God save the King. Or should that be God help him?
Given it’s the Coronation and a Bank Holiday Weekend (well in England anyway) – I thought I should do the next newsletter a week early as – Bonnie Prince Charlie finally makes it to the big gold high chair. Here is just an idea for some special commemorative merchandise which of course did not get done in time.
As a callow youth I always thought that the Queen and the Royal Family had a particular type of hallowed magic. I was on a J1 visa in Newport, Rhode Island in 1997 when Diana died in a car crash in Paris; I remember buying a copy of Kitty Kelley’s muckraking biography ‘The Royals’ in Boston Airport on the way home, and laughing at the accounts of Fergie telling dirty jokes about the Queen and Princess Margaret. I also remember the Queen’s triumphant visit to Ireland back in 2011; wearing green and also tackling cúpla focail as Gaeilge (a few words in Irish) at a banquet in Dublin Castle.
It has been a long and winding road for Charles; he certainly has some big shoes to fill (I wouldn’t mind seeing him try to squeeze into a pair of Lizzie’s sensible mid-height court shoes). He has played the long game and managed to end up with Camilla; overcome distant parents and a lonely childhood, the weight of dynastic expectation (look at me with my big words!), bullying at school, a hideously unhappy first marriage; and those ears (I say this as someone who was christened ‘Ear Lingus’ in primary school, but I had the good fortune to grow into mine). Diana herself apparently referred to them as ‘the Windsor flappers’ (Charles’ ears, not mine).
Given the death of the Queen, and the stomach-churning revelations about Prince Andrew, Charles takes to the throne at a particularly difficult time for the Royal Family. Most unfortunate of all is the splintering of the relationship between William and Harry, the latter having taken a blowtorch to the whole institution. Outside the gilded bubble of the monarchy, Charles will rule over a country that, like Buckingham Palace, is creaking, shabby and dilapidated, its systems needing urgent care and attention – and is purely extant to serve the needs of the aristocracy that rules it.
In the immortal words of my dearly departed father, the UK is ‘in the jacks’. Public services and the NHS are a mess; doctors, nurses, teachers and other public sector workers are striking due to pay and conditions. Apparently now there are now more food banks than branches of McDonalds, every month more and more people are having to suffer the embarrassment and shame of contacting them for help. Leisure facilities, pools and libraries are being shut and torn down, creative subjects such as art and drama are being phased out of state schools and are becoming the preserve of private schools and those wealthy enough to send their children there. Hubert Parry sang of Britain’s ‘green and pleasant land’, which is gas considering that almost every one of England’s coastlines, rivers and waterways has suffered some sort of pollution. And behind it all is the stranglehold of Brexit, ensuring that British citizens, even if they are unhappy with the current state of the country, don’t even have the option of leaving (thank the Lord for an Irish passport).
I am sure that it will be a wonderful weekend – particularly in London – but I won’t be watching it. I’ll probably be doing a Tesco shop after putting manure on my mother’s flowerbeds. Apologies for being a Moany Molly; I do love England and London and I am so grateful for the opportunities and friends that I found here. No doubt there will be a mass outpouring of pride and awe at the bejewelled, gold-plated, holy-anointed-exhaustively-BBC-covered proceedings this weekend, but when everyone is roaring ‘God Save the King’ and looking at the reckless extravagance, one might think about the 14 million people living in poverty who are having to choose between eating and heating their homes. now they can’t even protest without getting arrested, thanks to legislation brought in last year by our fabulous government and the luscious Suella Braverman.
Aside from all that, enjoy the weekend and bank holiday. And if you’re showing up to throw eggs at the freshly crowned Charles III, don’t get caught – and please make sure to use free range, not barn or cage-fed (I can particularly recommend his Duchy of Cornwall Columbian Blacktail range).