When
you're the parent of two little girls you often have to deal in the realm of
the royal.
Story
after story describes the life of some princess or other. Usually they're
getting themselves into trouble. It’s not the sort of trouble which involves
hanging out with a known love rat, sucking the toes of a Texan oil millionaire,
or other misadventures that will be screamed about in the tabloid press (which
only screams and never utters).
They
don’t develop eating disorders but a lot do have a drinking problem, insofar as
they can’t seem to stay off the secret potions for very long, sometimes before
lunch.
They're
often wandering away from where they should be and becoming hopelessly lost. Whoever
Disney put in charge of palace security must be on thin ice. In a typical
storyline that could have come straight from the desk of Germaine Greer, they
like sitting around doing precious little whilst waiting for a good looking
prince to turn up. Sometimes they’re even unconscious. In short, they’re a bit
useless.
So
it was refreshing to be able to deal in some real royalty recently as our house
has gone ga-ga for Queen Elizabeth II for her Diamond Jubilee.
Of
course we've had to explain what a jubilee is, and why it's different to a
plain old anniversary like taxpayers have. It sounds great to kids, a jubilee,
and our daughters Lani, 6, and Evie, 5, would have been happy just going around
saying the word over and over. But it was also a good excuse to explain and
question a few things.
WHO IS THE QUEEN?
Lani: Queen Elizabeth.
TF: Right, Queen Elizabeth.
Lani: Daddy, why did she chop off
her cousin's head?
TF: Did she?!
Lani: Yeah.
TF: Wow - you've got that story
to yourself. You should sell it to a newspaper.
Lani: Ye-e-ah. you remember?
Mary. And the head fell off and went rolling away.
I
realise Her Majesty didn't behead anyone, that it was a case of mistaken
identity.
TF: No, you mean Elizabeth the first. We're talking about Elizabeth the
second.
Evie: Who's the second Elizabeth?
TF: The Queen of England. And
Australia. And a few other places. She's the one having the jubilee.
Evie: What's a jubilee? Can you
eat it?
TF: No, it's not a lolly. A
jubilee is an anniversary for a king or queen.
Evie: What's an anniversary?
TF: It's when someone's been
doing something for a long time, like 10 or 20 years or so. The Queen has been
queen for 60 years, so she gets a jubilee. Because it's 60 years it's called a Diamond Jubilee.
Evie: Does she get a diamond?
TF: No.
Evie: Oooooh!
TF: It’s ok. She’s got plenty.
HOW DID THE QUEEN BECOME THE QUEEN?
Evie: Because she chopped the
other queen's head off!
TF: No.
If
it’s not obvious by now, our kids are obsessed by the story of Mary Queen of
Scots and her lost head, particularly the gory details about how it took a few
blows for the thing to come off, and how, once it did, it went bouncing across
the execution yard. I felt it only fair on the Virgin Queen, insanely jealous
though she was, to point out that the phrase “had her killed” doesn’t mean Good
Queen Bess actually swung the axe herself. Likewise Henry VIII didn’t
physically do his wives in.
It
was at this point I felt the need to explain the royal succession, to show how
Elizabeth I was Henry’s daughter and so on down to the modern crop. This would
have been easy a few years ago when on the wall of my home office I had the
English royal family tree. It was right next to another must-have, a large
poster of the world at night, showing the bright lights of the Earth’s urban
areas. Both pieces had been expertly unfolded from the magazines they came in and
magnificently mounted on blue tac to decorate my workspace. However, my wife,
shall we say, tore them down in revulsion one night in one of those things
women sometimes do when they move in with a man and become pregnant and stop
thinking straight. So these days when we need a quick reference to the English
royal family tree, like some backwoods caveman we have to go online. As for the
Earth at night, we’re all at sea.
TF: So how did the Queen become
queen?
Lani: Because her father died.
TF: That’s right. She was next
in line.
Evie: It’s good to wait in line.
TF: That’s right. So she became
Queen 60 years ago, in 1952.
The
utterance of this year, as with most years, is followed by an obvious question.
Evie: Were there dinosaurs around
then?
TF: Aaaah, no.
I’m
not sure how long my kids think 65 million years is, but this question keeps
coming up. I guess it’s no slight on the Queen. The other day I was asked if
there were dinosaurs around in the year I was born, 1967. Perhaps they meant
the Rolling Stones.
SO WHAT DO YOU THINK THE QUEEN DOES EVERY DAY?
Evie: She’s on the throne all day.
Lani: She what? She’s on the phone
all day?
TF: Yes. She’s just one the
phone yabbering away to her mates all day that Queen. She’s a shocker.
Evie: No, she’s on the throne all day.
Lani: Oh, yes. That’s what she
does.
TF: Is that it? Just sits there?
Lani/Evie: Yeah.
TF: All day??
Lani: Well, OK, probably not the
whole entire day.
TF: Thank God for that. It’d be
a pretty boring life otherwise.
Lani: She’d have to get off to do
important stuff.
TF: Like what?
Lani: Like go and buy the
groceries.
TF: Oh right.
I don’t
deny this but make a mental note. Next
time these kids complain about going to the supermarket, remind them that even
the Queen has to do it.
Lani: But apart from that she
doesn’t leave the throne.
TF: What about going to the
toilet?
Lani: Well, OK and maybe going to
the toilet.
Evie: She must have a special
toilet.
TF: Well, I’d suppose it’s very
clean.
Evie: Is there someone who wipes
her …
TF: No I don’t think so.
WHAT LAWS WOULD YOU MAKE IF YOU WERE QUEEN:
Lani: Rule 1: No riding about in
shopping trolleys.
TF: What? That’s the first
thing you’d think of?
Lani: Yes. No careering across the
road while riding in a shopping trolley.
TF: OK.
Lani: It’s dangerous.
TF: OK.
Lani: I saw it in a book. This
woman went across a road in a shopping trolley.
TF: Alright, well, yes we’d
better jump on that.
Evie: I know! Everyone can eat
ice-cream anytime.
TF: OK.
Evie: And no putting holes in
things.
TF: What?
Evie: Kevin put a hole in my
painting at school.
TF: OK. No putting holes in
things.
Evie: No littering and no running
in the house.
TF: OK.
Evie: And no chopping people’s
heads off.
WHAT ELSE WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE QUEEN?
Evie: I know! I’d get someone to
make me a special throne.
TF: I think you’d already have
one. They come with the palace.
Evie: No, a special throne that
was also a toilet.
TF: Ah. A combination
throne/toilet.
Evie: Yeah.
Lani: So then you wouldn’t have to
leave the throne to go to the toilet?
Evie: Yeah!
TF: Just do your business right
there, in front of everyone, while tending to matters of state!
Evie: Yeah!
AND FINALLY, WHO WOULD YOU KNIGHT IF YOU WERE QUEEN?
Lani: Willy Wonka.
Evie: Mummy.
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Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. |
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Or this. |
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Here is another famous princess. However, those in my daughter's DVDs and story books hardly ever look like this. |
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Her Majesty the Queen, snapped recently at the proverbial opening of an envelope. |
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