🧠🫀 A Week Like No Other

A week like no other - everything shifted & everyone affected in some way:

This week's features:

• HMTQ died and shook us to the core - breaking news / controversy of the week / On this day in History Combined

• Reflecting on 25 years since Diana's Death

• Dying in public - the process web may choose not to see

• 2 mildly humorous takes

• HMTQ had of course to be this week's GOAT - out of respect and 70+ years of devotion to the country

• Hint of Heartwarming - a humorous and inspiring story of HMTQ

• All other features will wait until next week

Again share the love and share the newsletter! There's room in the CaramoCare Family for everyone!

• It must seem like I'm Royal-obsessed! Far from it - the news recently has featured them heavily.

A Week Like No Other

I'm not a big Royalist. Somehow the Royals have featured heavily in the first episodes of the CaramoCare Chronicles. Events, my dear (boy), events!

The infamous (Harold Macmillan) quote when asked about the biggest challenge to his administration. 

Nothing is amusing about this week's events. Two tweets humorously emphasised the enormity of the week—the enormity of 2 Prime Ministers and 2 Monarchs in 2 days. 

The first drafts of this issue included my personal history of Princess Diana's death. Somehow the enormity of the 25th Anniversary passed many of us by. I was training in Australia, watching events unfold one sunny Sunday daytime. I knew that friends and family at home would be sleeping and completely unaware.

None of us knew then what else this week had in store. Thursday will be a much bigger day in history. A colossal event today.

Who could have guessed that William and Harry would be racing to Balmoral? Balmoral is the scene for them of that bad news 25 years ago, almost to the day.

While they are both adults, that must have brought back painful memories. This is on top of the new emotions of losing their beloved grandmother. We know they had experienced trauma in that period, and this may have been triggering for them both. Perhaps in different ways. 

In August 1997, I worked as a Junior Paediatric Registrar at The New Children's Hospital in Westmead. It's not called that anymore! This was a wonderful learning experience. I developed clinical and leadership skills in a much flatter hierarchy than in the UK.  Many other doctors did the same, and hierarchies here are much flatter, partly due to our Antipodean adventures. 

Everything occurred Saturday night in Paris. An hour ahead in Paris, many had gone to bed in the UK. The London cabbies would feature worldwide in News footage as they came together working overnight. In Sydney, we were enjoying Sunday lunchtime and heard a  newsflash that Diana had been in a car crash and broke her arm. If only that had been the full extent of it. If only.

We'd watched the Sunday Lunch Jazz at the Sydney Fish Market at the end of the road. We returned to hear her death announced live on TV.  Ironically this was via the major UK news networks that few were watching at home. 

At that point, I rang home (a costly endeavour in those days!). My mum was in shock at 5 am and rang her friends who rang their friends. It was a shock. There were immediate conspiracy theories. There were two young sons, bereft. They then felt a duty to walk behind her coffin while others cried and screamed at THEIR loss. They held their emotions that day, letting them spill out many years later. 

The week or so after her death felt like a period of near-hysteria. A country that previously had held its' emotions in let everything out. Perhaps due to the shock and her empathy and star quality.

Thousands turned out for the funeral procession. They spontaneously threw flowers onto the hearse carrying her coffin. The whole situation changed the country. The Genie of that emotional expression couldn't be put back in the bottle.

It had always seemed unseemly when people talked about Operation London Bridge. Culturally we don't like to think or speak about family members dying or what happens next. The Royal Family is no different.

Interestingly there was a Twitter thread today on how she had an 'ordinary' death in public. Read the whole thread if you can (below). This was somehow obvious and yet not realised. Please read it. We see this in our families (if we're lucky). We often deny what is evident and correct in front of us.

Working from home yesterday with the news in the background, events unfolded—an unprecedented Palace statement. Notes were passed to the leaders in Parliament during one of the most consequential statements in recent years. Newsreaders changed into black, as did the BBC News website. 

The close family rushed straight up to Balmoral. We'd only seen photos of her working with the Prime Ministerial handover two days before. Frail but determined.

We knew she was frail. We knew she couldn't last forever while someone sort of thought she would. She had to, indeed?

With more and more details, it felt like an inevitable announcement of her death. The moment it was announced was a moment we'll all remember. 

The Nation is already in a state of uncertainty politically and economically. Many here are staunch Royalists; many are staunch Republicans. Many are somewhere between the two. Very few don't admire the longevity and experience she brought to the role. Her constancy has been a great comfort for many, and in these uncertain times, we'll feel her loss all the more. 

We are likely to feel a loss we didn't expect to feel. We may feel lost. 

This adds to that uncertainty.

The situation is not without some controversy. Nearly everyone would want to pause, reflect and commemorate her life. Many found the blanket coverage too much, mainly while so much else was happening—huge counter-offensives in Ukraine. Many worried to death about fuel bills. Putting them behind this pageantry (aside from its apparent costs) may also be thought offensive. It's not unreasonable for people to expect to have their needs addressed too. 

People were arrested for holding anti-establishment placards. As these laws passed, many didn't see this as inevitable. 

What positives came out?

King Charles III (that'll take some getting used to!) expressed his love for Meghan and Harry. That reduced some of the worst attacks on them.  William invited them to join him and his wife on a walkabout outside Windsor Castle.

For the first time, Harry and Meghan stopped trending on Twitter. 

How brave must Meghan have been to face that situation and those crowds - one of whom was hostile to her? Many aren't fans - surely they can still see that?  

We also saw the UK get the most impressive pageantry up and perfect in only a day or two. All of these events were simultaneously coordinated. It was breathtaking in scope.

2 Tweets showing the enormity of this week like no other:

This day, this week, this month, this year (and perhaps longer still) - had to be Queen Elizabeth (Previously the Second and now The Great)

70 years. Red boxes everyday except Christmas Day and Easter Sunday.

She was apparently a fast reader - she took it all in and was able to analyse and recall information seemingly effortlessly. I bet it wasn't effortless.

She was 'in' the conversations with those who we might expect to be better informed. She didn't direct and may have steered with gentle probing and questioning. Her experience was unrivalled. It wasn't just that she'd been through it. She reflected on what she (and we) had been through and applied it pragmatically. 

And she never spoke of her conversations with any of her 15 Prime Ministers. She also saw to it that neither did they (on the whole). Without the threat of beheading or the Tower of London. No record is kept save that in her Majesty's memory. We lost that this week. We lost that continuity.

She entered a man's world and enthralled them all. Footage of a G7 summit shows her effortlessly managing heads of state (and those who tried to speak over her).

Even Winston Churchill felt that she was 'only a child'. He was, of course, getting on a bit. She soon dazzled him with her skills and grasp of issues, and they had a lifelong personal friendship. 

Saudi Women didn't drive - HMTQ did!

A visit from Saudi Royalty saw HMTQ offer the opportunity for a tour of her estate. This was gratefully accepted and the Royal seated in a waiting LandRover. No other than HMTQ jumped into the driver's seat (no seatbelt) and sped off. 

Actions speak louder than any words - particularly for one who doesn't have the option of public words. 

The ultimate Feminist!

Another wee tweet:

Of course from HMTQ (a week or two into the first COVID lockdown)

"While we have faced challenges before, this one is different. This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal. We will succeed - and that success will belong to every one of us.

We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return: we will be with our friends again; we will be with our families again; we will meet again."

Televised address on April 5, 2020

And in other news - you must be exhausted!

I hope you enjoyed this first edition and will keep coming back for more.

I hope that more than anything as well as coming along for the ride, you will want to (and feel empowered to) contribute. And of course, please share widely!