‘Dialogue with the Queen …’ by Ms Paige Turner
Dialogue with the Queen
Last night I dreamt the Queen said to me,
“Oh Janet, weren’t you in the crowd at Jubilee
in … nineteen seventy seven?
Wasn’t it that little town in Devon?”
“Falmouth,” I replied.
“Ah yes, and in nineteen eighty two
at Regent’s Park, we remember asking you -
‘how has been the weather?’”
I said, “I replied to you, ‘not bad’ but I lied.
In fact the weather could not have been wetter.”
“Janet,” said she,
“you were the invisible voice of Puck’s fairy.
This, I believe, is what you have always been …
a little one doing good deeds unseen.
It’s always so nice to see you
and we are always so interested too
to know how you are in particular.
And so is the Duke of Edinburgh.”
This is called ‘illusions of grandeur’.
1998 (From her collection ‘Serving Bluebird Pie’.)
We were aboard the Queen Victoria ship, sailing from Carthegena, Spain on Thursday 8th September when we received the news. Former Royal correspondent Jenny Bond had delivered her speech ‘What a Woman: the Queen’ only two days before.
The Queen. ‘We shall not see her like again.’ (‘Hamlet’) Long live the King.
Didn’t know that you were such a staunch loyalist .Yes, God save the king. Reminds me of when Istarrted work at Leyland Truck & Bus in 1976. A director asked to see us 3 starters and opened aggressively with, “I’m a monarchist and anti republican and I don’t care who knows it”.It was probably meant for the other 2 since they were Irish plus me being Liverpudlian so, one way or another, it would get back to the IRA. He was probably on one of their lists anyway but he wasn’t considered important enough anyway.
She was a remarkable woman though I prefered Elizabeth Ist.She realy knew how to lead/inspire men “you see before you the body of a weak and feeble woman bui nsidet I have the heart of a lion, of an English king. The sailors then cheered and went out and defeated the Sppanish Armada.
I thought you were a BBCRadio4 girl.sceptical of the Royal Familyand but for anything that breaks up the union…