She never stops changing
The older the Queen gets, the more she changes
Hailing the talent of Elizabeth II for dignified adaptation
For the last 18 months, I have been part of a small production team following the work of the Queen, her family and her staff for the current BBC1 documentary series, Monarchy: The Royal Family At Work. As well as writing the series, I have written a new book alongside it. Viewers have already been treated to the inside story of a White House welcome, the domestic dramas behind a Palace banquet and the emotional impact of a royal investiture.
What is less visible, but even more striking, is the quiet change of pace that has taken place at the Palace over the last ten years. And the real surprise is that things are actually speeding up.
You might imagine that an institution governed by a woman of 81 (and with a husband of 86) would either be slowing down or handing on. The Monarchy is doing neither. The Prince of Wales continues to support the Queen when required and he knows the ropes better than anyone (next year, he sets a record of his own when he overtakes Edward VII to become the longest-serving heir apparent in history).
But transition is not a topic of discussion at headquarters. In any case, there is quite enough change going on as it is. In the last few years, there has been a conscious move towards reshaping the royal approach to everything. It’s neither tokenism nor a belated knee-jerk response to the criticisms which followed the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. It is level-headed adaptation. And the lead comes from the top. On royal ‘away-days’, for example, there is now a deliberate policy of slashing back the ranks of officialdom to a minimum. When I followed a Palace recce party down to Brighton earlier this year, in advance of the Queen’s first visit to the city in six years, the request was very clear. This time, the Queen would rather not meet a succession of civic worthies and councillors. To the dismay of several local dignitaries, there was no room for them in the royal programme at all. The guest list for the civic reception included organisations which would never have made it on to the guest list in previous years — a local swimming club, the Gay Elderly Men’s Society and so on.
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Suresh Dogra
December 12th, 2007 7:07pmThe Queen is great.It is a personage of her stature that is the strongest argument for the continuation of monarchy in Great Britain.