I loved my gran. And my gran loved the Queen; because of the second world war; because of the corgis; and because of getting a television to watch the coronation in 1953. When I lived with her in the early 70s she had just upgraded to a colour TV and would not allow me to watch the old black-and-white films of Kurosawa or Truffaut that I coveted as a child, as she had “paid for colour”. However, if “coloured” people came on the TV, such as Ken Boothe singing Everything I Own on Top of the Pops, the channel would be swiftly changed. It seemed there was one rule for blah blah blah insert punchline here. Take my wife! Please!! I’m here all week!!! Try the Daylesford Organic farmshop hampers!!!!
My gran was a spiritual forebear of that generation that voted for Brexit, ruined their great-grandchildren’s futures and then promptly died. And I loved her. My gran’s royalism was formed by the crucible of the Blitz, by wattle and daub Coventry immolating on the eastern horizon and by the Queen Mother picking through great craters with a grateful public on Pathé news, perhaps the most selfless and inspiring act of any member of the royal family until the current Queen paid Prince Andrew’s £10m sex-case costs. With our money. She could just have auctioned that jewelled hat surely, the one that gets driven around the Mall in its own car.
