Monday 26 September 2022

"Pomp And Circumstance"

During the Period of National Mourning, many events were postponed or cancelled. Including The Last Night Of The Proms. So no Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March, no sea-songs, no Kanneh-Mason, no Harriet Walter, no flag waving or cheering...
But we got plenty of Pomp and Pageantry in the last fortnight didn't we? Nobody does the 'ceremonial' stuff quite as well as the Brits imho.
Many of the mourners were in sombre black, but the flags, the uniforms and the flowers were a riot of colour. Gold and jewels present everywhere - in the splendour of the crown, orb and sceptre on the top of the coffin, the bright sashes, the rainbow stripes of medal ribbons, the 'scrambled egg' braiding round shoulders, caps and cuffs.
I thought the BBC coverage was excellent [ok there was the occasional technical hitch, but given the miles of cabling, hundreds of microphones, and dozens of cameras, I thought they did Jolly Well]
One commentator said "We will each look back on this time, and have our own special memory, of something that stood out for us"
The last state funeral [not a ceremonial one] was for Sir Winston Churchill in January 1965. I was nine. We spent Saturday morning glued to our tiny monochrome TV set. 
I remember four things distinctly from that day
  1. Hearing the music "The Dead March in Saul" for the first time. Dad said it was by Handel, who wrote the Messiah
  2. Watching MV Havengore transport the coffin up the Thames- as there was an RAF flypast, and the cranes at the dockside dipped in respect
  3. Richard Dimbleby's solemn commentary in perfect English
  4. Going with Dad to join the long queue outside the chip shop afterwards - like many other families, we hadn't thought about preparing lunch!
What will I remember about Monday's ceremony?
Ten royal mourners behind the coffin, marching steadily for 1¼ miles. One of them a woman of 72 - and 5 of the men aged over 60. The oldest, Prince Richard of Gloucester aged 78. [further back were the Duke of Kent, 80, and Prince Michael of Kent, 86] 
That's a mighty long way to march when the eyes of the world are watching you. Especially when you are feeling the loss of someone you had known and loved all your life. And you are a pensioner yourself
Two BBC commentators in particular - the lovely Welsh lilt of Huw Edwards, and the rich Irish brogue of Fergal Keane. [Scots, English and other accents were available, but these two stood out for me]  They spoke wisely and well, and were not afraid to leave times of silence and reflection- no need to fill every second with pointless jabbering.
Those two little children - Prince George and Princess Charlotte. They behaved impeccably. [I recall my girls were a similar age when they attended my mother's funeral - obviously a much smaller affair, only a few hundred there - but it was still a significant event for them] 
The Queue - which we will no doubt talk about for years to come. 
But why did that woman go round seven times - and was she not therefore selfishly taking the place of six others who finally got to the front of the queue and were turned away? David Beckham humbly queuing with the 'ordinary' people, in honour of his Grandad. The initiative of the person who realised that no food could be taken into Westminster Hall, so arranged for all the confiscated, but unopened, packets of crisps, biscuits, and drinks to be redistributed to homeless and hungry Londoners. 
The rainbow over the city which summed it all up. 
"I trace the rainbow thru the rain, and feel the promise is not vain, that morn shall tearless be..."
One thing Fergal Keane said seemed so poignant that I stopped what I was doing and wrote down his words. The procession proceeded steadily at 75 paces per minute, guided by Lance Cpl Chris Diggle, on his horse Apollo. I'll always remember that FK described it as 
"The steady beat of the drum, the metronome of grief"

I refuse to be drawn into discussions about what Holly and Phillip were doing [they do not matter to me] 
Or why the Prime Minister read the Bible passage as if she did not understand the words [surely someone would have rehearsed it with her?]
Having queued for my Covid Booster on Friday, I did just wonder- couldn't they have saved a lot of time if everyone exiting the Lying In State Queue was offered their jab there and  then before they went home? That would have got around a quarter of a million inoculated!

What will you remember of the day, if anything?








22 comments:

  1. It was certainly a memorable event to watch. I, too, was awed by the fact that the royal mourners walked the entire route. That required quite a bit of stamina, I think.

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    1. Stamina and courage, considering their own personal grief

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  2. I didn't have the most successful day in terms of the funeral. Our live TV doesn't work so we were watching it on the internet but as CBC was trying to put in the new sink waste strainer plug unit into our sink, I started late and didn't click 'watch live' but was an hour behind. I wasn't well so didn't feel 100%. I also liked Huw Edwards' voice very much.

