Elizabeth: Queen, Wife, Mother

A very well-made documentary that was shown earlier this year during the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations in Britain. It includes a good many charming photos and home movie footage that have never been seen before - and I think it gives a very good sense of the Queen and the Royal Family as the ordinary, essentially decent human beings that they are, if that has not already been obvious to you these many years, as it has for your Head Trucker.

You Just Can't Win

While the rest of the world looks on admiringly, the stalwart British public
turns out in the hundreds of thousands to pay their respects to the Queen
and show how much they care about their Royal Family.

As a public service, your Head Trucker would like to present the following items to illustrate the fickleness of crowds and the treachery of human nature:

(1)  Prince Charles: At ease with himself and the nation
The Diamond Jubilee celebrations have revealed a new and more loveable Prince of Wales who caught the public mood brilliantly. . . .

(2)  Prince of Wales presents a real danger to the monarchy
We know far too much about the Prince's foibles and past errors to revere him as we revere his mother. . . .


Both articles appeared in the same goddamn newspaper - the Telegraph - in the last 24 hours, with the last echoes of "God Save the Queen" still reverberating in the air over Britain. 

Which just goes to prove the truth of the utterance by the first Queen Elizabeth:  All affection is false.  And she knew what she was talking about.

I won't bother to analyze each article for you - you guys can read, can't you? - only to observe in passing that the first is based on an utterly false premise (i.e., that Charles has somehow had a magical change of personality in the last week, when this distant and disinterested observer can discern no change whatever in the way he's always been these last forty years or more).

The second, at bottom, is based on the unremitting woman-scorned attitude that utterly refuses to let Diana rest in peace.  The writer asks if she can be the only one who wondered "what that woman was doing in the Queen's carriage."  Which tells you all you need to know about the writer, who has spent the last few days turning out breathless encomiums on all the Queen's saintly virtues - and does not understand a single one of them.

To which I would only add, if Diana's own sons don't hold a grudge, who the hell are you to do so?  And just what kind of hell and high water has your own stumbling family been through?  And why don't 60 million of your fellow countrymen get to gossip all to hell and back about every single sin you've committed, in minute and intimate detail? World without end, amen.

Without saying a word, seems to me, the Queen made things perfectly clear this weekend what the programme is.  Just for the record, and to reassure all my British and Commonwealth truckbuddies, here is how it's all going down.  There is no point pissing and moaning about it, because there's just no point:

1.  No, the Queen will never abdicate.
2.  No, the succession will not skip a generation.
3.  Yes, Charles will be the next King and
4.  Yes, Camilla will be Queen - not Princess, not Duchess, but Queen.
5.  Barring unforeseen calamity, Wills and Kate will not reach the throne until they are a boring middle-aged couple that your kids will see no relevance in, until they get to be certified antiques too.

And that's it.  If you British bitches don't like it, well then - change it and be done with it, for fuck's sake.  God knows we Americans have amply proven that a monarchy is not a necessary thing, and so have the French.  Go ahead and get it over with:  pension the Queen off, give her a council flat in Bayswater, a commemorative tea cosy, and a nice thank-you card.  Then turn all the royal palaces into museums, or better yet, pull them down and build some nice, new football arenas and shopping malls.  Or, ooh, casinos! Screw Monte Carlo, just think what a shot in the arm that would be for your economy.

And maybe reserve some flats for various sheiklets willing to pay top dollar to live like Real English Gentlemen while their sons are at Eton and Harrow. It's all about having the right address, isn't it? And a golden statue of Diana and Dodi, together forever atop the former Victoria Monument. I mean, the Exchequer could use the cash, couldn't it? Then you could really tell Brussels to bugger off, and mean it.

Or consider long-term leases to multinational corporations. Wouldn't it be, like, totally cool to see a pair of Golden Arches stretching across what used to be Buckingham Palace? Or a giant KFC bucket rotating over Windsor Castle? Just think of the ad money and tax money your Inland Revenue could squeeze out of those deals. You could balance the budget in a trice, kit out the whole Fleet with new rowboats, and still have enough left over to pay poor little Princess Samantha the million quid she's owed as compensation for all the emotional pain and suffering of having to lower herself and wear an actual hat in public.

