Queen Elizabeth II

 Fri 9.9.2022.

Late last night I'd watched with interest the tv news on BBC about the doctors' concern on the health of the British Queen. At 96, and that this was public medical alert, I feared the worst. I woke up this morning to the sad announcement.

I was quick to post condolences on the opened website. " I remember the fireworks celebrating QE2 coronation at the town padang in Tanjong Malim, Perak, in 1952. Through the years, QE2 had been a constant on the everchanging world. I grew up in it, and have grown old with it. RIP old girl" I wrote.

Nothing in my life can be attributed to the British monarch. There is no denying, however, that her 70-year reign covered a very large part of my 78 years, and therefore conjures the picture covering everything that has passed my experience up to now.  The Tanjung Malim fireworks was a first for me. Malaya was a British colony. Tg. Malim had an English DO and an English OCPD. The SITC had an English Principal, a Mr. Goodchild. I attended the Methodist English School. Then it was TMS with two English headmasters following one another. Later on I finished my English medium schooling at the RMC, with the English Director of Studies, Wallwork, and two English Commandants, one following the other also, and many uniformed English teachers plus one without, and a few RSM's from the Coldstream Guards, England.  At the University of Malaya, we had English lecturers, My late father for a few years in KP was Munshi to new English cadet administrators. When in Felda, the Deputy Chairman, Clifford, was English. We had one manager who was English, who had a brother, a doctor in Seremban, who my mother-in-law used to see.  Later I went to Birmingham University. I visited the Buckingham Palace, and the Tower of London, and later the Edinbrough Castle. I toured Wales and Scotland. I prefer to write and read in English.  But all these do not make me an Anglophile. Nor was the Queen my Queen. The passing of QEII, and watching on live tv  the mourners from India and US and other British territories, however, highlighted the iconic queen and brought soft tears to my eyes. I see time passing for me as well.

The Queen's own story is full of the ups and downs England, and her own family went through. The Princess Diana's death's initial  royal hiccup missing the public mood was quickly overcome, just as her royal family had quickly adjusted to public scrutiny from the beginning of her reign. That was key to QE2's impact. She personally made her reign a remarkable civility providing decorum over often very public disorder, even going through the periods of anti-monarchy rethorics of which the incoming  lady PM  personally can testify to.

Tun Mahathir is of her age. No doubt the Tun would leave his own legacy, but it would be a Malaysian legacy. QEII was worldwide. It's not a competition, of course, but the stage was global because of the history. Perhaps the Commonwealth Games would endure to carry the impression of this long reign. Certainly the long 70 years provided the basis for the remarkable impact.  The entire 60-year history of Malayan/Malaysian independence with the 14 GE's and 9 PM's is covered by this period. 

RIP old girl.