New Elizabethan age was the dawn of an era
The new Elizabethan age swept in on a tide of goodwill. But as with great and colourful moments in what might at the time be a dismal world – just years after the end of a long war, Britain was still weary – expectations can be unrealistic.
And this reign began as times were very much changing. Though it took several more decades for the great debates on the Monarchy to really flourish, and in the meantime, the new Queen Elizabeth II simply did what she saw as her duty. Until the day she died, no-one could fault her for that marvellous, lifelong commitment.
Her early years as Queen were also the years of continuing her family and bringing up four children with all the vagaries of character that entails.
While the Royal Family has a different scale of help and support to most of us, every working mum (and dad) knows the anxiety and misery of having to miss a child’s special occasion, sports day, birthday party.
Even when you are Queen, such disappointments are just as painful. Tradition has demanded – and for some still does – that our royals are set apart, rather grand and belonging on pedestals. As times changed and we also expected them to be obviously human, shed the occasional public tear, evidence that they bleed as well, being all things to all people became as impossible for them as for anyone else.
And it was during the reign of this Queen we now mourn, that the dilemma came to a head. But although she often couldn’t be there for her children because she was expected elsewhere, maybe providing a special moment for someone else’s, as a doting mum, the Queen was as torn as any when she had to disappoint her own.
But there are many happy photographs of Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward pictured with their off-duty parents and the dogs. And when they were all together, especially at Christmas and other holidays, the children so enjoyed the time they all shared. They played games, set up their own little entertainments and chattered endlessly to a Mama they accepted was not always there and who they missed very much.
And these children in their turn learned the toughest lesson – that being a royal, and especially being head of the Firm, often meant missing out on ordinary family life.
The Queen never went to school herself, she and her sister were governess educated at home. So it was something new for her to have to make decisions about her own children’s schooling. But in their time, all of them were sent away, starting with tough old Gordonstoun for Charles and Beneden for Anne – experiences which undoubtedly gave them an earlier broader view of the world than their mother had known.
But as they grew they were introduced to public life often by their mother. And it was a great joy when those who were so devoted to her, also took her beloved children to their hearts.
