It’s what she would have wanted

The Bournemouth Food Bank tweets as follows:

‘All Bournemouth Foodbank Centres and Offices will be closed on Monday 19th. We will be following Her Majesty’s funeral and celebrating her beautiful life.’

I do not know the facts, just the tweet. I don’t know whether the Bournemouth Foodbank will be closed because the volunteers want to watch the Queen’s funeral or because the people issuing vouchers won’t be issuing any. So, I don’t know the context. In any event, it just seems bonkers. Someone joked on twitter that “It’s what she would have wanted” but I rather doubt that’s the case. I’m trying to get my head round what’s going on.

When it comes to the Queen’s death, there are those who hold extreme views. There are those who I would call the ‘Grief Police’, who roar loudly on social media that everyone must mourn and that they are somehow wrong if they don’t. If you don’t much care about the monarchy, goes one of their arguments, then you should decline your bank holiday, approach your employer and offer to work. Only hardline royalists should have the day off and presumably the real police will be on patrol to ensure that only the true believers can be rewarded. On the other side, there are the anti-monarchists who have taken every opportunity to show their anti-royal feelings, sometimes in what some would say a most disrespectful way. There in the middle, which is a massive middle, you will find the rest of us, quietly saying as little as possible, waiting either for the funeral to take place or wishing it was all over.

And many of us are watching our words. We don’t want to offend people or indeed upset them. I find the scenes around the country absolutely baffling, not least the thousands queuing to get a glimpse of a coffin, but I’m not making a fuss about it, or offering ridicule. Alternatively, I wish people would protest another day, although I wrestle with that one given my belief in free speech. And that, I wonder, is what has led to the Bournemouth Food Bank closing.

The overpriced, overrated and sadly over here Center Parcs got themselves in a right pickle by first threatening to kick guests of their sites on Monday, then they U-turned and said people could now come but they must stay in their lodges at gunpoint (I’m not sure if I’ve got all the details right here) culminating in a decision to open everything up but close all the facilities. In a wonderful act of trolling, Butlins announced they were open as usual but would find some way of respecting the Queen’s funeral, perhaps by putting the televisions on in the bars. That’s certainly what pubs are going to do and to be honest, I don’t have a problem with that, not least because I hope to be on a golf course when the funeral goes ahead, far from the madding crowd.

Surely everything didn’t need to close? Couldn’t businesses simply close for the funeral itself but then open again when it’s finished? I wouldn’t see that as disrespectful. I’m in favour of people making choices. In general, people should be able to watch the funeral and people who choose not to shouldn’t have to.

Quite why food banks should close is lost on me. Hopefully, no one will starve to death, but is it worth the distress of one child going hungry just so people can watch the Queen be buried?  I read that again and it sounds potentially offensive, slightly sarcastic. I didn’t mean that but my god you can read anything into anything these days.

As in life in general, most of us lie somewhere in the centre ground, between extremes. Those on the extremes often make the most noise and reflect the views of – how shall I put this? – themselves and not many others.

The coming weeks, months and perhaps years are going to be very tough, without an unnecessary debate, a row even, between people who will never agree. Maybe we should ignore them, leave them to it and treat each other with a little more common sense and respect. That, I’m sure, is what the Queen would have wanted.