Since post-noon last Thursday the nations figurehead, who’d portrayed the starring role within UK’s royal soap opera for seven decades, has lain bereft of life in Scotland.
Of course, unless you’ve lived in a hole for four days, you’ll be fully aware of this bulletin. And even then, such is the episode’s global scale and melancholy, if a mole’d bumped into you in that hole they’d possibly have told you.
That been said, unless you spoke fluent mole, his words would’ve been wasted on you…… Additionally, what the chuffing heck were you doing in a hole for a quartet of dawns?!….. Blinking nutcase.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s reign, beginning prior to the majority of her subjects inaugural life breathe, no longer underpinning a capricious brood. A first family who’ve now a tough act to follow, regardless of how tenaciously they perform our late monarch’s royal duties.
Although being born and bred in the UK, the only time I saw Her Majesty close(ish) up was during her Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977. A fleeting glance from about ten metres as her cavalcade drove past the Jolly Miller pub in Low Fell, Gateshead on it’s way to a civil event in Newcastle. Yours truly stood with classmates after our alma mater granted us time to view this piece of regal history.
This existential episode not playing out with the pomp and circumstance afforded to some major royal affairs. But, like my school friends, as a 13 year old schoolboy the fact I’d scene our monarch, who lived in a palace nearly three hundred miles south, in London, was magical….. And such euphoric feelings as a pubescent boy were few and far between, I can tell you!
Throughout adulthood I’ve been indifferent towards most things royal…. I bear neither huge support or dislike to the British royal family. I respect them but don’t hold enough interest to watch regal ceremonies.
However, what I’ve maintained throughout decades on this Earth is a reverence of our (now late) Queen. A woman, it seems to me, who performed her royal duties and associated tasks with great dignity, decorum and lots of other things beginning with D.
Consequently, I’m deeply saddened by her demise last week. For some reason, our Queen’s presence as figurehead always seeming to evoke a re-assurance and calm within me. We’ve lost the only monarch I’ve known; meaning an earlier hearing our national anthem sung as God Save The King seemed surreal.
Additionally, I’m finding saying King Charles the Third challenging…. Currently I’ve a habitual default suffix of Spaniel, not the Third!!
To close, I enclose a parody blog written about the Queen’s Silver Jubilee street party which played out at my childhood Low Fell street of Dorchester Gardens…. The narrative below written as part fiction based on true life events….. RIP Your Majesty :-
June 1977 – It was two months before Elvis passed, Red Rum had just won his third Grand National, Star Wars was breaking all box-office records and the UK’s populous excitedly held street parties in celebration of Queen Elizabeth II’s silver jubilee.
One such street party took place in Dorchester Gardens, Low Fell. The south Gateshead cul-de-sac of twenty six houses where I spent my childhood and early immature adult years.
This a suburban outpost of three-bedroomed semi-detached houses, built in the 1960’s by Leech Homes. Residences bearing that era’s typical design of the third box room bed chamber, along with separate toilet and bathroom.
As a young boy I always assumed the term box room originated due to a paucity of space, rendering them the size of a shoe box. However, after starting to play club cricket as a teenager I concluded the name may’ve come from the lower abdomen protector I wore when batting…… Mine certainly smelt similar!
Having a separate toilet and bath had pros and cons. On the plus side if you were chilling in the bath, there was no worrying you’d have to jump out of the water to let a family member attend to the call of nature. On the negative side, though, the lack of a toilet bowl in the bathroom meant I peed in my bath water more than I’d have liked.
Anyhow, back to the Dorchester Gardens street party celebrating our monarch’s 25 year reign.
I’ll be honest and say I’ve only vague recollections of the event. I remember the kids were encouraged to dress in fancy dress, although as a recently turned 14 year old pubescent schoolboy I deemed joining in would breach boundaries of teenage cool.
My younger brother Ian suggested the two of us dress up as Red Rum in a pantomime horse suit. However, our kid was never going to remove my indifference to dressing-up by telling me I’d spend three hours sweating in a fancy dress outfit with my head in close proximity to his flatulent backside.
As I write this I’m not even sure if our Ian (who’d just turned 12) actually donned a fancy dress costume on that day. Like many of the kids from Dorchester Gardens and nearby streets, my 4 year old sister Helen took part. She wore a St Ivel’s cheese triangle, while next door neighbour Judith (aged 12) donned a St Ivel’s cheese triangle packet. Both costumes, if memory serves me correct, skilfully created by my old man.
I do recall our Ian for some reason decided to bring an egg whisk along to the party, but don’t recollect who actually organised the event. I’d imagine it’d have been the cul-de-sac’s women who ‘project managed’ the event.
People like my mum Margaret Strachan, Moira Galloway, Ena Cowell, Geraldine Holliday, Ronnie Stoddart, Pat Forsyth, Audrey, Hazel, Doris, Mrs’ Dixon/Williamson, Enid Mitchell et al.
From memory we ate buffet food laid out on trellis tables outside the Stoddart and Cowell’s abodes in the middle of the street at the bottom of it’s incline. We probably dined on sausage rolls, crisps, a selection of sandwiches, pork pies and the like. With desserts of jelly. Angel Delight and ice cream.
There were a clutch of street games organised including ‘Pin the Tail on Jimmy Galloway’, which had to be postponed because he’d gone to the Jolly Miller for an early evening pint with my dad, Ken Cowell, Brian Holliday and a host of the other Dorchester Gardens’ patriarchs.
There was also an impromptu game of ‘Help Ian Strachan Find his Whisk’ after our kid mislaid his beloved kitchen utensil. It was later found in my pocket…. God knows how it got there (cough, cough) or indeed how the bloody hell I managed to fit an egg whisk in my jeans pocket!!
Sadly, my epiphany of a street game where we got to eat as many of the Jacob’s Clubs in Ken Cowell’s garage as was humanly possible wasn’t sanctioned by the party’s organising committee…… Not to mention by Ken (who worked in sales for Jacobs).
After the food and games it was time to judge the winner of the Fancy Dress competition. Despite some fantastic efforts by the street’s kids, including our Helen, Judith, Lindsey Holliday (milkmaid), Aileen Galloway (a robin…. that’s the bird incidentally, not political commentator Robin Day), the winner was an adult.
The victor, George Forsyth, whose policeman’s outfit was chosen by judge Nan Mansfield, from nearby Portland Gardens, for “costume authenticity”. Nan was asked to undertake the role of judge as she didn’t know Dorchester Gardens residents too well, so was identified as a suitable choice from an impartiality basis.
If Mrs Mansfield had’ve been more familiar with the characters in NE9 6UY she’d have known George was actually a policeman and wasn’t even in the fancy dress competition. He’d just returned from work and was watching proceedings, troughing a ham sandwich he’d taken from the buffet, when the event commenced.
Mr Forsyth was delighted, although somewhat surprised, with his victory. Promising faithfully to strive for world peace, undertake humanitarian work and to never again utilise the word chaffinch in the wrong context.
All that remained after the announcement of the winner was the presentation of the trophy……. Well, our Ian’s whisk!
