“I have in sincerity pledged myself to your service, as so many of you are pledged to mine. Throughout all my life and with all my heart I shall strive to be worthy of your trust.”
Queen Elizabeth II at her coronation in June 1953
Elizabeth II has died aged 96. She became monarch in February 1952 – her coronation took place in June of the following year – and was as on the throne for longer than any other British king or queen. This year, she celebrated her platinum jubilee after seven decades of service to the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth Realms.
“Her reign has been part of the tapestry of my life”
Inez Sharp, editor-in-chief of Spotlight
For me, as for millions of other British people, there has never been a monarch other than Queen Elizabeth II. I hadn’t yet been born when the Archbishop of Canterbury placed the Imperial State Crown on the head of the 26-year-old princess in Westminster Abbey in 1953, but her reign has been part of the tapestry of my life.
If you are looking for potted biographies of the Queen, you’ll find those everywhere over the coming days. Here, I’d like to share with you my own memories of the moments she was present in my life. There was a time, and I am old enough to remember this, when the screening of films at cinemas was preceded by the national anthem. Once, on a rainy windswept holiday in Devon, I went with my sister to see the film Anne of the Thousand Days – I must have been about eight years old. After standing up to sing “God Save the Queen” accompanied by a very creaky organ, I watched the story of the tragic life of Anne Boleyn. No wonder we needed to sing about saving the queen if this was how it could all go, my eight-year-old self had decided. A year or so later, my father had an accidental encounter with Queen Elizabeth. He worked in the City of London and, one day, on the way to a business lunch, discovered that the route to the restaurant had been cordoned off. There was nobody about, so my father walked to an island in the middle of the road and was about to cross when an enormous limousine stopped in front of him for a moment. Always curious, my father bent forward to look into the car and found himself staring straight at the Queen. Instinctively, he raised his hand and waved; the monarch smiled kindly and waved back.
I don’t come from a family of monarchists and the Royal Family were not a topic of dinner-table discussions, but I do remember my German mother thoughtfully watching Queen Elizabeth on a televised royal walkabout. After a while, and almost to herself, my mum said, “I do admire her, and it makes me a little bit proud to have witnessed the reign of such a strong woman.”
“She was someone to look up to”
Judith Gilbert, editor-in-chief of Business Spotlight
I am reminded today of the ad for the long defunct Laker Airways that ran all over US television in the 1970s when I was a girl. Laker Airways ran discount shuttle flights between major US hubs and London. The ads showed Sir Freddie Laker in front of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey and the Tower, giving us poor, culture-starved Yanks a glorious tour of the British capital and extending to us the following invitation in his received pronunciation: “Do come back. All is forgiven.”
Indeed, even as a citizen of a nation born of an anti-British revolution, I find myself truly saddened at the passing of Queen Elizabeth. She was always there. Even as a little girl in New York, for me she was there. She was a fact of life, a rock, an institution for us all, someone to look up to, fan of monarchy or not. She always maintained her Contenance and radiated calm and strength. Truly, we have lived through an Elizabethan era, the reign of a woman that has lasted longer than all of us have been alive, who dedicated her life to service (albeit in the highest of styles, and to my knowledge, in part at the UK taxpayers’ expense). Remarkable.
When Princess Diana died, the world was grief-stricken. Diana was the People’s Princess, as Tony Blair first called her and people mourned her loss. While their styles were different, I believe Queen Elizabeth was the People’s Queen. She, too, belonged to all of us.