The Queen will be very disappointed, of course, but you know the old girl will buck up and obey your bidding as dutifully as she always has. I'm sure that nice Julian ("I-want-my-wife's-grandfather's-peerage") Fellowes could be prevailed upon to give her a bit part in Downton Abbey, to keep her occupied and feeling useful. Head housekeeper, perhaps, with Philip as the crusty old head gardener. (Wouldn't the Guardian pee all over itself?) And wouldn't it be kinder to let her know how you really feel, now, instead of giving her false hope for the continuing loyalty of her so-called subjects to her family and dynasty?

She won't try to stop you, you know.  As far back as 1969, Philip said in a famous American interview (maybe you didn't catch that one):  "We'll go quietly." And they would, too. They'd have no choice. Ever since 1689, you've been pulling the strings on the monarchy, and not the other way round. They did teach you that in school, didn't they?

While you're at it, you might as well go ahead and dismantle the Church of England too - and that will be such fun, gobbling up all that lovely, centrally-located property and repurposing it for pubs and betting offices and nail salons, etc. - Henry VIII would tell you that.  And for good measure, why not just go whole hog and rebrand the entire country - or what's left to you after the Scots and the Welsh and the Cornish and who knows who else, maybe Manchester United, get done carving it up.  Also, stop saying "British" this and "British" that - it's so old-fashioned, isn't it now?  And really rather racist too, when you stop and think about it.  I'm sure I heard Ed Miliband say that just the other day.

While you're at it, why not come up with a whole new name and logo for the country?  (I mean, lions and unicorns, seriously?  So last-millennium, isn't it?)  Utopia's been done, and Cool Britannia was a flop, but I'm sure if you all put your heads together, say at your next big karaoke party, you can come up with something really flash.  And then won't life be grand?  With no sodding monarchy to hold you back, exorting that crushing 77 pence a year from each and every one of you, why, England could become as great as . . . mmm . . . Alabama, maybe!   With nukes.  I can't wait to hear that phrase roll off President Blair's lips.

Or if you don't want to do all that - at least quit bitching about your own Royal Family.  Just as with your own relations that you didn't get to choose either, you get what you get, and that's life.  Deal with it.  It's like the wife who always runs down her husband, or the husband who always criticizes his wife in public.  It reveals so much more about the speaker than the object of the whining.  And what it reveals is really ugly.  You want a divorce, go get one, and more power to you.  But while you're together, don't advertise how unhappy you are:  it just makes you look fucking rude. Not to mention really rather dim.

Oh, and I forgot to add the last item on the list:

(6)  Yes, the Queen will be received straight into Heaven when she dies.  Because nobody else, and I mean nobody, would have put up with all you moaning bitches for half as long.  Oh yes, you saw the fireworks and the rock stars and the miles of bunting, and squealed with delight like teenage groupies - but this is the one essential thing that you lot, in the media at least, still haven't seen.

A life of heroic virtue, indeed.  You couldn't pay me enough to take the job.  Not even.

Even the Rains Held Off for Her Majesty

I have to say that this morning's service of thanksgiving in St. Paul's Cathedral was the most low-key royal event I've ever witnessed.  (See the Order of Service here.)  It really fell flat for me; no carriages, no great crowds (some, but not nearly what there was for Charles and Diana's wedding in the same church), almost no familiar, memorable music apart from "Old 100th" and "Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah"; and no particular sense of moment.  I wonder if any of my truckbuddies who watched it felt the same?

Of course, it was very poignant to see the Queen trudging up the steps alone, without Philip at her side; and during the service, she looked very solemn, it seemed to me, and I can understand why.

In any case, it was certainly all very different from Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee service there; but perhaps that was intentional on this Queen's part, for whatever reason.  Here are highlights of the service:



On the other hand, when the Queen and her small royal party returned from lunch at Westminster Hall in the carriages, surrounded by Her Majesty's Life Guards and the Blues and Royals - well now, that was more like it. As one commenter on a news page put it, viewing the awesome procession: "you sure wouldn't want to look up and see the Queen's cavalry bearing down on you with swords drawn." Quite.

