Wearing Wellies

A Queen for the Ages - Chapter Eighteen - “Hello, Mom. Mom, is that you?” I said into my tiny, cheap plastic cell phone that was becoming increasingly unreliable. The call was dropped, but I recognized the number as my mother’s cell phone number. My phone started ringing again. Of all the people that would visit us during the year, my mother’s cell phone was the only cell phone that actually worked in Europe. After telling each visitor to count on their cell phone not working in London, they arrived to find it not working, even after calling their service provider to confirm that it would work. After much frustration, each visitor eventually figured out how to use the airport pay phone to call us and tell us they had arrived. I answered the phone, and this time I could hear what sounded like the background noise of a train station. “Mom, are you there?” I said. “Garrett! Garrett! Can you hear me?” she responded. “Yes, I can hear you. Is everything OK, Mom?” I answered. Even though my mother’s voice was frantic and sounded distressed, I was not too concerned. I knew from past experience that she was calling with good news because when she does have unexpected and devastating news to share with my brothers and me, she has a unique approach. She usually starts out by saying she has some bad news and then goes on to list each person the news is not about, in order of importance to the family: “Your father and brothers are all OK, your grandmother is fine…”, and the list goes on and on, leaving me to guess along the way, until it is complete. Then I have time to wonder which person she hasn’t mentioned, as she always pauses before saying the name. The last time I received a bad news call, she told me the family dog had died. “You’re not going to believe this,” she said in the voice of an overly excited teenager who had just been handed the keys to the family car. “I touched the Queen!” “What?” I replied, even though I had heard perfectly well what she had said. “I touched the Queen! We met the Queen!” she repeated. “The Queen? You touched the Queen of England?” I asked. I was now picturing my mom in a jail cell somewhere in London. Was this her one phone call she was granted? Did England even have the one phone call upon arrest etiquette? “The Queen walked right over to where we were standing, and as she reached over my shoulder to take a card from the person standing behind me, I reached out and lifted her elbow to help her grab the card. We met Prince Philip, too!” she boasted. Poor Prince Philip. Always an afterthought. “Sarah and I have been in London for four months and we have not even seen the Queen. You and Dad have been here a couple of days and you have already met her! This is so unfair,” I said. It was April 21st, Queen Elizabeth II’s 80th birthday. My parents had flown over to London with some friends to visit us and spend some time in London and Paris. My mother had gotten everyone up at the crack of dawn and traveled out to Windsor Castle to stand outside the huge castle founded by William the Conqueror, for the possibility of a quick glimpse of the most famous woman in the world. A minute or two after the clock struck noon, the large Henry VIII gate doors slowly opened and Queen Elizabeth II, wearing a cerise coat with a matching feathered hat, slowly walked out with her husband Prince Philip slightly behind her. A huge roar greeted the Queen as she slowly started making her way down the street, for what the British refer to as a walkabout, smiling and accepting bouquets of flowers and birthday cards. She passed by a group of school children wearing blue school blazers and waving the white flags with the red cross of St. George, patron saint of England. As television cameras and photographers snapped picture after picture to be seen around the world, the Queen walked over to where my parents and their friends had been standing for hours and accepted a birthday card from an elderly man standing next to them. My mother could have hugged the Queen if she’d wanted to, and I’m a little surprised she didn’t try. Live television coverage of the event was being shown around the world, and later in the day on newscast in almost every country, as she walked down the street during her royal walkabout. Millions of women around the world were saying to themselves, “I wish that was me standing there greeting the Queen of England.” My mother has always been one of those people, but today she did not have to wish anymore. She was that person being shown in newspaper articles and news coverage on stations like CNN smiling in the background and greeting the Queen. I could not have been happier for her, and hearing her and my father tell the story made me so happy for the two of them—they really deserved to experience the special moment in their lives. Sarah and I had yet to meet the Queen or even get a glimpse of her as she passed by on the streets of London, but we were getting to experience life living under the reign of a Queen and loving every minute of it. The Royal Family has been hugely popular in the United States, as many Americans have followed every glorious and heartbreaking event that the family has suffered. Living in London gave us the opportunity to actually live in the soap opera life that we could only read about or see on television back at home. Prince William and Prince Harry had friends who lived in our area, and their favorite nightclub was a short walk away from our house. They were often seen leaving house parties at early hours of the morning just down the block from where we lived. We never knew they were there until we read about it in the papers the next morning. It seemed that if the younger and far less constrained Prince Harry was visiting his favorite hangout with his friends, they more often than not seemed to find themselves involved in a fistfight with other club patrons. Within hours, pictures of blood-stained individuals and a drunk-looking Harry or William seen leaving the club would be splashed across the pages of the day’s newspapers or magazines. News like this really made me feel sorry for them and truly is an example of what has been said before, that the two boys are trying to live a modern life in an ancient institution. Queen Elizabeth II won the ultimate birth lottery when she was born on April 21, 1926 in London, England but no one knew it at the time. When she was born, nobody thought or expected her to one day become Queen of England. Her father, George, was not the king when she was born and instead her father’s brother, Edward, was the eldest son, making him next in line to become King. Upon the death of their father, Edward ascended the throne as Edward VIII. As fate would have it, Edward fell in love with an American socialite. The problem was that his new love had been divorced twice, and, as a result, their marriage was opposed on religious, moral, political, and legal grounds. The King declared that he loved her and would marry her whether the government or the people approved of it or not. King Edward VIII kept true to his promise to marry his new love and abdicated his crown, paving the way for his brother George to ascend to the throne as King George VI. At the age of seven she was photographed holding a Welsh Corgi in her arms and has been associated with the dogs ever since. At age fourteen she made her first radio broadcast, speaking to evacuated children during the Blitz. She is also the only female member of the Royal Family to serve in the armed forces rather than accept an honorary rank. She contributed to the war efforts when she convinced her father to let her join the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service. During VE Day celebrations, she, along with her younger sister, dressed in ordinary clothes and slipped into the huge crowds to celebrate the victory as common people, allowing her to live for just a few short hours as an average person.