Her Majesty (47 page)

But a major part of the Secretariat’s work is just that ordinary day-to-day interaction between the monarchy and us – days like this in Cheshire. ‘The Private Secretary’s Office might say: “The Queen is going to x or y. Now come up with a plan!”’ says Precey. ‘So we produce a number of ideas and the day might take shape around that. It’s good fun.’

But all good plans need an alternative. Sometimes, things just don’t follow the script. And David Briggs, Lord-Lieutenant of Cheshire, has to think fast with just hours before the Queen is due at Crewe railway station. Disaster has struck. The Duke of Edinburgh has had to have a minor operation on his hand and will not be coming. There is now a huge hole in the schedule as the Duke was supposed to be opening the new dairy unit – and it’s his birthday to boot (urgent memo to chef: remove candles from cake). When the staff in the dairy unit hear the news, they are so disappointed that they stop hosing down the floor and adjourn for a cup of tea. The Lord-Lieutenant needs an emergency Duke. He cannot perform the role himself as he will be accompanying the Queen all morning. He discusses the matter with the Reaseheath College governors. They all think that the Vice-Lieutenant, Viscount Ashbrook, would be an excellent choice. A self-effacing Manchester solicitor and popular local landowner, Lord Ashbrook could certainly do the job but he wonders if there might not be a better solution. So the honour goes to Steven Broomhead, the chief executive of the Northwest Regional Development Agency. It’s a sensible move since the college receives millions of pounds in grants via the agency. It will do no harm to treat its boss, quite literally, like royalty. But as everyone admits: ‘It’s not quite the same.’ And the royal plaque will have to replaced with an unroyal one. The dairy staff are not the only unhappy ones. The managers at the Rolls-Royce factory in Crewe were planning to send a new Bentley prototype to transport the Duke for the day. Now they will not.

Having arrived a day ahead of the Queen, Colette Saunders from the Palace Press Office is checking the entire route all over again. For the first time in its history, the equestrian centre smells of flowers rather than horses. Reaseheath teaches floristry – one pupil apparently came fifth at the world flower-arranging Olympics in Japan – and the faculty of flowers has been busy. Saunders checks that all is ready for the Queen’s grand
unveiling of a chainsaw-carved statue of two horses. She talks to Philip Warren, the staff member who once worked at the Royal Mews. He is thrilled to be meeting his former employer. He doubts that the Queen will recognise him – ‘I did meet her at Christmas drinks but there were a lot of people there’ – yet he will always be grateful for his years at the Palace and always likes to tell his students about the 5.55 a. m. starts in the Royal Mews. ‘I learned about pride in your work and perfection. Mind you, I don’t miss those postilion jackets with a hundred buttons on them.’

The clouds are darkening overhead but Peter Wilkinson, the Queen’s official television cameraman, who will provide footage for all the networks, is not worried. During fourteen years of filming the Queen, he has only seen her rained on eleven times. ‘She has pretty good contacts,’ he explains. There is a sudden flap in another part of the college. Colette Saunders is summoned to advise. It turns out that some of the governors are worried about a flower arrangement which may be obscuring the plaque which the Queen will unveil. It is a footling, hilarious panic but Saunders takes it in her stride. As the royal advance party, her main job is simply to calm everybody down and remind them that they are supposed to enjoy the day. The Queen will not give two hoots about the position of a flower arrangement.

Another problem presents itself. A local radio reporter is at the royal arrival point and broadcasting live, with breathless excitement’… The Queen will be seeing the best of Cheshire. Everyone is
so
excited …’ That’s all good. But, for some reason, the lady reporter is wearing a T-shirt several sizes too small, jeans and flip-flops. The Queen has seen it all before but some of the locals are unhappy. The reporter is dressed for the beach, not the Queen. They sense a lack of respect. As the media minder for the day, Saunders has a quiet word. ‘We don’t see a lot of flip-flops at royal engagements,’ she says gently. ‘Have you got any other shoes?’ The girl shakes her head. She seems genuinely surprised that anyone is bothered. ‘I’m sure she would dress properly if someone
important
was coming,’ comes a sarcastic stage whisper from one of the crowd. By now, the Queen has arrived at Crewe. Regular trains can do the journey in ninety minutes. The Royal Train has taken a leisurely overnight stroll up the back routes, avoiding all the main lines, and has taken eleven hours and ten minutes. But it arrives at 10.10 a.m., bang on time to the nearest second. David Briggs, the Lord-Lieutenant, does the introductions but keeps the line short. There are royal handshakes for his wife, Lord Ashbrook, the High Sheriff, a trio from the local council, the local MP and the Chief Constable. Cheshire’s
de facto
monarch, the Duke of Westminster – a Knight of the Garter and a friend of the Queen – will
not be seen at all. Once he would have been at her side all day. These days, everything has changed.