Yet all was peace and joy on the Mall today, the Good Lord having apparently scattered all Her Majesty's enemies, confounded their knavish tricks, and even - Deo gratia - restrained the rains long enough not only for the cavalcade but also for the thrilling fly-past of Spitfires, Hurricanes, and Lancaster bomber as well as the glorious red, white, and blue contrails of the famed Red Devils, all of whom appeared exactly on time to salute the Queen as she stood on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, to the rapturous cheers of the crowds gathered below.



And so, with the good news that the Duke of Edinburgh was feeling a bit better and had watched today's proceedings on television in his hospital room, the Diamond Jubilee celebrations drew to a close, leaving all of Britain and much of the rest of the world with colorful memories and a renewed appreciation of the bonds of affection that link Crown and People.

When you consider the everlasting corruption and infighting of politics, a Sovereign who is above all that seems like a mighty good thing.  It wouldn't work over here, of course, but still this American has no hesitation in saying with all his heart - God Save the Queen!

Bonus: Her Majesty's typically very low-key message of thanks to the nation and the Commonwealth:



For comparison, consider the message of thanks sent winging round the world via telegraph to every corner of her far-flung Empire by Queen Victoria - at heart a passionate, romantic soul, unlike her no-nonsense great-great-granddaughter - at her Diamond Jubilee in 1897:

From my heart, I thank my beloved people. May God bless them!

I don't doubt that the present Queen feels the same way, but she just can't say it in those words. Bless her.

The Queen's Home Movies

A very young Prince Charles and Princess Anne
being held by their parents circa 1951

Many thanks to my truckbuddy Davis for sending me the link to A Jubilee Tribute to the Queen by the Prince of Wales - which is that program shown on the BBC the other night that I blogged about, with many delightful scenes from the Queen's home movies from the 1950's.

I think these intimate scenes of family life bring home vividly the ordinary humanity of an extraordinary woman - something your Head Trucker discerned many years ago - which makes her sixty years' reign an even more remarkable story.  Enjoy.

Rocking the Palace

Loyal crowds pack the length of the Mall, with
Buckingham Palace lit up in red, white, and blue
while a finale of fireworks explodes overhead

Amid a gala evening studded with rock stars, red-coated Guardsmen, fantastic light shows, and splendid fireworks, over half a million people assembled in the Mall and 18,000 in stands erected before the gates of Buckingham Palace to dance to the music, wave the Union Jack, and give an almighty cheer of thanks and jubilation to their Queen. The only dim spot in a colorful evening was the absence of the 90-year-old Duke of Edinburgh, who was rushed to hospital this afternoon with a bladder infection, and who will remain there several days, missing tomorrow's service of thanksgiving at St. Paul's Cathedral.

But as so many commentators and members of the public have said, for the Queen duty comes first, and the famous phrase might as well be her personal motto: "Keep Calm and Carry On." Tonight was no exception to that rule, as Her Majesty attended the concert - albeit arriving and hour and a half late - and afterwards lit the last of a world-spanning chain of more than four thousand beacons, to the cheers of her loyal subjects and an epic finale of fireworks and patriotic anthems.

A brief clip of the evening's highlights:



And here is the Prince of Wales's touching tribute to "Your Majesty - Mummy," followed by a great cheer from the crowds for his ailing father, and three cheers for the Queen:



Somewhat fuller clips are at the BBC website, not embeddable here:

Highlights from the Diamond Jubilee Concert

Prince Charles Pays Tribute to the Queen

Telegraph columnist Rowan Pelling shares her thoughts on the upwelling of renewed appreciation for the redoubtable Queen and for the monarchy:

Much has changed over the years, yet the presiding spirit remains the same. It is here, in front of the solid white edifice of Buckingham Palace, that the slumbering behemoth of our island nation is suddenly roused to patriotic fervour – much to the surprise, nowadays, of everyone involved. . . .

I bumped into many people of my generation, who were royal event novices. They gripped their flags with the anxious air of feminists gifted pink fairy wands. These were parents in their late thirties and forties, clutching the hands of sticky princesses, with face-painted infants riding high on their shoulders – all of whom had awoken one day and found that, far from being anarchists, republicans, socialist workers and punks (as they had once avowed back in the Eighties), they were middle-class pillars of the establishment, who now appreciated the benefits of a stable, affable monarchy. . . .