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    1. Bob was helping my bro move house - so he only saw bits on the laptop in the corner as he went past. I thought the ABCs sermon was excellent

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  3. I saw it in bits while doing other essential jobs. the lack of comments was woanderful, it gave one time to listen to the drums, the feet of the marchers and the quiet grandeur of it all. My memory will always be the flowers, and the story behind them.

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    1. They were beautiful - from the Buckingham Palace, Clarence House and Highgrove Gardens, if I remember correctly.

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  4. Princess Anne, for my money, was absolutely stoical. I have no idea how they walked such a distance with seemingly no ill effects. I remember on the day that the Queen died, how utterly sad Huw Edwards and Nicholas Witchell were in the late afternoon and Huw in particular seemed to be struggling. I'm wondering whether they had heard that the Queen had passed before the announcement for the rest of us at teatime?

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    1. Perhaps they had advance notice - I understand that the Speaker, the PM and Sir Keir Starmer knew earlier. Yes, the Princess Royal was stoical. But isn't she always?

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  5. I will remember the whole day, I watched virtually all of the television coverage, very moved but dry eyed for all of it. Princess Anne is an amazing lady. What I will also remember is the total blanket coverage on television for the full ten days of mourning. Very respectful on the BBC, but I was desperate for some other news to be honest.

    I was five for Winston Churchill's funeral and I don't think we even had a television back then.

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    1. Yes- the news was rather focussed on the one subject - I wonder what interesting stories got missed!

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  6. I shall remember feeling that for the first time in a long time I felt proud to be British.

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  7. Luckily PBS broadcast the funeral from a BBC live-feed so we didn’t have to endure North American voice-overs or split screen presentations such as CBC. There was one moment that really stood out for me. I think it was just before the procession back to Buckingham Palace started. King Charles was looking ahead, utterly blank. Princess Anne looked over at him, and the concern on her face was so poignant. I tear up even now just thinking about it.

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    1. So many of you 'across the pond' watched the ceremony with us. So many positive comments about Princess Anne's actions and reactions too.

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  8. I got up at 6:30 am as the service started at 7 am (Atlantic time). I watched it most of the day. She became queen the year I was born. I feel that I grew up with her. Went to schools named after her children. I first saw her when
    I was 7 yrs old. I was disappointed bc she was not wearing an evening gown and a crown. Not sure that I feel the same affinity to her son. Judi/nb/cardmaker

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    1. Thank you Judy - yes, I remember seeing a photograph in a newspaper when I was about 5, and asked my mother why the Queen was wearing an 'ordinary' coat and hat, and not her proper 'Queen Costume"

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  9. I remember the busload of foreign dignitaries! Prince George and Princess Charlotte were so respectful. The vast number of uniformed military were spectacular, especially those on horses. The grieving family members walking silently - a day they will never forget, either.

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    1. Yes, I wonder what the atmosphere was like on that bus ride. And the military precision was astoundingly good. All the family, youngest to oldest, played their part too.

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  10. Watched BBC coverage on my computer in the US from 5:30 am onward. I do remember Winston Churchill's funeral--I was 14 and had only moved back to the US the previous summer. Watched it on TV with my parents (mother was British and we'd lived in the UK from the time I was two).
    The one thing I never heard mentioned on the coverage (which was blessedly free of commentary most of the time) was when Princess Anne saluted King Charles at Wellington Arch after the coffin had been transferred to the hearse. Then, as she had done from Balmoral onward, she got in the Land Rover with her husband--she was again the lone royal to accompany her mother's body on her entire last journey as she followed the hearse to the country lane just outside of Windsor Castle where the last of the military marches took place up the Long Walk.
    I found the sight of Emma, the Queen's fell pony, and Terry Pendry, the head groom who often rode with the Queen, standing quietly on the approach to the castle, a personal and poignant touch.

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  11. I was impressed that Anne was the royal who was there with her mother at her death and then through the long journey through Scotland, then England,and finally to rest at Windsor. She maintained her dignity, and stood vigil twice at the coffin - Scotland and England, as well as marching alongside her brothers. She is deserving of the title Princes Royal, for all she did in those 10 long days

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  12. I'll always remember the rainbow. And politics aside, why did Liz Truss sound like she was a prefect reading notices in a school assembly throughout the whole period.

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    1. You thought that too? I said to Bob she sounded like the Deputy Head Girl called up unexpectedly to read the Bible in Assembly

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