The Faster Lane / Tyler Brûlé
Bruised but united
It’s 1978, I’m sitting at my desk at Suddaby Public School in the little city of Kitchener, Ontario, and the last class of the day is about to come to an end. As this was a time well before computers were part of daily life (remember the computer-science room with its massive monitors and clunky keyboards?), the school’s public-announcement system was the main form of communication across the two-storey institution. Every day at 15.30 we would stand up, face the front of the class and conclude our afternoon of studies by belting out “God Save the Queen”. A few classmates would mumble along, looking out of the window while playing with their hemlines or shirt-cuffs. But most of us got right into it as it was a bit more uplifting than “O Canada”, which was sung first thing in the morning.
I grew up in a rather standard Canadian household. The Brûlé side had been kicking around in the country’s great wilderness for a couple of centuries; my mother’s family crossed the Atlantic from Estonia, via a long pause in Germany, in the late 1940s. I was born in the afterglow of Canada’s centennial celebrations and Queen Elizabeth II was a guiding but not overbearing presence. Royal visits were major events, the monarch’s Christmas message broadcast on the CBC was essential viewing for all of us (my grandmother always shushing my chattering cousins) and I would never miss an opportunity to pull out the Union Jack bunting for mock battles staged in the garden. In my toybox there were hundreds of lead and plastic soldiers in various ceremonial uniforms, I had a collection of Matchbox royal vehicles and carriages (some complete with little corgis trotting behind), and for a while I lobbied for the royal train in its subdued livery but Santa never managed to find space for it in his sleigh.
When it came time to think about life outside Canada, London and a job at the BBC was the draw rather than a move to New York. Along the way I met the then Prince and Princess of Wales and, a couple of years ago, Prince Andrew invited me to Buckingham Palace for tea and a discussion about the need for sparking a culture of apprenticeships in the UK. His mother was in residence that day but sadly she didn’t pop in to say hello.
Royal visits were major events, the monarch’s Christmas message broadcast on the CBC was essential viewing for all of us
The first news alert that hit our screens on Thursday was clearly a well-considered message designed to prepare the UK, Commonwealth and the world for what was to come over what most thought would be the coming days. When I boarded the mid-afternoon plane from Málaga bound for Zürich, another news alert announcing that Royal Family members were heading to Balmoral Castle on one of the RAF’s newly acquired Falcon jets forced me to pause and consider how the night ahead might unfold.
Hours later, back in Zürich, I was caught off guard. We were hosting a cocktail party for our neighbours and, as I casually wandered past our radio studio, I saw the solemn message on one of the monitors: “The Queen has died.” I walked back to our guests, passed on the news and then quietly excused myself, drove home, convened a call with our editors and then spent the evening watching Huw Edwards anchoring the news on the BBC.
There is much concern that Elizabeth II’s death comes at a difficult time for Brand Britain and the Commonwealth – but I’m not so sure. Perhaps her long reign and swift, dignified passing will help the UK and much of the Anglosphere get back to centre and remind us that there is a passionate, sensible majority out there who believe in the values of decency, tradition, good manners, making an effort and even owning your style. The past few days have revealed that there are some rather nasty individuals who have no sense of humanity, let alone timing. They need no further airtime in this column or elsewhere as they don’t represent the prevailing mood in Edinburgh, Vancouver or Auckland. And, as much of this vitriol emanates from angry college campuses on the other side of the Atlantic, they might be reminded that Elizabeth was not “their” queen, she was ours.
The UK has a moment to readjust, sit up straight, regain its dignity, shrug off its brittle skin and define a new chapter that is self-assured, pragmatic, united and proud.