It’s these moments of sudden camaraderie that I find hardest to explain to the cynics and naysayers: the peculiar sense that you really are one big British and Commonwealth family, headed by an extraordinarily admirable matriarch and united by a common heritage. Individuals and insular families are lifted from self-centred lives behind closed front doors and made to feel the unaccustomed glory of nationhood. Complete strangers become neighbours because they are festooned in finery made of Union flags.

My eight-year-old son experienced something of this big-hearted, patriotic zeal on Sunday, as we walked through the streets of London towards the Thames. Dressed in a red, white and blue pirate ship T-shirt accessorised with gem-encrusted Union flag tattoos and carrying a large flag purchased at the Co-op, he drew smiles and comments from passers-by. “Everyone’s talking to each other today,” he said in wonder. “That’s why we have come,” I told him.

I want my boys to know the joyful, yet humbling sensation of being a tiny, atom-like part of an epic historical occasion. I would like them to recognise how fortunate they are to have a non-political head of state who reigns, but does not rule. I want them to know there’s nothing wrong with cheering and waving flags and indulging in occasional bouts of rousing patriotism.

The throngs who will cheer the Queen on her balcony today are justly proud of their monarch and of the 60 years of prosperity and stability most have enjoyed during her reign. Being there to thank her in person is the best way they can demonstrate that pride.

Jubilee Pageant on the Thames

Aboard the Royal Barge:  The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, with the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and Prince Harry.  Other members of the Royal Family followed on other boats,
 but seems to me the Queen was emphasizing the line of succession here.

It rained, and it poured. But all the commentators said it wouldn't have been a truly British event without a spot of rain. The crowds lining the banks a million strong seemed to agree; and a good time was had by all. Some highlights:









And this one brought a tear to your Head Trucker's eye, for obvious reasons. Just watch:

What They're Saying About Her

Prime Mininster David Cameron - the youngest and latest of the 12 prime ministers who have served the Queen, beginning with Winston Churchill - praises his Sovereign in words that make me wonder if ol' Dave hasn't been reading the Blue Truck, since I used the very same phrase a couple of days ago:



BTW, FYI: In American terms, the Queen's reign has stretched from the presidency of Harry Truman to that of Barack Obama, 12 presidents in all, most of whom have enjoyed a State Visit with the Queen, either at Buckingham Palace or at the White House.


And here is Sir Cliff Richard - who was never a big star over here, but from what I gather was, at his height, a star of Elvis magnitude in Britain - praising the Queen's enduring dignity:




An excerpt from today's editorial in the Daily Telegraph, "The Queen's Sixty Years of Service, Never to Be Forgotten":

So what do we see in Victoria’s great-great-granddaughter? Something of a family resemblance, yes, but we do not see an Empress. Hardly had it fully grown before the Empire began to fade, and “all our pomp of yesterday”, as Kipling wrote for that Diamond Jubilee, “is one with Nineveh and Tyre”. A Queen, though, is what we still see, and who’d have thought it should seem so right for the 21st century – the Space Age as it was expected to be characterised?

We hear little of republicanism just now. No one, to speak of, wants a president, for the spirit of the age is against politicians, who promise much and soon disappoint. Would a member of the British Armed Forces be stirred to fight so selflessly – to die if need be – for a campaigning politician as for Queen and country? For the Queen, we know, is not in it for what she can get. If there is a glint of steel about her, it is in devotion to duty. There is no compromise there. “I dedicate myself anew to your service,” she said in her message on February 6, the actual anniversary of her accession. She repeated this dedication before both Houses of Parliament. This is her life.

Yet in the pomp and circumstance of the Jubilee is there not, perhaps, too much of Gilbert and Sullivan? No, not if a detail from the Coronation is anything to go by. It was decided in 1953 to invest the Queen with Armills, as tradition required. But what were Armills? In the coronations of 1661 and 1761, they were taken to be stoles, a silly mistake. In truth, they are bracelets. Reviving the arcane ceremonial might sound absurd, but a pair of Armills were newly made (with help from the Commonwealth realms), and the Archbishop of Canterbury put them on the Queen’s wrists as “symbols and pledges of that bond which unites you with your Peoples”. That is real enough, as the years since have shown.

