Sandra Chapman; A right Royal weekened we should all enjoy together

Is it likely that in 70 years’ time people could be living half a century or so longer than this generation?

Well, stranger things have happened. Will the concept of royalty still be around then? I suspect the world will be a very different sort of place 100 years from now so all the more reason why we should get on with our lives now and leave the future to the unborn.

Those of us of a certain age shouldn’t bother our heads about what if or why couldn’t we have done this or that. Present day life doesn’t really tell me anything about the future.

For example, I can’t imagine what my precious grandchildren will look like half a century from now because science hasn’t come up with the answer to longevity. What careers will they have, how many children and in which country will they be living? When these thoughts spin around my brain I feel sad I won’t be there to see how their lives evolved.

The Queen has been fortunate to live long enough to see her great grand-children and her joy in all of them shows. She is never without a smile in pictures we see of her with them.

She has been privileged in that respect. How I envy her. I haven’t been able to see my grandchildren for some time due to Covid and the shambles at airports with numerous unscheduled cancelled flights - yes even to the place I would have been going to see them - and travellers ending up sleeping in airport terminal floors.

I’m not beyond sleeping on a floor but at my age I have my limits. And then I switch on television only to see thousands of Ukrainians, some very old, fleeing from the Russian soldiers invading their country. And it makes me feel like a wimp.

How fortunate is my generation? Well, we weren’t born until the Second World War was over and whilst parents of the time may have had it rough I remember a childhood of happy times, though luxuries were few.

This past week waiting for the royal events will have enhanced friendships as we’ve all been in festive mood. I have a royal red dress, the very thing for an outdoor Jubilee party. But then it might rain today and my union flags in the garden will probably droop at half-mast. And that’s nothing to what might happen to my dress. So how will the young of today remember this special event?

Isn’t it up to my generation to help out with the Jubilee parties this weekend and encourage the young to watch some television today so they will have a memory of what our Queen looked like?

She isn’t going to be around for ever.

Big royal events are usually magnificent and remind us how the British royals honoured the political changes of 1688-9 which led to elected government ‘subject to law’ a concept which has prevailed throughout the world, although some countries still resist.

Had the Russian royals still existed, for example, would the likes of Putin be allowed to conduct his manic war in Ukraine?

Elements of the younger generation would claim to have no time for the Royal family but that is a short sighted view. No other country in the world can hold the kind of event we have enjoyed in the last four days.

It may be a very long time before the next one so this weekend we should celebrate and enjoy this unique event and our freedom. These have been worthy times at the head of which has been a slight, dark haired woman who advised when asked but never interfered. May she enjoy the years left to her.