By Phil Jarratt
Unlike some of my media colleagues, I never got to exchange pleasantries with the Queen, although I did see her in the flesh (no disrespect) a couple of times when we were both considerably younger.
The first occasion doesn’t even really count as I have no recollection of it, being only two-and-a-half at the time, but on 11 February 1954, the young Queen and her Prince (after whom I had been named by my royalist mum) came cruising past the front gate of our crumbling – but bedecked with Union Jacks – old weatherboard house on the Princes Highway north of Wollongong, NSW, while my mother and two older sisters frantically waved their little flags from behind the paling fence.
Like I said, it doesn’t really count, but I was there, held aloft by my mum as the royals drove by in their plush convertible, and mum always swore that the Queen of England smiled at her little Philip. If that was true, it certainly didn’t turn me into a monarchist, although the next close encounter well might have.
The Queen seemed to have weathered well when we next met, she by now an old hand at the smiling and waving game, and me a fledgling cadet journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald, sent out with a vast tribe of more senior colleagues to perhaps capture a snippet of “colour” during the royal tour of autumn 1970. I can’t exactly remember the particular occasion – I think it may have been an investiture at Sydney’s Government House – but I clearly remember my great good luck in snaring an aisle seat.
When we all stood as Her Majesty made her stately way down the centre aisle, I recalled the famous words recited by our royalist former prime minister Robert Gordon Menzies: “I did but see her passing by, yet I shall love her till I die.”
I swear she glowed as she passed not more than a couple of metres away. Cynical even at that early stage, I put it down to some sort of trick lighting, or maybe a small torch in her bodice (again, no disrespect) but it was truly amazing.
Here endeth the true story of my personal relationship with the late Queen Elizabeth II.
And while the day I saw her glow did not result in some sort of evangelical transformation into a monarchist (in fact I was a card-carrying republican for a while) it did create a soft spot in my heart for Her Maj, who, unless you live in a padded cell, you would realise by now was deservedly loved by her subjects around the world.
I also at times felt a little compassion for her plight – all that waving and smiling, the wimpy sons, the horsey daughter, the increasingly strange husband, the dramas and disasters of Diana, Andrew and now Meghan.
She remained a stoic figure through it all, and I doubt that any person of goodwill could be anything but saddened by her passing.
And now we have Charles, who used to be considered a fruitcake for his beliefs in organic farming, saving trees, restoring old buildings instead of knocking them down, his only saving grace the good works of his Prince’s Trust.
But now he is completely of the moment, and I hope against hope that his willingness to speak out for his beliefs is not tempered by his new responsibility.
I have but one Charles story.
It was the occasion of the Royal Command Performance of the Russell Crowe film Master and Commander at a Leicester Square theatre in 2003, and somehow I had secured a stalls ticket. That very morning the London tabloids had come out with the most outrageous and tawdry sex scandal front page implicating Charles in some sort of activity that would not have pleased Mama.
It was feared that he and Camilla would not show, but after a 45-minute delay, security bods started darting around the theatre and an expectant murmur filled the gallery above us.
As the heir to the throne appeared and took his seat, a well-dressed woman sitting in front of me stood and turned to the gallery and shouted, “We love you Charles!” Within moments everyone in the theatre stood and joined in the chorus of reassurance, yes, your correspondent included. Then we remained standing to sing God Save The Queen before the parting of the curtains.
I’m sure most of the people in that theatre still feel the same way. Me, I’ll just wish the new King well.
