The Queen

This post was inspired by this picture from Warwick Davis’ Twitter account. It was such a sweet post it got me thinking about good ol’ Queenie.

I’ve always liked the Queen, and the Royal Family in general actually and I’m sadder than I thought I was going to be at hearing of her passing. She’s been a constant in my life and she always reminded me of my Nan that I lost a few years back. It feels very strange to think we now have a King. I know a lot of people hold a resentment to the Royal Family, and what they represent etc but whatever your thoughts, Queen Elizabeth always seemed like a sweet, kind hearted lady and I respect the years she put into being our head of state.

I, obviously, don’t really have any stories to share about any real connections to the Queen, but I will always remember a time in Primary School when we heard she was going to be driving past. My school was next to a place called Kneller Hall, the home of the Royal Military School of Music. She was due to visit them for whatever reason and was going to a drive-by past my school. The teachers were all very excited about this, so all week they had us making banners and little paper tree wavy things. I remember taking so much time on the bloody thing.

The big day finally came, and we all lined up by the side of the road, along the route her car would take, ready to wave and cheer. We saw the car in the distance and as she passes the Year 6s, at the top of the road, we could see a little hand waving out of the window. This continued by the Year 5s, Year 4s, Year 3s … it was almost my time to show the Queen my work of art. As the Queen’s car was nearly parallel with me and my class I started to raise my arm, and wavy thing in turn. That wasn’t all that raised, however. Almost in sync with my arm going up, the open window the Queen was waving out of started to go up. She closed her window just as she reached my classmates and I and, a few seconds later she turned in Kneller Hall and disappeared, never to be seen (by me) again.

Even at that innocent age, I recall being pretty fuming after the wasted effort and disappointment and for some time I wasn’t the Queen’s biggest fan, but I soon moved on and ended up having a huge amount of respect and even pride for her, despite the Royal shunning I endured.

Rest in peace your Majesty and, maybe one day, I’ll see you again and finally get a chance to show you my wavy thing …