The Queen’s 90th birthday

I had no intention of writing about the Queen today. In fact I was mulling over ideas for an article on gratitude. I know, you’ve probably heard me talk about gratitude before, but it’s such an important issue that I’ll have more to say about it, and probably more than once. It’s one of the most important things in life, and it can impact your life in such a fundamental way that there’s always more to be said about it.

While I was watching the TV news this morning there was a mention of the Queen’s upcoming 90th birthday this week (April 21st). Then it shifted to a special programme celebrating her birthday, and her reign, and focusing on various individuals who’ve had the privilege of meeting her and speaking with her. I didn’t realise it at first but this was a perfect focus for an article on gratitude. I know that for a lot of people the monarchy is nothing more than an anachronism these days, but I think all but the most hard hearted would feel some special affection for Her Majesty at the occasion of her 90th birthday. She is, after all, a woman, a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother, as well as being a queen. Perhaps, for all her titles and her exalted position this is her highest honour and her greatest achievement, to have been the mother to a family and to have seen it develop and grow over the decades.

An entire lifetime in her reign

King George VI and young Princess Elizabeth (waving).

Her father, King George VI, died just months before I was born, and she was proclaimed queen the same year, although rather than celebrate a coronation during a period of mourning the actual ceremony was delayed for more than a year. So she officially became Queen months before I was born, meaning I’ve lived my entire life in her reign.

When I consider how long I’ve been around and all that’s happened in my life, I can’t help but be impressed that she has stayed steadfastly true to her coronation vows of all those years ago. She has been totally and utterly committed to doing the job she was born to do, and she has never failed to do it to the best of her ability.

And that can’t have been easy. For all her wealth and power, she has none of the freedoms we all take for granted. Never in her life has she had the freedom to be an ordinary person living an ordinary life. She is ‘on duty’ virtually 24 hours a day. She meets with the Prime Minister every week, and has done so since her first Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, then 77 years old to her youthful 25. During their meetings over the next few years he coached her in matters of politics and her constitutional role, and she’s never looked back. During her more than 60 years as Queen she has known and consulted with a dozen prime ministers (some of whom were not even born when she became Queen), and she has visited and known another dozen US presidents, not to mention countless other world leaders.

A faultless work ethic

Queen Elizabeth II at her formal coronation in 1953

She deals with a dizzying host of royal engagements on a whirlwind schedule that would put most people’s work ethic to shame. I rememeber, years ago, reading an account of some of her duties and royal visits and I have to say it left me exhausted, just reading about it.

Now, at 90 years of age she carries on, still true to the solem oath she swore at her coronation, and still committed to serving her country and the Commonwealth to the best of her ability. Whatever else anyone might say, nobody could ever accuse her of taking her duties lightly, or slacking in her work. She is an inspiration to us all, and when the day dawns that she’s no longer with us this country will go into a very real and heartfelt period of mourning such as we’ve never seen in our lifetime.

We should all be grateful to have a queen so committed and so true to her vocation, and so deeply respected worldwide. And, after listening to the many personal tributes from people who met her over the years (in that documentary I watched earlier), it’s hard not to be impressed by her eagerness and ability to put people at their ease in her company, and to relate to people no matter what their position in society.

Yes, I’m grateful for the Queen, amongst many other things, and her strength of character. I wish her well on her 90th birthday, and I’m grateful for the inspiration she provides. Politicians come and go, and some of them can’t go fast enough for my liking, but the Queen is a fixed point in a changing world; she is true, and determined, and committed, and practically an embodiment of what it means to be British.

I am not, by any means, nationalistic, but I am proud to live during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, the longest serving monarch in British history. And if each of us could be half as committed and steadfast in our endeavours we could be justly proud, and we’d probably achieve much more than we could at present even imagine.