John Lennon was cool... but the Queen is cooler
The Queen's inscrutability gives her a magic that even a Beatle can't top, writes Nigel Farndale.
It was admirably succinct, the note John Lennon
wrote to the Queen in 1969, a cameo that captured the mood of a decade
in two sentences. "Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE as a protest
against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our
support of America in Vietnam and against Cold Turkey slipping down the
charts. With love, John Lennon."
A
few days ago, the note was found in a royal vault, along with the
returned medal. I didn't need to be reminded of the exact wording. As
one who spent more time reading books about the Beatles than revising
for O-levels, I knew it by heart. Such insouciance. Such economy. Such
wit.
When I first heard about it I
must still have been young enough to harbour republican sentiments. It
wouldn't have been at the time it was written – I was five – more like a
decade or so later, when the Sex Pistols marked the Silver Jubilee by
singing "God Save the Queen, she ain't no human being". Republicanism
was in the air – a teenage affectation, as fashionable as socialism. It
didn't occur to me to see things from the Queen's perspective. She was
the Establishment. John Lennon was the rebel, albeit one who drove
around in a white Rolls-Royce.
Just as King Lear
ought be seen several times throughout your life – because its meaning
changes as you get older – so this note means something different to me
now. I find it is the Queen, not Lennon, for whom I feel admiration. A
surge of affection, actually, because she didn't react to it, because
she never does.
How unknowable she
is. How enigmatic. And how canny of her to have remained a mystery for
all these years. Oh, there have been occasional intimations as to what
she thinks, what she likes. She has her bras made by Rigby & Peller,
she keeps her cornflakes in Tupperware boxes, her favourite drink is
gin and Dubonnet (one-third to two-thirds) with a slice of lemon – no
pips – and two perfectly square cubes of ice.
But what do we know of her sense of humour? Mere
glimpses again. When Lech Walesa came to stay, she told an aide, "He
only knows two English words," then paused before adding drily: "They
are quite interesting words." And in 1962 when she saw Peter Cook's
savage impersonation of Harold Macmillan in Beyond the Fringe she
roared with laughter. Before that evening there had been protests and
walk-outs, with theatre-goers outraged at seeing the Queen's first
minister lampooned in public.
That she is as inscrutable as a sphinx is the source
of her power, her hold over our imaginations. All we can do, appropriately enough, is imagine.
I imagine that, like any parent of a wayward child, she felt not angry with John Lennon but cluckingly protective towards him, and possibly amused. Consider the way the medal was carefully stored away rather than melted down or recycled for someone else.
It is a perfect metaphor for how the monarchy works: unruffled, polite, understanding.
I see now that the Queen was just as much a symbol of the Sixties as was John Lennon, of the Seventies as was Johnny Rotten, of the Eighties as was Boy George and so on. While their stars fade she goes on absorbing the insults, never complaining, never explaining, quietly earning our respect and patiently reflecting our national character back to us, Elizabethans all.
I suspect she knows that our feelings towards her change as we mature. Had he lived long enough, Lennon might have come to this understanding too; he had a mother complex, after all, and the Queen is the ultimate matriarch. And, come to think of it, he did sign his note: "With love."
That she is as inscrutable as a sphinx is the source
of her power, her hold over our imaginations. All we can do, appropriately enough, is imagine.
I imagine that, like any parent of a wayward child, she felt not angry with John Lennon but cluckingly protective towards him, and possibly amused. Consider the way the medal was carefully stored away rather than melted down or recycled for someone else.
It is a perfect metaphor for how the monarchy works: unruffled, polite, understanding.
I see now that the Queen was just as much a symbol of the Sixties as was John Lennon, of the Seventies as was Johnny Rotten, of the Eighties as was Boy George and so on. While their stars fade she goes on absorbing the insults, never complaining, never explaining, quietly earning our respect and patiently reflecting our national character back to us, Elizabethans all.
I suspect she knows that our feelings towards her change as we mature. Had he lived long enough, Lennon might have come to this understanding too; he had a mother complex, after all, and the Queen is the ultimate matriarch. And, come to think of it, he did sign his note: "With love."
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