24 NZDF personnel will march alongside their Australian and Canadian counterparts with UK Armed Forces and other Commonwealth countries who have significant links to the late Queen. Video / NZDF
Opinion
OPINION
I think it was on Newshub – after channel-surfing hours of the long-prepared coverage who could be sure? – that a couple in a retirement village shared their response to the bad breaking news. "We were in bed," said the lady, "and he said, 'Oh God, the Queen's died.'
"And I said 'No, no, she can't have. I saw her on television.'"
It reminded me of the death of Diana. I heard the news on the car radio, picked my jaw up off the floorboard and went home to switch on days of completely unprepared-for coverage. "No, no, she can't be dead," advised my then 6-year-old daughter. "She's a princess." Somehow unthinkable.
Canada, where I grew up, had the same Queen but it wasn't until we arrived in 1964 New Zealand that the true might of the British monarchy was impressed upon me in the slightly scary form of Nana.
She modelled her style — tweed skirt, bulletproof stockings, brogues, a weekly, immoveable roller "set" at the hairdressers – on the Queen at Balmoral, by way of the Woman's Weekly. Nana called England "home" and home meant the Queen. Should a royal visit our shores, she — and, it seemed, the rest of the country — went berserk. At the movies in Canada there was no standing for God Save the Queen.
It was a bit of a mystery. It still is. I got the news that morning on my phone, upon which a tear or two might possibly have fallen. Jacinda Ardern told a press conference how she heard that the clock had ticked over into a new era: "I had a police officer shine a torch into my room at 10 minutes past five."
Life as the PM can sound almost as unearthly as life as the Queen. As I write, Elizabeth II has stopped the world, erasing even The Chase from the schedules.
We may not all bond over watching the same thing at the same time these days but the Queen was the first television monarch. She was crowned as the age of television really kicked off, both phenomena long to reign over us.
The Firm: it has often seemed like a soap opera, and sometimes a horror show, what with the divorces, defections, Prince Andrew… The crowd outside Buckingham Palace singing God Save the Queen, then God Save the King, seemed quite young, if not very diverse. People brought along their children, as our Prime Minister brought her daughter to Parliament for the rather biblical-sounding Proclamation of Accession of King Charles III, to dip them into the stream of history as an ancient, unwieldly institution motored implacably into its unknowable next act.
The Queen's last appearance: Elizabeth I welcomes Prime Minister Liz Truss during an audience at Balmoral. Photo / AP
One of the criticisms of the monarchy has been that it infantilises its subjects. The media, over the years, has doggedly returned the favour. "Her majesty is almost like a little girl," cooed the BBC during the 2012 Diamond Jubilee flotilla. "She loves every outing!" She waves, she smiles.
As the flotilla floated on, the giant puppet from the play Warhorse on a rooftop had managed to surprise the most constitutionally unexcitable figure of our times. "She pointed!" 70 years of that sort of thing would wear you down. It's hard to imagine that King Charles will attract such doting. Our present moment marks an opportunity for the media to grow the heck up.
One of the most-played clips right now: a 21-year-old Elizabeth in 1947, such a young woman soon to be looked to for leadership of the odd, royal sort in what was then, and still is, a man's world, coolly eyeballing the camera and saying, "I declare before you my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service."
It's a sign of our age – perhaps of any age - that it is notable when a public figure delivers on a big promise. In this case, what that service was and what it meant will be discussed, evaluated, and argued over – and that's just in our house – for ages.
But as an epitaph it's not a bad one: she did the mahi.
