by Heather Allen
Before I tell you what this is about, I will set out what it is not about. It is not a debate about the monarchy, nor is it a misty-eyed retrospective on the Queen’s life. There is enough of that elsewhere.
This is chiefly about my mother, Iris Martin, and also about my own childhood, and how I got to the stage where I felt the news of the Queen’s death as if I’d lost a favourite aunt. Why I, as a working class Midlander who at times hasn’t even had the proverbial chamber pot, let alone the accompanying exit window, has shed tears and will no doubt shed more at the passing of our indisputably noble Queen.
I love the Queen. She may have passed, but my love for her has not. I always have loved her, and I (mostly) respect the Royal Family, those who deserve respect, anyway; I was brought up to do so. This was due in large part to my mother’s interest in the Queen, in her life and growing family, which began in her own youth and continued throughout mine. If there was an event, we were watching. We celebrated, as a family. Princess Anne’s wedding to the dashing Captain Mark Phillips was viewed in glorious monochrome, digested, discussed and dissected. When the Queen visited Coventry during her Silver Jubilee tour in 1977, my mother and I were among the crowds lining the streets enroute to the Memorial Park. I remember a glimpse of a smiling face, a waving, white-gloved hand. There was an atmosphere of joy and excitement as we waited, loud cheers, jubilation and a flurry of flags as the Queen’s car drove past. I loved the street party on our crescent, every neighbour in their best clothes, long tables groaning with food to which all had contributed. I stuffed myself with sandwiches and cake, then tore around with my friends as we made the most of the street’s closure. I sang the National Anthem in church, at Brownies and Guides, and at school, with the words as indelibly fixed in my mind as the Lord’s Prayer. To me, the Queen and the Royal Family were and are a big part of what it means to be British. And, despite all the chaos, deprivation, disquiet and dissent in this country, I am still proud to be British, although not especially proud of all Britain has become, all it’s done in the past, or indeed all of what it stands for now.
Still, the Queen. Other memories surface. My father, John Martin, was fiercely patriotic in the way characteristic of an ex-British Army soldier and Northern Irish protestant living in England. He would stand to attention at the end of the evening’s TV broadcasting and salute as the National Anthem was played. He did this without irony, it seemed to me, although I was bemused by it. Then I remember my mother, getting ready to go out, joking that people told her she looked like the Queen, as she put on a posh voice, patted her lacquered hair and smoothed her skirt. In my eyes, she truly did, especially when she was dressed up. She was certainly queen of our household.
My mother, born Iris Maud Burdett in 1919, was six years old when Princess Elizabeth was born. As a contemporary, my mother’s curiosity about the young Princess was natural. Both were born in the aftermath of one war, and under the threat of another. Both were in the Armed Forces – my mother in the Womens Auxilliary Air Force (WAAF), Princess Elizabeth in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. As young women close in age, they wore similar fashions. And, although Princess Elizabeth married and began having children earlier than my mother, they experienced marriage and parenting contemporaneously. Both had four children, three boys and one girl. The Queen had her darker times, notably her ‘annus horribilis’ of 1992 when Princess Anne got divorced and a huge fire destroyed a large part of Windsor Castle. Again in 2002, when she lost both her mother and sister within weeks of each other. Many other well-known griefs and tribulations, notably the death of her beloved Philip last year, have occurred within her life, and do not need repeating here.
My own mother’s trials and tragedies were many, starting with the death of her own mother when she was just four years old. My mother’s first child, my brother Michael, was born with severe disabilities due to cerebral palsy, and died in the spring of 1966 when he was just fifteen years old. She also lost her husband, my father, in 1982 when he was 63, going on to live almost a third of her life without him. Around and between, my mother experienced many other life difficulties which the riches and privilege of royalty may well have mitigated or rendered obsolete. However, like the Queen, she drew strength in her unshakeable, lifelong Christian faith which she held fast to until the very end.
In many ways and for most of her life, my mother identified with, and sympathised with, the Queen. She admired, respected and even empathised with her, and I believe this is why I cannot think of the Queen without thinking of my mother. Both women were generous, kind, hard-working, and loyal to family and country. They had a dignity, courage and humility which appears to be the birth right of the generations who grew up in and around the two world wars. Both women inspired love and loyalty in those who knew them. Both had a dazzling smile which lit up their faces and brightened any room they entered. Both had a well-known, dry, slightly cheeky sense of humour. Both were fond of a sensible ‘A’ line skirt, a simple string of pearls, a firmly set hairdo, matching hats, shoes and bags, and bright, neatly applied lipstick. Both would finish their toilette with a puff of face powder, and a dab of a favourite scent. They also had similar colouring, with dark hair, pale, pinkish-toned skin and bright blue eyes. The same stature, with the Queen just a little taller.
I lost my mother in November 2013, at the age of 94. I am used to being without her now, but I cannot say I am over it. I do not believe we ever get over the death of loved ones, we just absorb their loss as part of us. Before my mother died, she had, over a number of years, gradually withdrawn from engagement with life. In September 2013, an infection put her in hospital, and from there to a nursing home for her final month. She maintained her sharp mind and her sense of humour until close to the end. The last photograph I have of her was taken in the nursing home, sitting up in bed, smiling, wearing her glasses which she had carefully cleaned. She was so very frail, a shadow of herself, yet she wanted to present her best self to my camera, perhaps realising it would be the last time. I remember her purple hands and the bruises on her arms, her papery, delicate skin marked from medical procedures.
When I saw the pictures taken of the Queen just before her final meeting with the outgoing and incoming Prime Ministers, it reminded me of that photograph of my mother, and the circumstances in which it was taken. Seeing the Queen standing there, smiling bravely, so frail and tiny, it broke my heart a little. And so, even though the Queen’s death was not really a surprise, it has hit me with great force. Everything I remember from losing my mother has come flooding back. The Queen was the mother of the nation, inextricably linked with my own beloved mother in my mind. There will never be another British Queen in my lifetime, and there will never be another like Queen Elizabeth the Second, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor. May she enjoy her eternal rest – she has undoubtedly earned it. Who knows, maybe my mother will get to meet her at last.