What a selfless servant to the nation the Queen was, unassuming and self-effacing, an example to all public servants

FOR most people in the UK the only monarch they will have known is our late Queen.

What a selfless servant to the nation she was, unassuming and self-effacing, an example to all public servants and one who should be emulated by those who follow in her footsteps and those who are elected to public office.

Throughout her reign she grew in wisdom and wisely kept her counsel for the private meetings she held with her PMs. Her tastes were simple – her corgis, horses, her love of horse racing, and Scotland.

No doubt members of her family benefited from her advice though some may not have heeded her words as carefully as they could have.

In private she was surely as good a listener and a supporter of her friends and family as she was in the interests of the nation.

No doubt, over the years, her accumulated wisdom, gained from acute observation of, and personal meetings with, so many who held high positions, stood her in good stead so that relationships with them never soured.

Her dedication to duty even up to two days before her terminal decline has to be a source both of amazement and inspiration to all those who can now reflect upon her long life of service.

Charles, I am sure, will have her in mind as the model upon which he will base his kingship, though doubtless he will also give it his personal and characteristic stamp.

It will be adherence to the example she set which will save the constitutional monarchy for the nation so that we will not succumb to the temptation to abandon that tradition for the empty blandishments of republicanism, which would not have the richness of that tradition and the mystique of royalty to lend colour to the outside world.

Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.