Our family did the Oath...well, almost

THE REPUBLICAN wing of the family (my younger son plus wife) decamped to Paris last Friday for a weekend of shopping, steak frites and zero monarchism. Even so, a small party turned up at mine yesterday to watch the Coronation on television. Or as I thought of it, Corrie.

Mina, my five-year-old granddaughter, arrived with her father and brother.

She was very excited, sporting some sort of Disney outfit which involved a long gauze skirt, a wand and a crown.

It was her first Coronation. It was my first Coronation too now you mention it.

I was quite excited. Her brother Ted is three and cares for nothing but fish and cars. It seemed unlikely there would be much to interest him.

Corky and Mrs Corky had come with their teenage grandson, a nice boy really. He folded himself up in an armchair in an attitude of total despair and scrolled through his phone. My husband went to read the paper in the kitchen.the rest of us sat dutifully around the TV.

Mina is pretty well informed for a five-year-old, but she found the notion of a third King Charles puzzling because she wondered where the other two were. “Well,” chortled Corky. “The first one was beheaded.”

Mina’s father twitched. He tries to shield his children from the harsh realities of life. Personally, I think he goes too far.

He was quite cross with me for telling her that lions ate other animals. “What does she think they eat?” I said. “Biscuits?”

“It was a long time ago though” said Corky. “Since then there’s been the second Charles, a James, a William, um, loads of Georges, Victoria, a couple more Georges and Edwards, and the Queen Elizabeth who died last year.” Mina nodded.

Ted settled himself on the floor with a handful of toy cars and a rubber shark from the Natural History Museum.

He ran a Peugeot up Corky’s surgical boot and went vroom vroom.“is it Le Mans?” asked Corky. “Yes,” said Ted.

Mina was mad keen to do the Oath of Allegiance thing when the moment came.

She went into the kitchen to ask Grandpa if he wanted to do it too. She came back looking stern with her arms folded.

“He said ‘absolutely not’. Will the Archbishop of Canterbury be cross with him if he doesn’t do it?”

“We’ll do it though, darling,” seeing her bottom lip wobble.

“We’ll all have to stand”, declared Mina,

I said “otherwise it doesn’t count. Even Ted.” Ted looked up, glanced at the TV, shook his head and continued making engine noises.

“Corky can’t stand because of his leg,” said Mrs Corky.

“He has a special dispensation from the Archbishop” she added catching my eye.

PROCEEDINGS moved towards the oath, the new-fangled Homage of the People. Surprisingly the teenager unfolded his limbs and stood among us, sighing. As we waited for our prompting from the Archbishop, Ted – tiring of Le Mans – turned his attention to the shark, rolled on his back and swam it through the air going whoosh whoosh thereby hitting the remote control (which was on the floor) with his shoulder.

The TV flipped to a shopping channel. “Ted!”, screamed Mina. Ted, sensing he had committed something like treason, and (worse still) upset his sister, clutched both the shark and the remote control and fled into the garden where, after a protracted struggle, he was recaptured by his father.

Waiting for the return of the remote we watched a hard sell on a range of air fryers and 14-carat gold bracelets while throughout the nation “a chorus of a million voices” pledged allegiance to the King.

Ah well, we tried.

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