A Moment in History

September Newsletter

Like many of us I’ve been pondering the recent death of the Queen.

I’m of that generation that has reached a certain maturity and seen a lot of change. I was born into the post-WW2 world, with Queen Elizabeth II already on the throne. Prime ministers, national leaders, wars, even entire countries have come and gone, and she remained. The heroes of my youth arose, came to fame, ripened, and were lost to us; people like Lennon, Bowie, Burton and Taylor, Olivier, Mandela, even Gorbachev — all of them turned to dust, and still the Queen carried on. The world moved from the jet age to moon landings, to the Internet and climate change catastrophe. And still the Queen was here, a symbol of continuity, permanence even.

Now, inevitably, that reassuring presence has gone. What will that mean, to us, to the country, to the world? To some, very little. An elderly woman, descendant of despots, entitled aristocrats and the occasional madman, who had lived a life of luxury and privilege herself and out-lived all her generation, has died at home with her family around her. Surely a fate to be envied, in a world so full of peril? Why should this one death have any significance?

With my history student’s hat on, I have another view to offer. For me, this quiet woman who had the job of monarch trust upon her earlier than she might have hoped, represented more. She was the living link between the war-time generation and today. Between the British Empire, and a UK shrunken by withdrawal from the EU. Between a time when most people lived and died in the same town — the same street even — and the modern era of shifting populations and easy air travel. Between a time when the monarch was instinctively revered, to a time when respect for any authority figure is rightly harder to earn.

It is clear the Queen had her faults as a mother, but what she stood for all her life was dedication to what she saw as her duty. She made a promise at age 21 to devote her life to the country and the Commonwealth. We never saw her back down from that promise.

Her famous namesake, the first Elizabeth, said of her own sense of duty: “ye shall never have a more loving prince.” In another hundred years or so, when the reign of Elizabeth II is weighed against her forebears and indeed her successors, I wouldn’t mind betting that sense of duty, however out of touch it might seem to some now, will be seen as the hallmark of this Elizabeth’s life too.

My News

• Last weekend saw me at the Historical Novel Society conference in Durham. This was a splendid event, with useful presentations and the rare post-Covid chance to bump into friends and fellow authors. I chatted to Roman authors Derek Birks and Alison Morton, and spent a wonderful time with the brilliant Fiona Forsyth at the formal dinner in Durham Castle. We may have had the odd drink.

• Historia magazine, the publication of the Historical Writers’ Association, has recently published my article How Roman was Roman Britain? You can read it here.

• If you’re visiting or living around the Malvern Hills later in November, do come along to my author event at Great Malvern library. I’ll be drinking coffee and talking about my writing with the Coffee and Crime readers’ group, at 11.00 on Friday 4 November. There’ll be signed books for sale, too. Plus I’ll be with the Marchers’ Authors at Ross on Wye library on 2 November, 7.00 pm, at the Ross library.

• I’m also in the throes of agreeing details of an interactive author event/book signing at The Cube, on behalf of the Malvern Book Cooperative. I’ll be announcing details of that soon, I hope.

• Finally, don’t forget if you feel like following our bumbles abroad on our much loved Triumph Tiger through Spain and Portugal shortly, sign up to my travel blog. Be warned, there will inevitably be Roman sites involved, plus cafes and wine bars…