Sometimes you just know.
Yesterday, I heard the announcement from the palace that there was concern for the health of The Queen. At that moment, I knew that the day wasn’t going to be a good one and I knew that Her Majesty was at the end of her life.
I was struck, immediately, with great sadness – sadness that her family would be going through those personal emotions that we all feel when we lose a loved one. Sadness that that stable presence through my entire life was gone. And sadness for a wonderful woman.
But this sadness has been replaced, strangely, by joy. Joy that I was privileged to have had HM as my monarch for all of my life, a monarch who typified everything that is good and a monarch who had my absolute respect and unbridled affection. I had the privilege of serving her as an officer of the Crown and can only hope that my sense of duty and commitment was one per cent hers.
Joy also that Her Majesty fulfilled what she promised when, as a 21-year-old, she made a promise to the British people and to the empire/Commonwealth, that her life “whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service”. In the modern vernacular – Lady, you nailed it.
Her 70 years of service as monarch had many highs and some deep lows. In her later years, when she looked back, I am sure she would acknowledge that somethings might have been handled better while, at the same time, she should have been reassured that most things were handled brilliantly.
There are, of course, two sides to Her Majesty – the public and the private where only rarely did the two come together.
As a public monarch, she was committed to her work as head of state who was so often seen with her red boxes, working her way through the paperwork. Her workload in terms of meeting people, from other heads of state, through ambassadors and prime ministers, to ordinary members of the public, was truly phenomenal which, in her later years, defied her age. Were we surprised that only two days before her death, she stood to shake hands with her new Prime Minster?
And for those ordinary folk who saw her, these memories will remain a highlight of their lives. Not only did she always appear to be interested in the lives of those she met, across the world, she actually WAS interested. She cared and we were left in no doubt she did.
In private, she had her family, of which, like any other mother/grandmother/great-grandmother, she was fiercely protective of. While some members of ‘the family’ may have taken wrong turns or made poor decisions, she remained loyal to them.
And, where she could, she valued the privacy of family time, spent at Sandringham, Windsor, on the Royal Yacht Britannia or, her ultimate retreat, Balmoral where, I would say, fittingly, she ended her days.
She was also sustained by a faith as strong as anyone as she led the Church of England, a faith so few of us can imagine and a faith that has supported her through the dark days and a beacon in good times.
We will never see her like again but King Charles III answers his long time calling with a clean slate with his Queen Consort at his side, and with a line of succession now fixed via the Duke of Cornwall and Cambridge. I am sure she will have prepared him well. Not in a sense of telling him what to do, but instilled in him a sense of duty that she demonstrated each and every day.
As we spend the next days reflecting on her 96 years of life, we should be grateful that we were privileged to be alive when she reigned. We should focus on her sense of duty and service and we should celebrate at how wonderfully she fulfilled her promise to us 75 years ago.
And, as we move into the King Charles III era, support him in defining the monarchy for the years ahead, in the way she should wish, as her legacy.
Rest in peace, my monarch, my leader and my spiritual friend and long live the king.
About Cumbria Cat
Born in Cumberland and, from 2023, will be back living in Cumberland, having spent most of the past 50 years in some place called Cumbria, this cat has used up all nine lives as well as a few others.
Always happy to curl up on a friendly lap, the preference is for a local lap and not a lap that wants to descend on the county to change it into something it isn’t. After all, you might think Cumbria/Cumberland/Westmorland is a land forged by nature – the glaciers, the rivers, breaking down the volcanic rocks or the sedimentary layers – but, in reality, the Cumbria we know today was forged by generations of local people, farmers, miners, quarriers, and foresters.
This cat is a local moggy, not a Burmese, Ocicat or Persian, and although I have been around the block a few times, whenever I jump, I end up on my feet back in my home county. I am passionate about the area, its people, past, present and future, and those who come to admire what we hold dear, be it lakes and mountains, wild sea shores, vibrant communities or the history as rich and diverse as anywhere in the world.
