Tying a good Windsor knot

Being a bit of a “Bah, humbug!” merchant, this time of year isn’t exactly up my favourite avenida, though I doff my moth-eaten Santa hat to those who can’t see past multi-buys of seasonal snowglobes and panic-ordering of satsumas because this is what they do for fun from October onwards. Who felt the same last year, the year before that and will feel the same next year: i.e. proper festive and completely bonkers.

Many of these sweet-natured, if deluded, souls, will doubtless also be doubly delirious after this week’s royal engagement. “Long-awaited” (by whom?) apparently and “muchwelcomed” (especially by a government trying to hide the thinness of its industrial strategy and the fact that further benefit cut freezes are going to be the closest that many British families get to a White Christmas).

That is churlish, I admit. I actually think it’s rather nice that two people who, judging by their telly appearance on Monday, are head-over-heels in love with each other and just can’t hide it, are injecting a bit of real romance and personal happiness into a time of year not known for the sincerity of its sentiments.

Just don’t, please, call it a “fairytale”. We’ve had that before and look what it led to. I know people need something to cling on to and look forward to in hard times. And as things stand (or fall, perhaps, if Phil Hammond’s budget projections are to be believed), these times are hard indeed.

I just have a bit of difficulty with all those cheery flag-wavers who seem to think this announcement is the answer to life. I’m sure it is and will be for Harry and Meghan personally. He seems a pleasant, thoughtful man who has made mistakes and learned from them. And she seems like a capable, feisty woman with a bit of what the old Scots tongue might call “smeddum” about her.

Claims could even be made, given the rather more wide-ranging and interesting background of the bride-tobe than is usually found hanging around the British upper classes, that the personal in this case might just influence the public face of monarchy. Might it drag our less-than-sociallymobile system closer to what is reality for many further down the social food chain? Yet already there is much talk of titles and such, how the children will be addressed and the application of HRHs, dukedoms and honours all round. What a class and hide-bound old country we still are, to be sure.

We must be the only country in the world that could tackle the reform of a second chamber based on hereditary privilege without addressing the elephant in the room: a family at the head of our state which is only there because of hereditary privilege.

To borrow a much-used, current phrase in the political world, “the settled will” of the British people shows a majority for a monarchy. So as democrats we must all respect that. There is, I would surmise, a much higher percentage of the population in favour of the monarchy than there is for Brexit, although, of course, we have never had the chance actively to vote for the former.

Now it seems that history has almost repeated itself for a royal, albeit not the reigning monarch, and an American divorcee with an interesting hinterland. Though the current social context is so different to the 1930s that we hardly recognise what went before, I think there is an obvious solution to this and a bit of royal exorcism to boot. Call them the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and be done with it. The past is another country…

Good luck to them as individuals, I say, although I do find myself getting a bit sniffy about the ease with which it is announced that the bride “will” become both a member of the Church of England and a citizen of this great nation of ours. In the face of the harassments and obstacles that many, doubtless deserving, applicants for the latter status, at least, are put through, it just goes to show that “them” and “us” still applies.

Dyson And as if imminent (at least FIVE months away!) royal nuptials weren’t enough, it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. All those sparkly weeks of compulsory “fun”, depending on your definition of “fun” and that sinking feeling when you suspect (or know) that other people are allegedly having more “fun” than you are.

Mind you, one’s ideas and tastes change with age, as we all know. A friend of mine confessed the other day to getting all excited about the arrival of a cordless Dyson (other aspirational domestic gadgets are available).

But you know you’re running out of social inspiration and seasonal ambition when you check out your diary with the Significant Other, jot down the dates, times and venues of a few festive outings, then hear yourself saying: “Can we make sure we make time this week to go to the coup at Riverside to pick up some compost?”

I know how to show a boy a good time...

Just don’t, please, call it a fairytale. We’ve had that before and look what it led to

Picture: Getty Images. Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle will be married next year.

Helen Brown Wry and Dry