Unlike Trump she did serve during a world war including driving and maintaining service transport. She and her family really lived under the threat of German bombs, The Palace being notably hit.

Hereditary perks aside there is much to admire about her conduct in public, quite unlike Trump.

I remember when the death of King George VI was announced. I, aged five, was in Gloucester (England) post office queuing with my mother collecting ration books. We then queued in a building in another part of the city for the quota of stamps to put in those books. I remember it as a cold, dank wet day the mood of the country was already sombre.

My parents had a TV set, a KB, also a radio of the same make. They purchased these out of the small legacy from my mother’s mother. The TV was a huge wooden box, deep from front to back with a 12 inch screen very curved at the edges and corners with the signal captured by a H aerial on a long pole which reached down to the ground Next door had a TV in a standing cabinet with a circular 9 inch screen, I do not recall the make.

Because our TV had that slight edge on screen size our living room was crowded with neighbours on the event of Elizabeth’s coronation. To me it seemed to go on all day with mostly Richard Dimbleby droning in the background.

During that period I also remember watching newsreels from the Korean War including at one Christmas Time. Memorable for me because I cut some fingers on a steel tape measure that somebody had given me as a present. I guess I liked the spring retraction mechanism and allowed it to retract through my fingers. It was a cold Christmas with snow outside, the house one of many recently built to ease the pressure due to bombed out people in temporary accommodation, so the house was still drying out. Our only heating being a coal fire in the lounge which had a back boiler for hot water.

The best Christmas present I had was an orange. If kids today had an orange in their stocking I doubt that they would be impressed.

It seems like a whole word ago, which of course it was.

Queen Elizabeth was my commander in chief during my 20+ years of Royal Naval service. On occasion of visiting a cinema, soon after joining up this would have been in rig (uniform), we were expected to stand to attention when the National Anthem was played at the close of the film.

Do not forget that the Queen had a strong sense of duty whilst their was little of the vaingloriousness seen in other heads of state, or lesser figures.

The monarchy is one thing, but it is our broken democracy, both here and in the US, where corporate greed rules over the needs of the people that is the huge problem with shady lawyers supporting the big boys and the justice system for others all but wiped out. I think it was in ‘Big Coal’ that Jeff Goodell pointed out that in one year tens of thousand of lawyers had graduated compared to just a few hundred of scientists.

The concept of someone being more worthy than another simply because of the family they were born into is an insult to intelligence.

Bingo. I had nothing against her really — she didn’t seem to be fundamentally evil in the way trump [there would be a funeral to celebrate] and his magats are, but revering someone simply becuase

– they lived a long time
– they were rewarded in life simply because of their family heritage
– those rewards came in a caste system that judges people by family heritage

just rubs wrong.

Monarchies made some sense in days of yore when monarchs actually led their troops from the front line into battle and fought beside them.