The Mourning Ends....plus A Royal Referendum Down Under????

On Saturday afternoon I popped down to the area around Tower Bridge to see the phenomenal

crowds gathering in their thousands, all queuing up for the opportunity to file past The Queen's

coffin lying in State in Westminster Hall. They claimed that the queue was at one time almost

4 miles long with a waiting time over 12 hours. Now there's dedication for you not to mention

sheer patience.

 

As a kid growing up I was often baffled at why we had to share our Queen  with faraway

countries like Canada and Australia. But then I was soon to learn from my Geography lessons

in Primary School that The Queen was in fact the Head of the Commonwealth, something I now

consider as an outdated institution.

Apparently a YouGov Poll in 2020 revealed that 62% of Australians down under would

be quite content to replace the Monarch with an alternative Australian Head of State. And

Canadians are equally split on the issue.

But I did hear a while back that Australians may push for a fresh referendum once The Queen

passed on. So perhaps very soon

the issue will raise it's head once more Down Under.

But I was thinking that our Christmas Day won't quite be the same without The Queen's

Speech at 3:00pm. The King's Speech just won't be the same. And I imagine none of it meant 

as much to people around The Commonwealth as it did here at home. I think many here timed

The Queen's tv appearance with serving up the Christmas lunch with the turkey and all the trimmings.

And so I imagine that in King Charles's

first Festive speech he will undoubtedly focus on the life of our departed Queen.

Above: Extraordinary scenes as The Queen's coffin and cortege climbs

the Long Walk up to Windsor Castle and St George's Chapel.

Above: The Queen with Princess Anne by American photographer Annie Leibovitz

around the time of The Queen's 90th Birthday.

Above is a poignant and sad cartoon illustration by Morten Morland of The Times.

The image released online on the day of The Queen's Funeral touched a lot of people,

particularly isolated elderly people watching The Funeral on tv while contemplating living

out the rest of their lives without their loved one.

Above: Our Jubilee party table back in 2012 to celebrate The Queen's Diamond Jubilee

to mark 60 years since The Queen's accession to the throne in 1952.

Sadly that Summer in 2012 marked the start of my 6 year Cancer journey until

full Remission in 2019...literally months before the outbreak of Covid 19 when Cancer patients

were being turned away due to mass Covid Hospital admissions.

So reaching full Remission just before Covid arrived was surely the luckiest moment in

my life. And it does make you wonder about all the other cases that didn't get the fast tracking

NHS Service that I was lucky enough to get during those pre-Covid days.  

While in the vicinity of The Tower of London I thought I'd have a sneaky look in on

the Tower's big Summer project called Superbloom. And before I knew it one of the

Tower staff ushered me in, saying that entry to the moat was now free. So no nuisance of

booking an entrance ticket online. And I was able to go straight through and walk

among the wild flowers.

Superbloom at The Tower of London has transformed the Tower moat from a flat lawn

into a naturalistic landscape, a biodiverse habitat for pollinators in the heart of London.

And it seems that it will now be a permanent fixture at the Tower.

THE END OF AN ERA

It's surely now the end of an era with the news that our Monarch Queen Elizabeth

passed away yesterday peacefully with Princess Anne and Prince Charles by her bedside.

Of course we were all pre warned with the news on the day before when it was announced

that the Queen was poorly and that medical supervision was taking place at Balmoral. And

all this just a couple of days after The Queen carried out her final Constitutional act with her

meetings with the outgoing and incoming new Prime Minister.

And yet you do imagine that considering The Queen's poor health all this week that perhaps

Palace staff probably tried to talk her out of that final Constitutional task.

The Palace staff have been under great scrutiny these last few months by various media outlets,

accusing the Palace staff of playing down The Queen's failing health. Apparently they denied

that The Queen had a fall recently when it was noticed that upon meeting Liz Truss the new

Prime Minister, that The Queen had a blackened and bruised hand, but chose not to opt for her

normally preferred white greeting gloves.

It wasn't mentioned at the time, but her final Queen's speech last Christmas sent out alarm bells

when we saw a diminished looking Queen who had lost weight and looked generally poorly.

And this probably had a lot to do with the ending of her 7 decade marriage to Prince Philip

who passed away that year. And she never really recovered from her loss.

Many have said that we often saw The Queen as though she was a member of our family.

She was there from our earliest days while growing up.

Naturally we had blanket tv coverage of the sad news last night and I chose to watch some

off it on ITV and Sky News who both had a positive and modern outlook on the news. But two

minutes of the BBC News was enough for me watching Huw Edwards and his

somber, unctuous and much rehearsed funereal piece to camera was all too much. It was

clear that at such a historical moment, the BBC were clearly trying to stamp down their mark

that they are still our National Broadcaster when many might now disagree with that assumption.

The Queen was our longest serving Monarch from 1952 to 2022 and she'll be sorely missed.

Prince Charles will be formally sworn in as King in a historic Ceremony tomorrow. And this

evening he will be making a National broadcast to the country. And as I write this,

Charles, the new King has just arrived at Buckingham Palace and is walking about among

the large crowds that have gathered at the front of the Palace.

It was also announced today that Saturday night's patriotic 'Last Night of the Proms' at

The Albert Hall tomorrow will now be cancelled in respect of The Queen's passing.

Below are the front pages of this morning's newspapers focusing on the news of

The Queen's passing. And it was the cover of The Daily Mirror that impressed

me the most. The image (at the top of this post) was by Patrick Litchfield. Although

the headlines on The Daily Express faced some criticism online this morning with their

choice of headline.