The Queen is clearly delighted to be at an equestrian centre as she steps out of the State Bentley in a pink coat and dress by Stewart Parvin and a Philip Somerville hat. This greeting line has been restricted to three. The Queen walks straight up to a demonstration of equine physiotherapy. A teacher is pointing out the muscles on a mare called Mo who is so overwhelmed by all the attention that she relieves herself just as the Queen is alongside. Unperturbed, the Queen follows the lesson for a few minutes and moves on to a display of equine massage. A few stalls further along, a couple of elderly horses are half asleep as they undergo a course of equine reiki therapy. Mature student Kim McMuldrow explains that her charge, a twenty-year-old mare called Emma, has had cancer. ‘Reikí helps horses heal themselves,’ explains McMuldrow, her fingers hovering above Emma’s back. ‘Is it just your hand?’ asks the Queen. ‘It’s very good for making the horses feel very, very calm,’ McMuldrow whispers. The Queen is captivated. She stops, as planned, for a few words with Philip Warren as he holds open his gate and asks him how he is getting on. Just fine, he says. He’s still not sure if she recognises him from the old days.

Inside the indoor arena, a display is under way with the captain of the British Olympic dressage team, Richard Davison, and his son, Joe, riding the Countess of Derby’s prize horse, Artemis. The students have been asked not to greet the Queen with a wall of mobile phones but to pretend to be glued to the display. Once it’s over, though, and the Queen is in the ring to unveil the chainsaw sculpture, everyone starts greedily snapping away. Meanwhile, the staff and students at the dairy unit are loyally pretending that Steven Broomhead, the chief executive of the Northwest Regional Development Agency, is the Duke of Edinburgh. But nobody bows.

At the campus headquarters, star pupil Katherine Smith presents the Queen with a bouquet of cream roses, astrantias and hostas. She has been informed that they are the Monarch’s ‘favourite summer colours’. Meredydd David invites the Queen to unveil a plaque commemorating the opening of the building by the Sovereign ‘and HRH The Duke of Edinburgh’. Some of the staff are a little worried that it’s wrong. But the Queen laughs and so everyone else laughs, too. David Briggs is looking at his watch. The Lord-Lieutenant has to escort the Queen to her next engagement. This day has had its nerve-wracking moments but he is enjoying himself. Even a sudden disaster like a missing Duke is not insurmountable when you have a visitor as experienced as the Queen. Anyway, as he himself admits, he is rather more nervous about another
event a few weeks hence. He will not only be representing the Queen. He will be presenting the awards which bear her name.

George V and George VI created their own brands of chivalry to reflect the ages in which they lived. The Queen has done the same. But the Elizabeth Cross is very different in tone. Whereas the primary purposes of George V’s Order of the British Empire and George VI’s George Cross are, respectively, to recognise excellence and gallantry, the Elizabeth Cross is to recognise sacrifice. Very simply, it is awarded to the families of members of the Armed Forces who die in the service of the country. Inevitably, it is widows and mothers who tend to wear it. And it is entirely in keeping with the style of the Monarch who has created it. The columnist and former
Daily Telegraph
editor Charles Moore has written that Britain is the most matriarchal society in the modern world, in that the four most famous public figures since the Second World War have been women the Queen, the Queen Mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, and Margaret Thatcher. It seems fitting that the Queen’s personal legacy to the way Britain salutes its own should strike a feminine – though not a feminist chord. It is not another hierarchy of medals for use only on formal occasions. There is a silver badge, along with a pin-on miniature for everyday use. It has no Class 1, 2 or 3; no Gold, Silver or Bronze. Just like every Commonwealth War Cemetery, it knows no rank. It comes with no protocols on where it is worn or how it sits in relation to other medals – though it is in no way an alternative to them. It is complementary. By definition, it can only be conferred on those who lived and died in uniform. It is both a brooch and an emblem, suitable for men and women; it is classless, different and, simply, very her. Just as the Victoria Cross captured the mood of the new imperial age, so the Elizabeth Cross is of its time.

