Keywords: Queen Elizabeth Ii
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INTERNATIONAL
- Michael McGirr
- 12 January 2023
My mother often reminded us that she was the same age as the queen. They were both stoic to the point of being difficult to understand. There was never any doubt that, living by their lights, they would spend every breath doing what they felt called to do. Self-indulgence was hardly part of their vocabulary; along with that, they didn’t indulge others much either. The generation of 1926 was made of sturdy timber.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Andrew Hamilton
- 03 October 2022
In the last few weeks, we have been drowned, smothered or mired in words that have striven for solemnity. Such occasions as the death of Queen Elizabeth II and the various Grand Finals are held to transcend the everyday and so to demand elegiac or epic words. It is easy to laugh at the manifest failures to reach those heights, whether by Poets Laureate who should have known better, or by excitable journalists. There is, however, something endearingly human in the attempt.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 20 September 2022
7 Comments
When more nuanced commentary around the passing of Queen Elizabeth II came to the fore, it was hard to avoid the difficult realities of the British monarchy and an institution that has not, through its history, delighted those conquered in its name. With Elizabeth II, it was notable that she let an opportunity to engage the topic of empire in Britain’s collective memory go begging.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Michael McGirr
- 12 September 2022
13 Comments
My mother often reminded us that she was the same age as the queen. They were both stoic to the point of being difficult to understand. There was never any doubt that, living by their lights, they would spend every breath doing what they felt called to do. Self-indulgence was hardly part of their vocabulary; along with that, they didn’t indulge others much either. The generation of 1926 was made of sturdy timber.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Gillian Bouras
- 07 June 2022
10 Comments
I admit to a weakness for pomp and pageantry. I am, after all, a child of Empire, and swore allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II every Monday morning for years on end. So I watched the recent Trooping of the Colour, part of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, and thoroughly enjoyed it, admiring the military precision and all the discipline required, the glitter, the splendour, the dashing aristocrats of the equine world, the sheer vividness of the unrolling scene. And all in honour of the Queen’s birthday.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Barry Gittins
- 13 October 2016
1 Comment
I attempted at one stage to lodge snippets of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience into the minds of our children. Emily complained that 'symmetry' didn't really rhyme with 'hand or eye'; Ben was and is more into dragons than tigers. The question later pondered of Blake's tiger 'Did He smile His work to see? Did He who made the lamb make thee?' regularly confronts me, as my wife semi-mourns and I embrace the maturing process that is taking our children towards adulthood.
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AUSTRALIA
- Fatima Measham
- 07 June 2013
66 Comments
There is no denying that our nation was forged by men and women who settled here from the UK. There is also no denying that men and women from other parts of the world came after them, and that there were countless generations here before them. Until monarchists can reconcile themselves with these facts then the image they hold of Australia is incomplete.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Mary Manning
- 27 June 2012
9 Comments
It is February 1952. I am with friends at Jim's place when we hear the news that King George VI has died. A dark-haired boy I have not met before keeps looking across at me.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Brian Matthews
- 22 June 2012
6 Comments
Constant rain, sullen skies and a scarcely articulate commentary did not deter the massive and sodden crowds or diminish the momentum of the Queen’s recent Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Only the bigger picture and the jaundiced eye of history could assign the event its comparative place in the great panoply of royal extravaganzas.
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AUSTRALIA
- Philip Harvey
- 01 June 2012
16 Comments
One curate in our parish claimed to dream about the royal family and believed everyone did. Any easy familiarity I had with an idealised royal family collapsed with the dismissal of the Whitlam government. Malcolm Turnbull is persuasive when he says in Australia there are now more Elizabethans than monarchists.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Gillian Bouras
- 30 May 2012
16 Comments
I went to the breakfast table, where my father was reading The Sun. I was just old enough to read, and knew a screaming headline when I saw one. THE KING IS DEAD. Sixteen months later Queen Elizabeth II was crowned. I told my mother I'd like to be the Queen. 'No, you wouldn't,' she declared.
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AUSTRALIA
- Moira Rayner
- 26 October 2011
17 Comments
In a simpler time a visit from our head of state seemed to make us feel better about ourselves. Like many Australians, I hold dear the old lady, but have no fear that democracy will shatter when her life and the monarchy slowly come to their natural end.
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