The same sort of thing is meant by people now when they turn out, whether it rains or shines, to see the 1,000 vessels in the Thames pageant, to hold a street party, light a beacon, put up bunting, or just watch the thanksgiving service at St Paul’s on television and perhaps cut up a red, white and blue cake from Marks and Sparks. Naturally, there are jokes, and mishaps, and cross words and drink taken, for we are human beings. It might look a trifle footling and domestic, but no outside observer should mistake what we are at. We are proud to be British, proud of our monarch, and grateful to her, too. Our pride and gratitude are not expressed in aggressive patriotism, yet our monarchy is linked with liberty, and we are ready to defend both together. . . .

It is clear that the Queen doubts her role no more now than she did when, as a princess, she learnt motor mechanics in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in the Second World War, the outcome of which long remained uncertain. Perseverance in an uncertain cause requires courage. Quiet courage, with the Duke of Edinburgh at her side, has been the constant tenor of her 60 years on the throne. The response for us at this Jubilee is easy – easy because sincere – to sing, or shout: God save the Queen.

Excerpt from a tribute by columnist Allison Pearson, also in the Telegraph, "Diamond Jubilee: We Won the Lottery with Elizabeth II":

Above all, the cheering crowds along the Thames tomorrow will be celebrating our luck that Elizabeth’s reign has been long. And, let’s face it, the Queen must never be allowed to die. I’m sorry, but there will have to be a statute against it. With dedication, duty and discipline, those d-words almost extinct at the start of the 21st century, she has carried a burden for us all. I guess we won’t know quite how heavy it was until she is gone. . . .

I was never an ardent royalist. Coming from Welsh mining stock, I lack the vital deference gene. My admiration for her evolved gradually. As an adult dismayed by the shallowness and venality of politicians, I came to see that she alone was incorruptible. What I had once perceived as coldness became a priceless inability to fake emotion. While others debased their standards in pursuit of instant popularity, the Queen held back. She has never stooped to conquer. For this, I love her. . .

The Queen is not a cynic. During her long reign, her country may have moved from instinctive deference to raucous scepticism, from imperial giant to self-loathing satrap, but our Queen still believes in us, or believes in her duty to us. That is why she enables us to give vent to our deepest, dormant patriotic feelings. If there is a single theme running through each of her Christmas messages, it is an insistence that the country has a future and individuals can make a difference.

In April 1947, a lovely English girl, who was celebrating her 21st birthday, had sat behind a microphone in South Africa and made a promise. “It is very simple,” she began. “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.”

She said it was simple, but it wasn’t, was it? Turning yourself into a living symbol isn’t straightforward. A young woman vowing to repress every selfish impulse, tread down all unruly feelings and dedicate herself to an abstract ideal of nationhood on behalf of 200 million people is not simple. I can never hear Princess Elizabeth’s radio broadcast to the Empire and the Commonwealth, made in a high, girlish voice fluting with nerves, without being reduced to a helpless puddle of gratitude. “It has made me cry,” she admitted after reviewing the final draft of that script. And no wonder. Five years later her beloved father would be dead and they would place that heavy crown on her head in Westminster Abbey. Tears were an indulgence she would rarely permit herself in the years ahead.

And finally, columnist Matthew Norman, a former little-r republican, explains how the Queen's stoic adherence to duty has transformed his view of the monarchy in "Our Uniquely Familiar and Entirely Unknowable Monarch":

When all of this is over – when the armada has finished sailing the Thames, the last ceremonial salute been received, and the dregs of the street party detritus duly binned – what will be the Queen’s defining reflection on her Diamond Jubilee? Certainly you can imagine her kicking off her shoes and savouring a nightcap in relief that the frantic fuss is behind her, and that life may return to what passes in her singular case for normality.

Beyond that, however, the imagination hits a brick wall. None of us has a clue what the Queen thinks, and this, when you think about it, is what makes her remarkable, and best explains her success. After 60 years as sovereign, her people have barely the vaguest idea of what goes on in her head. Being the planet’s most relentlessly public figure and among its most impenetrably private, at once uniquely familiar and entirely unknowable, is a paradox that never loses its power to intrigue. . . .

