My Memories of the Queen

It was dreadfully sad for me on the 8^th September 2022 when I heard the news of the Queen passing away, we had taken SMD home after we had spent a lovely five days together and switched on the news and heard the breaking news that the Queen had died. I couldn’t believe it especially as it had been only two days before that she had welcomed the new Prime Minister – Liz Truss at Balmoral.

 

Rolling back quite a few years one of my big memories was the Silver Jubilee, at school we were all given a Commemorative mug.

 

On the 8^th June 1977 a street party was held for the children. My Mum did take a couple of photos hence the X marks the spot on the picture of me and my Brother!

I grew up in a household where my Mum loved the Queen, it seemed like she collected every book that was published about her. To be honest I think she felt she had an affinity with the Queen as they got married in the same year and also had their first born son in the same year and although they both had a daughter next that is where the similarity ended, except of course her lovely smile. The photo below was taken at Mum and Dads 65th Wedding Anniversary.

 

The years ticked by but I can remember the one consistency even now is that I watch the Trooping the Colour. I have spent all the big occasions in front of the telly that involved the Queen or any members of the Royal family especially the Weddings.

In 2012 the year of the Olympics coming to London the Queen took part in a classic sketch with James Bond. It was kept secret from her family and I think they were just as surprised as we all were to see it.
The River Pageant was also held that year, to mark the Queen’s Golden Jubilee, the three of us took the opportunity to go and boy did it rain. I sat in my new Trekinetic wheelchair which came with an umbrella we watched the Pageant with the Queen and Prince Phillip taking centre stage trying not to get too wet.

   

We also took my Mum and Dad to the Windsor Horse Show, (sadly I don’t have any photos).

This year was certainly a big year with the Platinum Jubilee and as I’ve written a blog about the Jubilee I won’t bore you again with all the pictures we took in London.

We did however go to the Superbloom held at The Tower of London. 

I love visiting anywhere that is connected to the premises of the Royal family because they are all super accessible. Me and My Mate MS always find it relaxing as there is never any hidden drama about going round everywhere, in fact I have found I get to see parts of buildings etc that the general public don’t see. This is because all older buildings do not have a general lift in them and I have always needed to use the lifts that the staff use for carrying food etc in, my Mum certainly found this when she went to Buckingham Palace.

My most recent trip to London was during the ten day mourning period, I had an urge to be part of something that was historical. London to me was the place to do it in, as you can imagine London was packed. Our biggest challenge was to find a disabled parking space, my van is too tall to go in the multi storey car park. It did take nearly an hour to find a space and hats off to my hubby who seemed to know where the odd disabled car parking space was. We only had four hours in the car parking space and the queue for the accessible line to see the vigil was very long and we knew we wouldn’t be able to go through everything in four hours. I decided that a time of reflection in Green Park viewing the flower tributes was absolutely fine. We had a short walk to get there which took us past Buckingham Palace,
by which time it was getting quite busy once again the security team let me through by moving the barrier’s to go down a quiet route. 
The link below will take you to a short video that I put on Instagram of our time in the Park. 
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ciw1F8loMVo/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=I wore one of my Mums rings as I felt she could be part of it although she is no longer with us.  So many people had flocked to the Park, there was even a queue to get in, but it was well worth it. The mountains of flowers were quite overwhelming and there was a sense of stillness despite there being loads of people.

 How would I sum it up, it’s hard to put into words you don’t need to be a huge Royalist to appreciate all that she has done, not only for the Country, the Commonwealth but the World. Instantly recognisable, proved that women can do anything, she certainly was true to her word and worked right up until she died.

 

Thank you, for everything.