I hope you dont consider this bad taste. I wrote it a while ago.
Some days stick in your memory. Days when the whole world was watching.
Days like that September day in the late 1990s for example.
I remember the news, waking up to hear the announcer's sombre voice on the radio. It happened in Paris , early on a Sunday morning. The country was in shock. Then the BBC played the National Anthem and it seemed the nation paused in silence.
There was outpourings of grief afterwards; so many flowers and books of condolence.
The funeral was the following Saturday. The nation stopped . This may have been Cool Britannia and Blair's Britain, but some things still demanded respect.
The funeral was broadcast to the world of course . Who can forget those Princes marching behind the coffin; Prince Charles looking so sad and a sombre Duke of Edinburgh.
Then there was the Queen , so solemn with her mother. She had spoken to the nation the night before - who could forget her words....she sounded so strong at a time of great sadness.
As I listened to her words, I wondered if she was thinking of 1952.....
1952 ? ...yes 1952 ...the year the King died. I mean King Edward the Eighth of course, for in this alternative history he had not abdicated. He had led his country through the long war from 1939 to 1945. He had died without heir and had been succeeded by his brother in 1952.
As we stood in silence observing the funeral of George the Sixth, we remembered his long reign , until almost the end of the Millennium. We wondered what kind of Monarch Elizabeth the Second would be....