In the middle of the long weekend of diamond jubilee celebrations, I do not suppose I am the only one of my generation in trying to recall the moment when the news of the death of George VI broke. The truth is that I cannot recall what should have been a flashbulb memory. It must have occurred in the brief time between evacuation of service families from Egypt and my father's re-posting to Benghazi. The celebration of the coronation by the army school there I certainly remember. The swiftly-produced colour film featuring William Walton's stirring Orb and Sceptre was shown to us pupils. But of the accession itself I have only a dim memory of a black-and-white photo of the new queen and her consort with a bewildered-looking Prince Charles and Princess Anne.
In searching the Web for that photo I came across this story which features (second image) the new queen descending the stairs from her British Overseas Airways plane home to be met by the great and good. (Nerdy point: the plane was an Argonaut, BOAC's name for the Merlin-engined development of the Douglas DC-4 by Canadair.) The welcoming party included Winston Churchill, her prime minister, Clement Attlee, previous prime minister and probably the future prime minister Anthony Eden, then foreign secretary.
The brooch that features in that story dates from a 1947 visit by the then Princess Elizabeth and Duke of Edinburgh to apartheid South Africa and Southern Rhodesia whose colonial administration was hardly less racist. Does her majesty's attachment to that brooch betray nostalgia for those days when the sun never set on the British Empire? I prefer to think that she treasures it only as a beautiful object. Certainly, when she was active as head of the Commonwealth she was clearly at ease with the other heads of state, whatever their origin or skin colour.
That is less true of her future successor as Commonwealth head who seems to have absorbed his father's prejudices. The other members may well have second thoughts after a year or so of his chairmanship. At home, Charles (or whatever other regnal name he chooses) may well be forced to preside over a transition to an elected (or appointed) head of state. It is, however, important that any president has no greater powers that royalty has at present. We do not want to repeat the stresses and strains of such executive presidencies as France and the United States. Germany and Ireland must be the models.
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