This is now the 3rd of the Queen's jubilees I've experienced. The most exciting one, from my viewpoint, was the 1977 on, her Silver Jubilee. I was in my first year at university, I was a Trotskyite fellow traveller, and I had a "stuff the Jubilee" badge. I made a little A4 poster with a picture of an axe and the slogan "Viva Oliver Cromwell" and put it on my door in my hall of residence. I went to my parents for the weekend, two ginger kittens had just been born to the cat Josephine, my mother proposed calling one of them Jubilee, so I suggested Cromwell for the other - so Jubilee and Cromwell stalked the property for the next 15 years or so.
We took the Circusact inflatable to a number of street parties etc. There was some political discussion about whether we should do this, but we were paid for it, so we did it. It was just before I met James, my first husband - it was a curiously free time. I was still repining my relationship with Paddy, and feeling a bit cross and resentful with him when I saw him at this period. And I went home for the weekend - that must have been a rare occurrence. I think I wanted to get away from Jubilistic London: I knew there wouldn't be much in the way of celebrations at my parents' house.
The Golden Jubilee, 10 years ago was different. We were still living in London, we were hard up, as usual. We didn't go out, the boys were still young, 7 and 4. We watched some of it on telly and laughed at the sight of Jeremy Irons and other "Great Britons" riding in a Jubilee Bus in some sort of procession: we laughed at him because we know him, and it seemed absurd, although he is deeply patriotic, not unsurprising. Because we lived so near Westminster, we were able to see the Jubilee "fly-past" with the Red Arrows and so on through our bedroom window. It was fun, in the sort of muted, nuclear family way that we have sometimes. My attitude to the royal family had mellowed. I felt the Queen was quite a good thing, a good woman, a Christian, and someone with a longer term political perspective than all the simpering ninnies who seemed to be becoming Prime Minister these days (Blair, and now Cameron).
This year I feel delighted to have a four-day weekend, to be able to take time off and relax and hang out with the family. I will probably watch the flotilla on the river on telly... maybe with Alex at the Yacht Club (if it wouldn't freak me out too much)...I feel much the same about the Queen as I did last time. I don't much favour Prince Charles any more - he's a meddler, sometimes I agree with his meddling, sometimes I don't, but I think he's pretty out of touch, and we already have an out of touch cabinet, and we don't need a monarch doing the same. For some reason, I don't feel the Q is as out of touch as he is.
Finn is grumbling about all the bunting and patriotic posters... "I hate patriotism" he says. I explained that loving your country isn't bad, but being obsessed with it, because you have nothing else to be proud of is dangerous. I buy into the legend of Britain as a "free country" - even now, when your number plate is registered as you move around the country, when your emails etc. can easily be accessed by the government, your phone calls logged. It is still freer than other places. I don't think it is a perfect country, and perhaps I would rather live in France. Except I wouldn't really. I can't help being thoroughly British (a mix of English, Welsh, Irish and a dash of Scotch), I suspect my idiosyncrasies and opinions are far better tolerated in Britain than they would be in the USA or any other "free countries" around the world. The best thing about the Jubilee is that no one is forcing us to celebrate it.
We took the Circusact inflatable to a number of street parties etc. There was some political discussion about whether we should do this, but we were paid for it, so we did it. It was just before I met James, my first husband - it was a curiously free time. I was still repining my relationship with Paddy, and feeling a bit cross and resentful with him when I saw him at this period. And I went home for the weekend - that must have been a rare occurrence. I think I wanted to get away from Jubilistic London: I knew there wouldn't be much in the way of celebrations at my parents' house.
The Golden Jubilee, 10 years ago was different. We were still living in London, we were hard up, as usual. We didn't go out, the boys were still young, 7 and 4. We watched some of it on telly and laughed at the sight of Jeremy Irons and other "Great Britons" riding in a Jubilee Bus in some sort of procession: we laughed at him because we know him, and it seemed absurd, although he is deeply patriotic, not unsurprising. Because we lived so near Westminster, we were able to see the Jubilee "fly-past" with the Red Arrows and so on through our bedroom window. It was fun, in the sort of muted, nuclear family way that we have sometimes. My attitude to the royal family had mellowed. I felt the Queen was quite a good thing, a good woman, a Christian, and someone with a longer term political perspective than all the simpering ninnies who seemed to be becoming Prime Minister these days (Blair, and now Cameron).
This year I feel delighted to have a four-day weekend, to be able to take time off and relax and hang out with the family. I will probably watch the flotilla on the river on telly... maybe with Alex at the Yacht Club (if it wouldn't freak me out too much)...I feel much the same about the Queen as I did last time. I don't much favour Prince Charles any more - he's a meddler, sometimes I agree with his meddling, sometimes I don't, but I think he's pretty out of touch, and we already have an out of touch cabinet, and we don't need a monarch doing the same. For some reason, I don't feel the Q is as out of touch as he is.
Finn is grumbling about all the bunting and patriotic posters... "I hate patriotism" he says. I explained that loving your country isn't bad, but being obsessed with it, because you have nothing else to be proud of is dangerous. I buy into the legend of Britain as a "free country" - even now, when your number plate is registered as you move around the country, when your emails etc. can easily be accessed by the government, your phone calls logged. It is still freer than other places. I don't think it is a perfect country, and perhaps I would rather live in France. Except I wouldn't really. I can't help being thoroughly British (a mix of English, Welsh, Irish and a dash of Scotch), I suspect my idiosyncrasies and opinions are far better tolerated in Britain than they would be in the USA or any other "free countries" around the world. The best thing about the Jubilee is that no one is forcing us to celebrate it.
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