The Queen is the antidote to our shallow, self-obsessed age
BHer Majesty’s reign has been remarkable because she has offered quiet service without complaint
‘I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations’
efore the children broke up for half term, I gave an assembly about the Queen at my eightyear-old daughter’s school. As a sea of little faces looked back at me, imparting all that they had learnt about our 96-year-old monarch and this weekend’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations, I have to confess that I became a little emotional.
Realising that my youngest child, born at the tail-end of Generation Z, may be the last of the “youth of today” to remember the Queen in the flesh made me feel rather unsettled.
Then I watched The Unseen Queen, Monday night’s truly remarkable collage of Her Majesty’s home videos and personal photographs and tears once again filled my eyes.
It may just be that it has been a long week – and the Jubilee Bank Holiday is certainly not the time to feel melancholy – but if we have learnt anything from the commemorations, it is surely that the Queen remains one of a kind.
One of the first times I ever went on ITV’S This Morning show, 15 years ago,
I appeared alongside the late, great James Whitaker, the former royal editor of the Daily Mirror.
We were discussing the Queen and, in typically rambunctious fashion, James insisted that, compared with figures like Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, her time on the throne had been rather “unremarkable”.
I remember being somewhat taken aback by his comments at the time. But reflecting back on it now, I have begun to see perhaps what he meant. The comfort that so many millions of people take from Her Majesty comes precisely from the fact that she has quietly and diligently completed her duties and given her subjects devoted service, without ever seeking to be “remarkable”.
Although the world may have changed beyond all recognition since 1952 – the one constant that has remained the same throughout has been our sovereign.
And by the same, I don’t mean in terms of the Queen’s ever present set of pearls, her perm, the corgis at her feet, or the Launer handbag that has spent the past 70 years suspended from the crook of her arm.
I’m referring to the unwavering way in which she has honoured the Coronation Oath she made before God on June 2, 1953 to “govern” her “peoples… according to their respective laws and customs”.
And to the manner in which she has stuck, Loctite-like, to the declaration she made on her 21st birthday, pledging to serve her subjects “my whole life whether it be long or short”. She has been the glue that has held this country together for 70 years.
In every other aspect of public life, promises are so easily broken – from NHS waiting lists, to party manifestos, even the idea that charities will always spend your donations wisely.
Yet the Queen has always kept her word. That surely has more gravitas than some of the more political, and indeed military, exploits of her predecessors.
Because, let’s face it, unlike some of those who have worn the crown before her, it has never been a case of the Queen imposing her own will whatsoever over her people, but rather of supporting the decisions that they have made, even when privately she might have disagreed with them.
As she said herself in her 1957 Christmas broadcast: “I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice. But I can do something else. I can give you my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.”
What better life can a person in a position of such privilege live but one committed to the service of others?
The Queen’s staunch devotion to duty has been almost like a religion in our otherwise increasingly secularised society.
Still sifting through her red boxes well beyond retirement age, her work ethic has been an example to all, regardless of who they are, where they come from or what they believe in.
And this is largely down to her steadfast impartiality. If you never take a side, then everyone can be on yours. “Everyone is our neighbour, no matter what race, creed or colour,” she once said.
“Whatever life throws at us, our individual responses will be all the stronger for working together and sharing the load.”
A huge part of the Queen’s enduring popularity is precisely because she has remained such an uncontroversial figure during such contentious times. Who else is there to turn to when we want someone to say it like it is, without any spin? There is no one.
In an era when unsolicited opinions are all too freely given, Her Majesty’s resolute non-partisanship hasn’t been boring. On the contrary, it has proved to be an absolute blessing.
How rare it is to have such a prominent figure in public life who doesn’t feel the need to spout off their views on everything from Brexit to whether or not women are born with penises.
In a world that has had it up to here with gobby celebrities, opining on subjects about which they know little (even Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, can’t stop telling us all about his every waking thought, for heaven’s sake), what a joy it is to have someone who keeps her opinions to herself.
Someone who doesn’t speak for the sake of it, but when she does decide that she wishes to do so, ensures that every single word has been carefully chosen.
That was one of the unique attractions of the BBC documentary, The Unseen Queen. It wasn’t just that we were able to enjoy the old, previously unseen cine footage of the royals behind palace walls, it was that it came with an informed and considered voiceover so far removed from the unashamedly self-assertive brashness of the Twitterati. Only Sir David Attenborough comes close on that score.
That the most photographed and famous woman on earth is most likely an introvert who would sooner be riding through the Highlands heather or walking the dogs through Frogmore than attracting any attention to herself is an irony that should not be lost on today’s selfie generation.
If, God forbid, the Queen were the type to take a photograph of her food and post it on social media, we could rest assured that, far from applying filters and inane captions, it would probably still be in its Tupperware box.
Not self-conscious, devoid of ego and unabashedly herself, the Queen is the perfect antidote to our narcissistic, self-obsessed age.
She has taken the work seriously but not herself, famously commenting in her 1991 Christmas broadcast: “None of us has the monopoly on wisdom.”
When Her Majesty has made mistakes, she has listened and changed her behaviour accordingly, such as when she gave the televised address “as your Queen and as a grandmother” in the wake of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. If only our elected representatives had the same humility.
Yes, there have been the occasional interventions, such as her advice to the Scots to “think very carefully” before voting in 2014’s independence referendum.
But we do not really know what she thinks about anything – and never will unless she agrees to the posthumous publication of the diary she has written in fountain pen, every night, without fail.
In The Unseen Queen, Her Majesty spoke about how “great events” like the Coronation give us “a glimpse of the solid and durable foundations of our existence”.
The same could be said of the remarkable woman who has served country and Commonwealth for seven decades.