The jubilee long weekend was heralded with images of the Queen’s 70 years projected on to the sarsens of Stonehenge, the only other tourist attraction of comparable steadfastness. It will end tomorrow with the 260-year-old gilded royal state coach parading down the Mall without its most familiar occupant, but with scenes from her unprecedented reign projected on to the carriage windows. The Queen travelled in this coach to her wedding and her coronation, waved from it at her silver and golden jubilee processions; there will be poignant symbolism in it advancing without her.
It is quite a while since she was a dancing queen, but her presence at the jubilee celebration has been a little reminiscent of the “Abbatars” currently entertaining audiences at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. She has been both there and not there.
