Can you remember where you were when you heard the announcement of the death of Queen Elizabeth the Second? Can you remember how it affected you and what you did? Here are some of my memories of that moment and the days immediately afterwards, with lots of gratitude to many people. If you read this, you know who you are!
I doubt there’s ever a good time to hear of a death, but I think that teatime on a Thursday was particularly challenging for many of us when the official announcement was made that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second had died on September 8th, 2022.
A friend and colleague from church had just arrived. We were due to make some progress on parish safeguarding. Instead, we stood together in the Vicarage living room and watched the breaking news on the television.
Shocked and saddened, my friend left, unable to do anything more that day but take in the news. I knew that wasn’t an option for me.
The following day was Friday, and my day off. I had arranged to meet a friend, and we planned to go for a walk. I phoned her to say I wouldn’t be able to make it. Oh, she said, will you have duties? I said I would, though at that stage I wasn’t sure what they would be. As a parish priest in the church of England, who had made oaths of allegiance to her majesty and her lawful heirs, I knew I had to set my mind and body on a particular course.
It was Thursday evening and everything was in place for the following Sunday. The order of service, the notice sheets, the sermon and the thought for the week were all completed. Everything had to change.
I am eternally grateful to the administrator of our group of churches who phoned me to say that she would work through the next day and produce all the paperwork needed and distribute it to all the churches. God bless her for that.
With that reassurance in mind, I ate some food and settled myself in front of the computer screen and for the first time in years worked until the early hours of the morning.
I thanked God that night for clergy colleagues and WhatsApp. Messages pinged to and fro with questions such as where will I find that collect (particular prayer), what colour altar cloth should we use and what should we wear? While we all re wrote those orders of service, notice sheets, sermons and thoughts for the week.
Of course, we had had no training, preparation or warning for this. I imagine that would count as treason!
The next day, I dressed in my black cassock and went into church. A churchwarden arrived to say that instructions on what I was to wear had arrived. I was glad I’d guessed correctly.
We opened books of condolence and all day, the churches were full of people writing their messages, sitting, praying and crying. There was real grief, streaming down the faces of men and women.
I thank God for churchwardens who dropped whatever they had planned for the next two weeks so that the period of mourning could be observed properly in their churches. They followed every instruction, which arrived at irregular intervals and took us into an interesting world, especially when it came to church bells.
I thank God for bellringers, who understood and carried out the requirements. At times the bells had to be muffled and at other times unmuffled, because as well as this being a time of mourning for a monarch, it was also a time of proclaiming the new monarch, King Charles the third.
The news, both of the death and the succession, had to be announced throughout the land by bellringing and our tower captains and ringing teams rose to that challenge.
This was clearly an important time in our national life. I felt disorientated. After all, I’d lived all my life as an Elizabethan!
So many people had to react quickly to the death of Elizabeth the second, in every walk of life.
I’d love to hear your memories of that time.
Wander well,
Mandy.
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