{"id":9979,"date":"2022-09-12T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-12T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9979"},"modified":"2022-09-26T08:14:40","modified_gmt":"2022-09-26T12:14:40","slug":"memories-of-a-queen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9979","title":{"rendered":"Memories of a Queen"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Maybe it\u2019s having been named Victoria, but the history and doings of the British royal family have always fascinated me\u2014not the scandals so much as, in the present day, the Queen herself. Like her predecessor, Elizabeth I, she took on a tremendous responsibility at the age of 25 and bore it with grace during good times and bad (Victoria was 18).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have never seen any of the royals up close\u2014except once. In May 1985, we were visiting the town of Reims, with its famous cathedral, in the heart of France\u2019s champagne region\u2014reason enough to stop over there. Reims is also the town where Colonel General Alfred Jodl signed Germany\u2019s unconditional surrender at the end of World War II. Coincidentally, we were there the day before the fortieth anniversary of the signing, a bit proud that General Eisenhower declined to attend<\/a> the signing. Not only did he outrank Jodl, but he\u2019d seen the camps. He knew what had been done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As we wandered the cathedral aisles, practically the only visitors, one aisle to our right I saw a smiling elderly woman wearing a pale blue suit and matching hat. A few well-dressed men orbited in her vicinity. \u201cLook! It\u2019s the Queen Mum!\u201d I whispered. My husband, knowing how poor I am at recognizing people, took a closer look. \u201cOh, my god, it IS!\u201d I discreetly took a couple of pictures, now rather faded, and the headline from the newspaper the next day confirms the presence of the \u201creine-m<\/em>\u00e8re<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, we again stumbled into royal doings, when we visited London to take in the special exhibits for the 200th<\/sup> birthday of favorite author Charles Dickens. They were quite fun. The photo is of the writing retreat he used, probably to escape the clamor of his many children. Coincidentally, again, we arrived right at the time of the Queen\u2019s Diamond Jubilee\u2014her 60th<\/sup> year on the throne. We saw a great deal of Jubilee-related pageantry, a Royal Air Force flyover, and thousands of cheering Britons. I saw a dress I liked too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Dickens\"
Dickens’s writing retreat in Rochester, England (photo: vweisfeld)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maybe it\u2019s having been named Victoria, but the history and doings of the British royal family have always fascinated me\u2014not the scandals so much as, in the present day, the Queen herself. Like her predecessor, Elizabeth I, she took on … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The lightest brushes with royal history. Even I had them!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[266,35,104,78,1],"tags":[416,129],"class_list":["post-9979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-real-life","category-the-morgue","category-travel","category-uncategorized","tag-real-life","tag-wars-and-conflicts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2AX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9979"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9984,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9979\/revisions\/9984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}