The French mourn our Queen
As usual, I read Jeremy Clarke’s Spectator column aloud to my wife, but I had to stop for a moment or two when I came to this. He was in a French taxi on his way to a hospital appointment when the radio started to report the Queen’s failing health…
‘She is the great oak tree that shelters us all,’ observed some venerable old French commentator in a quaking, sonorous voice. ‘If she falls, we will be naked before the elements.’
How moving, and gracious.
Later that day, the driver returned to pick up the patients:
A French commentator said it was possible that the Queen had already passed away. Gilles treated himself to another torrent of swearing in French and Anglo-Saxon, finishing in English with: ‘The Queen is dead. Long live the King!’
That last echoes the (British) Army Rumour website; for many old soldiers and their families, there were tears.
Time to set aside our small differences in the face of such a loss.