As anyone who reads this blog knows, I’m not exactly the country’s biggest fan of the monarchy. So it may seem surprising that I’m making a comment on the Queen’s funeral.

I watched most of it today, as much to enjoy the pagentry, clerical frocks, and miles of gold ceremonial rope on various miltary uniforms. But I was surprised how moved I was. At the heart of all this was a woman who had become head of state at a very young age, at a time when the privations of war were still very much in people’s minds, but where a heavy dose of optimism for the future was in plentiful supply. In the end, the removal of the orb and sceptre from the old Queen’s coffin was strikingly symbolic. That age is over.

King Charles, forced to grieve as part of a public spectacle, takes the throne as an ageing monarch. If he’s anything like me, he’ll have grown ever more cynical with years, and I’m 12 years his junior. Optimism and hope for the future are in pretty short supply these days.

Doubtless there’ll be the usual celebrations when he’s eventually crowned king, but I can’t help feeling that, despite all the outward joy that will be on display, the uncertainty of the new age will hang there like a shadow. Who knows where we go from here.

It’s the Queen’s funeral. I stood there for George V. To everything there is a season. There is a reminder of our own losses. But don’t worry, there’s an Invisible Magic Afterlife (definitely, well, probably, ok maybe, there’s a chance, at least a hope – yes that’s it, there’s absolutely, definitely, undoubtedly a hope).

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lvdfTeJl6aKKMFBT3TpXITRSFYYtwfz0/view?usp=sharing