Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/69773
THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Congratulations to the Queen No American with a remote control could possibly have missed the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations earlier this month. The world watched as what remains of the British Empire paid homage to Elizabeth II, who has now been on the throne for 60 years. She has been married to Prince Phillip for 65 years, and we have watched as her family — like many of ours — grew up, married, had children, divorced and endured. Queen Elizabeth, probably the most famous person on earth, has become a fi xture not only on the world stage but in millions of hearts, and it astounds me to realize that I once believed that the Queen and her family in faraway England were just like me and my family growing up in Fayetteville. My father had been an Army medic in England during World War II, and he and another soldier boarded in the home of an English widow, Mrs. Fox. She and my father, a courtly and personable southerner, struck up a friendship that endured until she died in the 1960s. I suppose because the two young families, the Windsors and the Highsmiths, were in same stage of life. Mrs. Fox sent us books with photographs of the Royal Family. princess who remained in London with her parents and sister during the devastating German bombings of World War II to the octogenarian who presided serenely over the recent festivities, Queen Elizabeth has stayed the course through public and private challenges, triumphs, disappointments and outright disasters. If she is ever ruffl ed, it does not show. Think of having to meet with Prime Ministers ranging from the Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady, to the freewheeling Tony Blair once a week, every week whether she liked them or approved of their politics and policies and without legal authority to affect anything they do. Imagine listening along with the I know now that the books were PR efforts to portray the Royals as — almost — regular folks, but as a child I was enthralled with those pictures. Charles and Anne playing with their dogs. Charles and Anne swinging. Charles and Anne playing mischievous but harmless pranks. A decade later, the Kennedys, the closest thing America has to royalty disseminated similar charming and homey photographs of Caroline and John and other Kennedy family members, and America fell in love. The books Mrs. Fox sent generally sat on the coffee table in our family's living room, and I pored over them. There were some photographs involving ermine robes, crowns and scepters, but the ones I turned to again and again were of Charles, who was actually a cute little boy with a bowl haircut, and Anne with her Shirley Temple curls in some "candid" moment. I was convinced that they would enjoy running around with the children and dogs of our young Haymount neighborhood as much as my sister and I did, and I asked my father to write to Mrs. Fox requesting that she invite them to Fayetteville. I was surprised and little hurt that they never showed. There has been much water over the dam since then for both the Windsors and the Highsmiths, and I watched the Jubilee celebrations with great interest. The British people adore their Queen whose favorability ratings, to use American political-speak, are off the chart. From a brave Queen Elizabeth, probably the most famous person on earth, has become a fi xture not only on the world stage but in millions of hearts. My favorite Queen Elizabeth story is this and it seems to speak to her truest self. discreet distance, the Queen was approached by one of her subjects who paused and said, "My, you look just like the Queen." To which Her Majesty, Queen of the United Kingdom and Defender of the Faith, smiled serenely and replied, "That's reassuring." Out walking her beloved Corgis one day with her security detail at a fi nds herself a world treasure because she has endured when so many others, both royalty and commoners, have fallen by the wayside. She has kept on keeping on and shows no signs of stopping. We wish her many happy returns of her happy, well-earned celebration. MARGARET DICKSON, Con- tributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. Elizabeth II, at 85 and with six decades as a sovereign under her belt, rest of the world to a recording of your son and heir to the British throne telling his mistress that he would like to be "in her trousers" or hearing your daughter-in-law, his wife and the woman who would be Queen, confess on worldwide television to an affair with her riding instructor. Think of presiding over the fi nal days of the once great Empire and of watching the rise of the European Union. Imagine watching your grandsons referred to as "studs" and hoping they will conduct themselves with more decorum than some of their toe sucking relatives did. Think, too, of what satisfaction must have come with the marriage of Prince William to the lovely Catherine and what hope that seemingly charmed union brings to the Queen and her realm. Queen Elizabeth has lived through this and more with calm dignity and a constant and unwavering hairdo that could have been styled at the Downtowner Beauty Parlor on Franklin Street in 1965. 6 UCW JUNE 13-19, 2012 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM