queen – but did it anyway, and did it in an exemplary fashion.