Diary – 6 December 2012

Finding an outfit for a wedding is a doddle compared with finding one for an investiture and I wonder how sensible it was to buy my hat first. I love hats. My mother was a dressmaker and designer and she also made hats and wore them with style and aplomb, in the days when women never went hatless, even just to go shopping. When I was a child she embarrassed me beyond endurance when turning up at school events in one of her rakish creations. I remember the Christmas play and a small black felt number worn jauntily on one side of her head. It had protruding bright turquoise feathers and a turquoise satin slash. Worse was the one that turned up at sports day. That had cherries dangling from it and a sort of ribbon pineapple atop. Well, my investiture hat is the most outrageously hatty one I have ever worn, and I hope my daughters are not mortified by it. Meanwhile, I don’t yet have the rest of the outfit. My scarlet hat with scarlet and black feathers is terrific, but probably not on its own.

I wish it were possible to say something to the Queen instead of just answering her question. I would use my allotted 30 seconds of her time, on the day, to say ‘Thank you’, not for the pretty insignia she has just pinned onto my as yet unchosen garment, but for being there, being our ‘rock’. I remember her not being there as Queen, and then her Coronation, very well, but I was only ten. For my whole adult life and more, she has been a force for good — steadying, reliable, faultless and exemplary. I admire her and am amazed by her.