Two months after her death, Queen’s tribute to our war heroes rings round the Albert Hall
IT MAY be King Charles’s first Remembrance weekend as Monarch, but it was his late mother who paid poignant tribute to the sacrifice of Britain’s Armed Forces last night.
A moving montage of the late Queen’s well-chosen words provided a powerful commentary to the Festival of Remembrance at London’s Royal Albert Hall.
King Charles, the Queen Consort and the Prince and Princess of Wales joined other members of the Royal Family to watch archive footage of Her Late Majesty speaking of Britain’s wartime resilience. Kate – wearing a black Self Portrait gown and three poppies, believed to represent the three branches of the Services – paid tribute to the Queen by wearing Her Late Majesty’s fourstrand pearl choker, which she also wore to her funeral in September.
The audience heard the Queen say: ‘I am only too well aware of the tremendous contribution that the Armed Forces have made to the standing and reputation of this country and throughout the world.
‘When Prince Philip and I were married, Britain had just endured six years of war, emerging battered but victorious. Prince Philip had served with the Royal Navy in the Far East while I was in the ATS [Auxiliary Territorial Service] learning to drive an ambulance with care. The wartime generation – my generation – is resilient and it is with humility and pleasure on behalf of the entire country, indeed the whole free world, that I say to you all: thank you.’
The Queen’s time with the ATS made her the first female Royal to serve as a full-time active member of the Forces. She was subsequently patron of the Royal British Legion for seven decades.
Today, the King will attend the Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph in Whitehall to lay a new wreath of poppies mounted on black leaves, as is traditional for the Monarch. Prince William will lay a wreath featuring the Prince of Wales feathers with a new ribbon in ‘Welsh red’. But neither Prince Andrew nor Prince Harry will attend, despite both having served in the Armed Forces.
Also at the Royal Albert Hall yesterday were Rishi Sunak and his wife Akshata as well as the Earl and Countess of Wessex, the Princess Royal and Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence.
Veterans who spoke movingly about their experiences of conflict also praised the Queen’s dedication.
Stan Ford, who survived a D-Day torpedo attack on his ship, said: ‘I thank the Queen for her service, and not just during the war. She was a linchpin for all of us. I admired her and I was proud to call her my Queen for all these years.’
John Nichol, a Tornado navigator with the RAF, was shot down in the Gulf War in 1991 with his pilot, captured and held as a prisoner of war in Baghdad for seven weeks.
He said the late Queen ‘epitomised’ service, adding: ‘When she was called to serve she did not waver, she did not question what was required. She never said, “I can’t do this”. With great dignity and grace she carried out the task she was called upon to fulfil until her very final days.’
There came stories of those who paid the ultimate sacrifice – and the families who mourn them. The parents of Corporal Stephen Bolger described the loss of their ‘very precious son’, killed in an explosion in Afghanistan in 2009. In an emotional, pre-recorded interview, Michael and Denise Bolger, described their son as a ‘rebel’ and ‘a loveable handful’ who had always wanted to join the Army. ‘It made him the person he was,’ said Michael, as he recalled a conversation he had with his son just before he returned to Afghanistan for a second tour of duty. He said: ‘We were sat in the lounge together and he got up to leave and I got up with him and said, “Look Steve, dodge the bullet. Just look after yourself.” He turned to me and got hold of my arm and said, “They won’t get me”. And, of course, they did.’
But the most uplifting words came from the late Queen as she spoke of how ‘the tradition of service, the willingness to honour one another and seek the common good transcends social change’.
‘Service and duty are not just the guiding principles of yesteryear,’ she added, ‘they have an enduring value which spans the generations.’