Queen

I want to enjoy the jubilee, but I am conflicted…

But in 2014, the traumatised Syrian war veteran Dr David Nott visited the palace and was overcome by a PTSD attack when the Queen asked him about his work. And my gran loved the Queen; because of the second world war; because of the corgis; and because of getting a television to watch the coronation in 1953. But what does it mean to wave a British flag, now that Brexit has trashed our international reputation, compromised England’s relationship with Scotland and Northern Ireland and left our most precious cultural institutions at the mercy of the sadistic philistine gentleman thugs elected to deliver it? “Why do you always have to act stupid all the time and ruin everything?” my gran despaired, not realising there was a career in it. And to this day I bitterly regret making a stupid scrunched-up monkey face to my mum’s camera as the royal car drove past us and the Queen waved her white glove, after our eight-hour wait at the railings on Solihull high street. My gran was a spiritual forebear of that generation that voted for Brexit, ruined their great-grandchildren’s futures and then promptly died.