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** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** Hi, I'm Elle. I'm based in Auckland, New Zealand. I'm the mother of two young adults, the wife of an entrepreneurial gamer and the Queen of Unfinished Projects. This blog will contain poems, short stories, possibly photos and book reviews if you're lucky, and my thoughts on a variety of topics. Hope you enjoy it. |
Prompt: Are you following the media coverage since Queen Elizabeth passed? 96 years, 7 decades as the Queen. That in itself is remarkable. How do you feel about having Royal families as part of your culture? ~ "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"  Firstly, I want to state that I do not believe that anyone should ever be in a position of power, especially in charge of a country or multiple countries, because of a circumstance of their birth. Leaders should elected in a democratic fashion, not rule just because they were the first-born of the previous ruler. In that sense, I strongly object to the very idea of the monarchy. However... I was really sad to hear that the Queen had passed away. I literally shed a tear when I heard, and I shed a few more later when I was scrolling through tribute posts on Facebook. I have no doubt there will be a few more shed in the coming days as people tell stories and tributes. I don't mean to suggest that I've broken down into full-body sobbing (not that there would be anything wrong with that), just that I felt sad and was moved. My parents are English and so despite being born and bred in New Zealand, which is about as far away from England and the royal family as you can get in terms of distance, my personal 'culture' has a distinctly British streak. My father is actually an anti-royalist and hates being asked to stand for or sing the British national anthem. I suspect my mother mostly doesn't care about the royals one way or another. But we grew up watching the Queen's Speech on TV and, while it was probably a bit of a sarcastic joke on behalf of my parents' generation, toasting the Queen at dinner parties. Did you know NZ has a Maori royal family too? I grew up with a Maori Queen, but we've had a Maori King since 2006. Like the British royal family, the Maori one is basically just a figurehead that has as much influence as people wish to ascribe to it, but on paper the Maori King has no authority and on paper the British monarch has quite a lot. Anyway, I remember all the furor around the death of Princess Diana, which happened when I was 17. I was only interested in a vaguely 'Hey, this major celebrity died' kind of way. Like, it was a sad thing that had happened, but it didn't affect me in any way. Later in life I became more involved in the family history and that's when I started becoming more interested in the royals. Steve's grandfather worked as a policeman and was on guard duty while King George VI lay in state. As a historian, that's pretty amazing. There was this notable event in history, and a member of his family had a (very minor) role in it. I also have photos of both my parents (separately) dressed up for the celebration of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Both were only three years old when the Queen was crowned. Whatever you believe about monarchies and their place in the world, the fact remains that the death and/or coronation of a member of the royal family, especially the reigning monarch of the Commonwealth, is a notable event in history. And I loved the idea of our personal family histories merging with these public histories. Another aspect to my increasing fondness for the royal family is the pomp and ceremony and the grandeur. My mother-in-law inherited quite a few antiques and heirlooms, and some of those have already been passed on to Steve and I. To that end, we now collect certain English china patterns, we say things like 'Shall we use the good china?' and so on. So when I was able to go to the UK, I was intrigued by things like the china that the royal family use, and heirlooms in Scottish castles that had been gifts from the royal family and such-like. Just nerdy history stuff, I guess. And I think it's important to bear in mind that NZ doesn't have much in the way of history. It's rare to find a house here that is 100 years old or more. We have one 'castle' (which Wikipedia calls a mock castle) built in the 1870s, and another that was only completed about five years ago. We don't have the kind of history that the UK has. We don't have grand old castles and long histories. And my family never had antiques or heirlooms. So I embraced all of that. And somehow that included the royal family. When Charles and Camilla came to NZ, I went and stood out in the rain to see them. I didn't get to 'meet' them or shake their hands or anything, but I saw them in person, which is pretty cool. But the real reason I felt sad is because the Queen was a remarkable woman. She devoted 70 yearse of her life to her job as Queen, and she did a damn good job of it. She made sacrifices and she worked hard, and whether you agree that she always made the right decision or not, she always did what she thought was right. And I think her family loved her, especially the grandchildren (yes, even despite Harry's defection he clearly still loved her) and that tells you a lot about a person. If anyone had reason to hate her, I think it was Charles, although I don't know the full story around why he and Camilla both ended up marrying other people when they were clearly in love with each other, but I don't think he hated her. I admired and respected her, and now she's gone. And there are a few gems that I really liked. I loved her participation in the Bond performance for the 2012 Olympics, and the thing with Paddington. And someone shared this lovely story of her recently on Twitter and it's just delightful. So yeah, I am sad that she's gone. No, her death won't affect me much as a person or even as a New Zealander, but I think the world lost an amazing woman, and that's worth taking a moment for. Here are the links to the videos if you want to watch them: [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] [Embed For Use By Upgraded+] |
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