I find myself watching the BBC’s exemplary coverage of the thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey for the Duke of Edinburgh, who died last year. I’m not sure why. Perhaps, it’s an illustration of the lengths I’ll go to avoid listening to Mary Ann Hobbs’ amateur hour show on 6 Music. Either way, it’s the most surreal event imaginable.
An endless line of VIPs are arriving at the Abbey to be greeted by a long line of people wearing frocks and pointy hats, some of whom are women. Then there is another endless line of men and young boys in frocks who appear to be the choir. Soon they will be belting out some of the Duke’s favourite hymns. It’s such a shame that he’s dead and won’t be able to hear them.
Now, a bunch of people dressed in strange costumes and riding hats play the opening tune to announce the arrival of our 95 year old Queen, a bowed, hunched little figure, assisted into the building by, I’m surprised to see, Prince Andrew.
The usual politicians are present, including Boris Johnson, a living scarecrow, dressed in an ill-fitting suit with a toddler hair cut. But it’s the sheer number of royals that amazes me. Some are elderly – the Duke of Kent, some bloke with a thick beard, Prince Charles – but some are young too, the offspring of the Queen’s dysfunctional children. I have no idea who they are, apart from Zara Phillips and her husband Mike Tindall. They seem to take up most of the seats, the rest being taken up, it seems, by senior military chaps. The commentator tells us that lots of ordinary folk are there, too, including people who have taken part in some of Big Phil’s charity project. And the first speaker is a black woman who took part in the Duke’s award scheme. She’s wonderfully articulate and word perfect. It’s rather lovely and quite a contrast with the mostly white, mostly male audience. But then, we lurch into the religious stuff and my mood starts to change.
Rishi Sunak, a multimillionaire married to a billionaire, stands next to Johnson singing hymns of praise to God and ‘Amening’ at the end of each prayer, having last week taken the deliberate decision to push 1.3 million into poverty. As God’s vicars in Westminster praise their CEO up in Heaven, people outside queue for food banks, turn off their heating to ensure they have sufficient food for eating. The loving God they talk about, not quite loving enough to stop people starving to death, or to influence those devout politicians in the expensive seats, doesn’t seem to deserve much praise today.
I know that most people love, like or at least tolerate the royal family. Indeed, I was until recently in the ‘tolerate’ camp because I felt there were more important things to concern ourselves than the existence of a royal family. I haven’t been in that camp for a while, further away still after having witnessed the large army of minor royals and – let’s be honest – hangers-on arriving at the Abbey today. Neither God nor the royals seem to made for these times. Today feels like a confirmation.
I have known and have come across countless people in my life who have contributed enormously to society, without thought of reward or favour. They were not afforded thanksgiving services, nor would they have wanted them but it brings home to me the class divide in our increasingly broken country. Our country often saves its honours for the friends of Boris Johnson or celebrities and people who were just doing their jobs.
The Queen looks tired and weary today, as well she might as she nears her 96th year. The thanksgiving services and national mourning will be everything we had for the Duke, will be nothing compared to what will happen when the Queen shuffles off her mortal coil. But when that comes and the nation has wiped away the tears, we have to do better than this, don’t we? It’s a great spectacle, but for whom?
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