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It’s weird how many times I think of the Queen, even though it’s now been a year since she died. It’s not that our late monarch has proven irreplaceable. On the contrary, the new King is doing a remarkable job.
After his epic apprenticeship, he turns out – as our national poet says – very royal. And yet, I find that my mind returns, almost every day, to the conversations I had the good fortune to have with Elizabeth II.
It happens when I’m in the garden or staring blankly out the window – and a flash of something black and white catches my eye. I think of the queen every time I see a magpie; and I remember his magpie advice.
Even though I’m only slightly neurotic on this question, I’m posting his solution today, in the hope that it will be helpful.
The Queen had graciously allowed me to exercise in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, to catch my breath after being ill. So I was telling her how beautiful it all was – the lake, the ducks, the roses, and for some reason mentioned my paranoia about those lonely, multicolored crows.
It’s weird how often I think of the Queen, even though it’s now been a year since she died, writes BORIS JOHNSON. It’s not that our late monarch has proven irreplaceable. On the contrary, the new King is doing a remarkable job. Above: Mr Johnson is greeted by the Queen during an audience in 2019
“Oh,” she said. Now, I’m sure all of her Prime Ministers would say that it was one of Queen’s great gifts that she could make you feel – whatever you told her – that you were really special and interesting; and then put on that wonderful smile. That’s what she was doing now.
When you were with her, you could understand why old Churchill had such a crush on her. You have understood why Barack Obama was so fascinated that he stayed up so late with her, it is said, that the footmen had to come and cough to tell him that the evening was over.
You could feel that even though she had seen everything, known everything, she also enjoyed and enjoyed politics in all its complexity and absurdity.
Of course, I still can’t say anything, for reasons everyone understands, about his own opinions – as hard-hitting as they are sometimes. But I can say that his advice was based on deep knowledge. We were grappling with the subject of Zambia one day and I was trying to remember the name of the late president. “Kenneth Kaunda,” she said instantly.
Another time we were talking about the last English monarch to lead his troops into battle. I remembered the king – George II – but I didn’t remember the battle.
“Dettingen,” she says, like a pub quiz winner.
One evening I was embarrassed to learn that one of our exorbitantly priced F-35 fighters had blown a seal on the deck of an aircraft carrier (because someone had left a coating of plastic on the air intake) and had flown into the Mediterranean.
Who broke it for me? Not the MOD. Not my excellent former Secretary of Defense, Ben Wallace. It was Her Majesty who gave me the bad news – and if she was surprised by my ignorance, she didn’t let it show. She was always supportive and always encouraging, always thinking about how others might feel.
When you were with her, you could understand why old Churchill had such a crush on her. Above: Mr Johnson meets Her Majesty at a reception for the 2008 Great Britain Olympic team in 2008.
Boris Johnson pays his much-lauded tribute to the Queen in the House of Commons last September
All of his Prime Ministers have had the surreal experience of going to Balmoral and watching Britain’s oldest monarch as she prepares her special dressing. We accepted the Duke of Edinburgh’s grilled sausages from his hand and tried to help him pack everything into his special Tupperware boxes. I think every PM was pretty nervous when they arrived.
The first night we found a note on the bed for Carrie. “Madame,” he said kindly, “Her Majesty will be wearing an ice blue cocktail dress for dinner tonight. I don’t think Carrie packed anything resembling an ice blue cocktail dress, but it was useful information.
Later that evening we were all gathered in the living room when our two year old rushed into the room with rather manic hair. There was a little batemanesque* pause before the queen took him away to fetch a pretty old red carriage – which had no doubt carried all sorts of royal toddlers – and peace returned.
It was thanks to her humanity and her sympathy that you felt, as Prime Minister, that you could really open up to her, tell her absolutely everything, so that the public would be a mix between a tutorial and a confessional, with some unpaid psychotherapy. I told her once that I had a nightmare in which I was late for her and the duke.
“Oh yeah,” she beamed, and I could tell she’d heard this one before, probably from other PMs. “Were you naked? she asked, as it turns out to be a common feature of such dreams.
If I had to sum up the tenor of his advice, it is that no disaster is ever truly irreversible (just as no triumph is ever final) and that, in their natural resilience and genius, the British people would survive everything, on condition – and this was the key point: there was a good spirit of duty, service and effort, virtues of which she exemplified all her life.
Our last conversation, the day I ceased to be Prime Minister, took place only a few days before his death; and I am told that there may be a reason for this. She knew that summer of last year that her health was deteriorating, but she was determined to do her job as monarch, to hold on until she had fulfilled the crucial function of ousting her 14th prime minister. British (me) and to make sure there was a peaceful and orderly transition to the 15.
She succeeded in this, as in so many other things, because she believed that through will and energy, we can shape our ends and transform our fortunes: a lesson perhaps this country should remember these days. -this.
If I had to sum up the tenor of his advice, it is that no disaster is ever truly irreversible (just as no triumph is ever final) and that, in their natural resilience and genius, the British people would survive everything, on condition – and this was the key point: there was a good spirit of duty, service and effort, virtues of which she exemplified all her life. Above: The Queen greets Mr Johnson during an audience in June 2021
As for my trivial superstition about magpies, she sympathized. She had it herself, she said. Thus encouraged, I discharged myself more.
It’s that damn rhyme: one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy, etc. If I see a single magpie, I think it’s bad luck, I say, and start peering at the sky like an omen. * for this crucial second magpie.
Is it that one, or is it a crow? Does it count? And in which direction are they flying? Am I facing a revolt on the right or on the left of politics? All of this is starting to take a long time.
“It’s easy,” said the queen. “What you do is say, ‘Hello Mr. Magpie, today is…’ and then you give the correct day and date. That’s what does the trick.
It works, because sometimes you have to make an effort, in the morning fog, to remember the day and the date. Once you’ve done that, you’re in charge of the agenda.
Your mind moves forward. The solitary magpie is forgotten. So if you’re scared of a magpie today, tell her it’s Saturday, September 2, 2023, and go about your day, fortified with some practical advice from Elizabeth, our late Great Queen, who passed away a year ago last week. next.