We knew the words would be uttered one day, but it was still a shock to hear them. The W Queen is dead.
Of course, we knew the moment was coming. When a photograph was released on Tuesday showing the monarch welcoming her newest prime minister - her 15th - at Balmoral, her face looked unfamiliarly gaunt. The Queen was a woman in her 90s and we are all mortal, even those whose blood flowed deepest blue.. yet her the announcement that she died "peacefully" yesterday afternoon will shake this country very deeply, for reasons we may not fully grasp.
Plenty will say that the nation has lost its grandmother, that we are a family bereaved of its matriarch - and that comparison is not so wide of the mark. Not because everyone knew or loved the Queen like a relative, because obviously that is not true. But the comparison holds in this much narrower sense: she was a fixed point in our lives, a figure of continuity when all around was in constant flux. Everything has changed since the day in 1952 when she inherited the throne.
That country of black-and-white television, gentlemen in hats and Lyons Corner Houses - and this one would barely recognise each other. And yet the one thing they have had - in common was her.
She was woven into the cloth of our lives so completely, we stopped seeing the thread long ago. It was not just the coins, the bank notes and the letter boxes. It was the fact that you could hear a song called Her Majesty from a different lifetime, written by a group that broke up half a century ago, and the majesty they were serenading was the same person who reigned until yesterday.
Longevity plays strange tricks like that. My grandmother was born in 1906 and died nearly 30 years ago, and yet the monarch for most of her adult lifetime was this same queen. Elizabeth was the head of state of this country for more than 70 years.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 09, 2022 من The Guardian.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة September 09, 2022 من The Guardian.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
Profit alert wipes £1.2bn off value of homebuilder Vistry
More than £1bn was wiped off the value of the homebuilder Vistry yesterday after it said building costs on some of its projects had been \"understated\" and issued a profit warning.
Shein profits double in UK after 40% leap in sales
The online fast fashion retailer Shein doubled profits at its UK arm last year as sales jumped almost 40% to £1.5bn - making it about the same size as its rival Boohoo.
Channel 4 chiefs accept hefty bonuses as revenues fall by record 10%
Channel 4's bosses accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds in bonus payments last year, despite the broadcaster suffering the steepest fall in revenues in its 41-year history.
Myanmar military kills dozens in heaviest run of airstrikes since coup
Myanmar's military last month launched some of its heaviest aerial campaigns since the 2021 coup, killing at least 26 people in seven airstrikes.
Beer cans binned by mistake at museum are an artwork
A Dutch museum has recovered an artwork that looks like two empty beer cans after a staff member accidentally threw it in the rubbish bin.
Beijing wins library of the year award for 'spectacular' green design
Beijing library has the world's largest climatised reading space and a 'nature-infused design'
‘Bands put Iceland on the map’ Tourism forces music venues to close
Tourism forces music venues to close
Orbán would celebrate a Trump win with 'bottles of champagne'
Hungary's nationalist leader Viktor Orbán said he will open \"several bottles of champagne\" if Donald Trump is re-elected to the White House next month.
More European countries join cold-case push to identify dead women
Police have expanded a cold-case campaign aimed at identifying dozens of women who were murdered or who died in suspicious circumstances across Europe, taking in three new countries and more than doubling the number of cases.
Mexican city's mayor beheaded in attack days after taking office
Mexico's new government has been shaken by the murder of a city mayor who was attacked and beheaded just days after taking office.
