My two children turned into staunch royalists… for a time
My children – having spent the week being brainwashed, sorry, I mean educated, about the Coronation at school – were as high as kites on Saturday, marching around the house shouting ‘all hail King Charles III’ and waving union jacks.
'Erm,' I said, addressing Mary and Wilf, aged six and four, 'you know there are two views about this and some believe the monarchy is outdated and there is no place for it in modern-day society because it’s supported financially by UK taxpayers and because the notion of having a system of hereditary power at the top of the country’s political, military and religious institutions perpetuates divisions and inequality?'
‘Shut up, dad,’ said Mary, polishing off a chocolate bar and taking great care not to wipe her filthy hands on the cloth provided but to smear them on the lounge settee instead. ‘Stop being boring - it’s starting in a minute.’
To be honest, I don’t mind the Royals, for nobody - and I mean this sincerely - can wave at people like that family can.
When it comes to sticking one hand vaguely into the air and waving it in a lackadaisically clockwise manner our Royals quite literally wear the crown!
It's at this point that weary readers will possibly point out to me that the Royal Wave is actually anticlockwise, complete with video evidence to prove it.
But people underestimate the effort that goes into it. The antimonarchists bang on about privilege and class and money, but I’d like to see them sit in the back of a car for three hours with an awkward fixed grin on their faces waving to a group of screaming strangers waving tiny flags and asking for a selfie but only if Camilla’s not on it. It must be a living hell.
I particularly admire Charles since I read the story about how he has an employee to iron his pyjamas, get the temperature of his bath water to exactly his liking, and to every morning and night squeeze one inch of toothpaste onto his toothbrush.
I think the latter is particularly fabulous and I like to imagine he measures it and explodes in a fit of rage should his Colgate Total be 0.1 of an inch too long or short, perhaps marching the disgraced employee to the stocks so he can hurl rotten cabbages and stones at their head for half an hour or so until he’s certain they’ve learned their lesson.
The kids and I sat down to watch the Coronation (after all, it’s probably the only one we’ll see in our lifetimes … well, at least for the next three or four years at any rate). The children excitedly perched on the couch and lasted about, oh I’d say at a rough estimate, 90 seconds before chucking their union jacks to one side, shouting ‘this is dull’, and retreating to the back garden to play tig.
And they had a point, for it was a hard watch.
I mean it’s all very worthy but there’s not much levity is there?
Would it really be too much to ask for an occasional joke, maybe the
Archbishop of Canterbury putting the King’s crown on the wrong way, just for a giggle?
I tried to get the kids interested again by telling them my favourite Royal fact.
No, not Prince Andrew and his non-existent sweat glands, but William the Conqueror and specifically what happened at his funeral.
As he was being lowered into his tomb it became clear his corpse was too big to fit in. In their wisdom, they decided to force it. Alas, this backfired in spectacular and gruesome fashion when the King’s body burst and exploded, leaving what is described as ‘a disgusting odour throughout the church’ and liberally spraying all those close by with intestinal gas and bits of body gunk … particularly annoying as it was 1066 and power-showers had yet to be invented, so the guests had the pleasure of wandering round with remnants of stinking dead monarch on them for weeks afterwards.
I also told them a few other facts as well, just to try and stop them playing tig and to pique their interest in the day’s historic events.
Members of the Royal family aren’t allowed to eat shellfish (a purely preventative measure in case of food poisoning
… I bet Harry gorges on prawns all the time now, just to make up for lost time); the Queen spent most weekends at Windsor Castle because she liked playing with a huge dollhouse which featured electricity, running water and working elevators (no, really); and any young boys in the family must appear in public in short rather than long trousers because – according to British etiquette expert William Hanson (a man I wouldn’t rush to go for a pint with) – 'a pair of trousers on a young boy is considered quite middle class'.
They briefly showed interest, watched five more minutes, then got bored again and disappeared again.
When Mary returned from school on Monday she told me her teacher had asked if anyone had watched the Coronation.
My daughter put up her hand and told the class,
‘no, not really, but my dad told me that a dead King exploded’.
I’ve rarely been so proud.