Responsibility without power, the curse of the constitutional monarch down the democratic ages, must be a frustrating burden to bear, but her most savage critic would not accuse her of failing in that duty for a moment. This goes some way, though far from all the way, towards explaining why she has virtually no critics left, even among those of us who once thought of ourselves as republicans.

One can only write about the Queen from a perspective dictated by age because, like any enigmatic paradigm, she must mean different things to different generations. To my parents, a little less than a decade her juniors, she is most potently an emblem of wartime defiance, the little princess who was not evacuated to the safety of Canada, but stuck around and went to work as a mechanic. To my 15-year-old son, born a few months before the death of Diana presented the most lethal menace of her reign, she is a likeable but remote and irrelevant figure.

It is those of us in middle age, born in the dog days of deference not long after Lord Altrincham was ostracised from polite society for sneering at her voice, and adolescents during the punk explosion that propelled the Sex Pistols’ "God Save The Queen" to the top of the Silver Jubilee charts, whose view of her has been transformed. A little like Winston Smith with Big Brother in Nineteen Eighty-Four – although without the application of electrodes, rats or relentless propaganda – we have finally learnt to love our Queen.

This may be largely because we have changed, and that the qualities of permanence, stability and stoicism that seem so dull and restrictive in youth become more attractive with the passing of the years. . . .

Against the odds, she has rendered the British throne more secure than perhaps it has ever been, with the near inevitability that she will leave three generations of successors. The vinegary brand of republicanism which dismisses monarchy as an infantilising force has come, meanwhile, to seem babyishly peevish itself, not merely because the countries we tend to regard as the most grown-up and progressive, Holland and the Scandinavian nations, retain their lower-key versions; but because even those of us who once would have done away with it have come, under her aegis, to relish the eccentricity, charm and precious sense of national belonging it provides.

To which your Head Trucker would add, you can learn a lot about someone simply by observation: actions speak much, much louder than words. And quite often, truer.

What She's Really Like

The Queen is highly amused at the Braemar Games.

Your Head Trucker asks his truckbuddies for their indulgence this long weekend as he provides some Jubilee coverage of things he finds interesting and enlightening about a lady all the world recognizes but very few really know. The Queen is one of the very few public figures left in this world that your Head Trucker admires unreservedly; and that not without some study of her character, more than merely glancing at an occasional headline.

Tonight, the Prince of Wales will appear on a BBC program to share some home movies of his parents and family, of which this short clip gives us some charming examples:



Prince William and Prince Andrew also will have some things to share about their lives behind palace walls, in an ITV special tonight:



The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, gives yet a different perspective on the lady who is also his boss as Head of the Church of England:



Question:   One of you music queens out there must know the answer - what is that lovely chorale that begins about the 1:50 mark?

Sixty Years a Queen

The famous Coronation portrait of the Queen
by photographer Cecil Beaton.  (Another kind of queen.)
The encyclopedia I had as a child used a full page for this lovely
portrait, which has been engraved on my memory ever since.

Today marks the diamond anniverary of the Queen's accession to the throne upon the death of her father, George VI, in 1952. At the moment she became Queen, aged only 25, the then-Princess Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, were in Kenya on the first leg of a planned tour to Australia and New Zealand. In that pre-jet era, it took more than 24 hours for the royal couple to return to England via BOAC airliners.

Below is a documentary of the first days of the Queen's reign, including the famous footage of her first steps on her native soil as Queen, greeted by Prime Minister Winston Churchill and other members of the Cabinet.



Fast-forwarding to the modern era, here is a BBC documentary on the monarchy, filmed in 2007, which on YouTube is divided into 27 clips, covering four episodes, which you can watch in sequence beginning with this one.  It's really very well done, featuring many behind-the-scenes shots of such things as the royal kitchens and stables, as well as interviews with participants and bystanders, and I recommend it to my truckbuddies.



The big celebration of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee is planned for the first week in June of this year, including a flotilla pageant on the Thames, a concert at Buckingham Palace, and culminating on June 5th with a service of thanksgiving at St. Paul's Cathedral.  More details at the official Diamond Jubilee website here.

After the jump, for those of you who, like me, enjoy historical footage, a contemporary color documentary of the the beginning of the "New Elizabethan Era," as it was then called.