How has someone I never met became someone whose presence I miss? How has the loss of someone who never offered an opinion in public felt like the loss of someone who was on my side? How did one specific woman born on a specific day of a specific year in a specific place in a specific class come to represent the best of us and all of us?
I listened the day before yesterday to people talking about her on the radio. They described a woman that they knew – that they didn’t know. They spoke of losing a member of the family, a grandmother, a godmother. They described someone who somehow connected with us and connected us with our past, our present and with each other.
There are some wonderful stories of the Queen. My favourites have one thing in common: they show how she connected with people, how she reached across boundaries and how she had a rather wonderful sense of humour.
I love the story – 20 years old now – of when she hosted Crown Prince Abdullah, the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. At this time, it was illegal for the women of Saudi Arabia to drive and shameful for a man to be driven by a woman. As some of you may know, our queen was quite a driver.
Tourists walking on the Balmoral estate would describe being surprised by a fast moving, battered land rover bumping along the road towards them and then be even more surprised when they realised the driver was their monarch.
When Prince Abdullah came to visit the Queen invited him to Balmoral, where he was hosted with full honours. After lunch one day, the Queen asked her royal guest whether he would like a tour of the estate.
An initially hesitant Abdullah agreed. The royal Land Rovers were drawn up in front of the castle. As instructed, the Crown Prince climbed into the front seat of the front Land Rover, with his interpreter in the seat behind.
The driver’s door opened and in climbed not a man, but a woman. Abdullah – I assume – opened his mouth to protest. I presume he stopped him time when he realised he knew this woman. The Queen didn’t pause. She sat down, turned on the ignition and drove off at pace. Allegedly he intervened only to ask his interpreter if she would slow down a bit.
In 2011, no member of the Royal Family had formally visited the Irish Republic for 100 years. There had been no official visits since the country had become independent through armed struggle. In the period in between, thousands of lives had been lost in the troubles and the Queen’s dear friend Lord Mountbatten had himself been murdered by a terrorist attack. When it was announced that she would visit, it was news around the world. Everyone was watching. The potential for something to go wrong was immense. As a result those advising the Queen became even more cautious than normal. For example, when it was proposed that the Queen should start her speech with some words in Irish, this ‘crazy’ idea was immediately boycotted. What if she got it wrong? What if it was misunderstood? What if people thought it inappropriate? No, no, no.
But one person had other ideas. A week before the state visit, a former British diplomat went to see the Irish President, Mary McAleese. He pulled an old envelope from his jacket pocket and persuaded the president to jot down a few words in Irish. Reluctantly she did so, warning him that the idea had already been vetoed.
And so, as Elizabeth rose to her feet in Dublin Castle, the first British monarch to speak publicly in an independent Ireland, it had been established that her first three words should be simply: “President and friends”. She stuck to them but it sounded a little different from normal (watch for the ‘wow’ from the President of Ireland).
My favourite story though is the time that two people met her without knowing it was her. You might think ‘surely not’…
How was it she – a rich, landed, lady of the aristocracy born between the two world wars – connected with people who were so different from her and each other: A Saudi prince, the Irish people, two American tourists?
A colleague of mine once said that the key to leadership was this: ‘make sure people find you to be exactly the same person each time they meet you.
This is what the Queen was. Consistent. The same wave, the same look but above all the same decency, kindness and commitment to service.
Underpinning all of this was a very real faith. In her Christmas message eight years ago, she said this to us all. “For me, the life of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace is an inspiration and an anchor in my life. Christ’s example has taught me to seek to respect and value all people, of whatever faith or none.”
But it is not just her consistent decency that has seen some of us surprised by tears since Thursday. It is something else. Her constancy.
In a world full of change, she was always there. As Helen Lewis has pointed out she was six weeks older than Marilyn Monroe, three years older than Anne Frank, nine years older than Elvis Presley. She was older than nylon, around longer than Scotch tape. She pre-dated The Hobbit.
The Queen was Just. Always. There.
I go to church. Today, I was asked to speak on a story in the Bible called “the woman at the well”. It’s a great story. In it, Jesus heads back to see his family. To get there, he has to walk through a place called Samaria. Samaria is somewhere that Jews like Jesus generally avoid. Why? Because the Jews and the Samaritans really don’t get on. During his journey he meets a Samaritan woman who gives him a drink from the nearby well. The two get talking. (Again, an example of someone meeting royalty without knowing it.)
So, what do they talk about? They talk about ‘the holy place’. The place they each go to reflect on their faith and to remember who they are as people. For the Jews that place is the Temple of Jerusalem. For the Samaritans, it is the mountain of Gerizim.
These two places provide stability and reassurance. They are a constant, consistent presence in times of trouble and celebration. They bring and keep the people together.
The woman asks Jesus a question. It’s basically this one: Which is better – the mountain or the Temple?
And Jesus says something unexpected. He doesn’t diminish the value of either place.
No. Instead he says something else. He tells her that both of these ever-constants will pass. Neither the Temple nor the mountain will be here forever. They may seem constant but they are not.
But for Jesus this sad news is not bad news.
Jesus tells the woman that although the Mountain and the Temple may pass, the God that they worshipped on both will not. He is with them and will be with them.
This week, we have lost a constant in our lives.
She is gone.
But that which she represented has not. What we valued about the Queen remains constant. The values of authenticity, kindness and service remain in the way we choose to live, the way we choose to treat each other and the way in we connect with each other.