When presented, there is none of the pomp and suppressed party atmosphere of a normal investiture. It has to be done with solemnity and a degree of intimacy and flexibility. And because it is available to the families of every man or woman who has died in the Forces since 1948 all 16,000 of them – it is impossible for the Queen to present all the Crosses which bear her name. So this sombre task is another duty for the Lord-Lieutenants. ‘The fact it has the Queen’s name attached to it I can’t tell you what an effect that has,’ says Lord Shuttleworth. ‘It’s that thing of personal recognition. It’s not the Great British Cross or whatever. It has her name and the reaction is really touching.’ He has found that presentations need to be small affairs – never more than ten at once – and has learned not to be surprised by anything.

‘These are very emotional occasions. Every single Lord-Lieutenant will tell you of distressing moments during the presentation. There’s a lot of bursting into tears and a lot of people are still quite angry. But you want to bring the whole family together in a lovely setting and make sure there is tea and a slice of cake, too.’

Traditional royal investitures are much larger affairs. The Queen has been doing them since she was a Princess and, when she cannot be present, the Prince of Wales or Princess Royal stands in for her. This is one of the great rewards of being royal. The Monarch is the ‘Fount of Honour’ and there can be few engagements more rewarding than recognising exceptional people on behalf of the whole nation. It’s pure Lady Bountiful. Here, too, things have changed a great deal. In the last twenty years, the number of investitures has shot up by 50 per cent to nearly thirty every year. This is not because there has been a rise in heroism or good deeds. It is partly because of a change of policy by John Major’s government. He decided that the British Empire Medal, previously the lowest rung on the honours ladder, was demeaning. Henceforth, everyone who would once have got a BEM now receives the MBE instead. The BEM had always been presented by Lord-Lieutenants whereas the MBE has always been presented by the Sovereign. This new MBE boom has added another six investitures to the Queen’s annual schedule.

While it might sound laudably egalitarian, it has not pleased everybody. As Kenneth Rose points out: ‘The BEM was very useful to give to someone like the barman in the officers’ mess who’d been there for thirty years. Now he either gets nothing or an MBE which is what the Regimental Sergeant Major gets. So, all of a sudden, the Regimental Sergeant Major is diminished.’ The government is now looking at ways of resurrecting the BEM but creating the perfect honours system has always been impossible. Someone will always feel neglected or hard done by. Kenneth Rose is fond of quoting Winston Churchill on the subject: ‘A medal glistens. But it also casts a shadow.’

Because so many troops are now on active service overseas, there has also been a rise in decorations for gallantry, adding another couple of ceremonies each year. Bumping up the numbers of investitures even more has been the Queen herself. At the start of the reign, she might present 250 medals and honours at a time. As the years have progressed, her capacity to stand in the same spot shaking hands and making fruitful conversation has, inevitably, reduced. She doesn’t want to spend any less time with recipients so it has simply been a case of shrinking the average investiture down to a hundred awards. ‘It’s the feet not the head which
dictate it’s an hour,’ says Sir Malcolm Ross, the former Comptroller, who was involved with investitures for twenty years (he is now the Lord-Lieutenant of Kirkcudbrightshire). ‘And so it means a few more investitures each year. The Queen understands that.’ In any case, a smaller crowd means that there is room for the recipients to bring the family, too. At the start of the reign, they could bring just one guest to the Palace. Today, they can bring three. What’s more, the Queen has authorised another improvement which would have been unthinkable just twenty years ago. Every investiture is filmed – from arrival to departure – and the footage then edited to produce a customised DVD. Some find that as gratifying as the gong itself.

Each investiture is a major production for the Royal Household but there is nothing like a table covered in metal and ribbons to give the place a buzz. ‘Looking at it from the worm’s eye view, I used to love investitures,’ says Ross, ‘because you are able to help people enjoy one of the great days of their lives. When someone gets a medal from the Queen, you come out thrilled, too. Here are all these happy people – and happy people are why you are in the Happy People Business.’