Royal Family gathers at Balmoral amid concerns for Queen's health

[Catfish]

Yesterday's tv evening in Germany was all about the Queen, all other broadcasts suspended. She has been present for so long and somehow indirectly accompanied a lot of people, her reign almost became self-evident. Some events planned in Hannover, due to its past with the personal union of
Great Britain and the Kingdom of Hannover, with King George 5th being the last king until 1866.
She was always correct, never a gaffe, but her private personality, individuality and freedom had to subdue to the public role.
As printed in most papers here it is indeed the end of an era.
Rest in Peace.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Eisenwurst

Lot of affection for The Late Queen Elizabeth being manifested probably around the whole British Commonwealth.

And not just there, but outside in the rest of the world, too. Maybe not as intensely shown everwhwere, but the admiration and sympathy for her was general, and reaching far beyond the UK and the Commonwealth.

[Commander Wallace]

I'm wondering if I heard this right. Was Queen Elizabeth a mechanic in World War 2 ? If true, I thought that was extraordinary. Maybe our English cousins or someone else in Subsim knows the answer to that.


Then again, when all of Europe was falling like dominoes in WW2, Great Britain was the lone hold out and a beacon of freedom. Hence, this wouldn't surprise me at all. The quintessential English stiff upper lip.

[ReallyDedPoet]

Sad news indeed as it seemed she was always ever-present.

Condolences to our friends across the pond.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

I'm wondering if I heard this right. Was Queen Elizabeth a mechanic in World War 2 ?

She indeed was a car mechanic. Even better, the was a hot shot with racing. Yesterday I red this - historically true - story, from Achse des Guten.

--------------

She lived to the age of 96; she was a trained car mechanic; she paid taxes only since 1992; all the dolphins, whales, sturgeons and swans in British waters belonged to her; she wrote her first e-mail from a military base in 1976; in her lifetime she sent out over fifty thousand Christmas cards; throughout her life she had never worn a single pair of jeans; and for seventy years she was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as of fourteen other sovereign states known as Commonwealth Realms, including their territories and dependent areas. Now she has died.

Queen Elizabeth II is dead. Much will be written about her in the days ahead. I would like to highlight one story in particular:

Queen Elizabeth II loved cars. She was the only woman in all of Great Britain allowed to drive without a license or license plate. In 1998, the then crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Saʿud, met Elizabeth II at Balmoral in Scotland.

In Saudi Arabia at the time, all women were prohibited from driving. Until 2018, women were not allowed to drive cars in Saudi Arabia. Religious customs were cited as reasons for the driving ban. They were forbidden to drive, for example, because they would have had to uncover their faces to drive and would also have left their homes "more often than necessary." Moreover, in the event of possible accidents, women would have come into contact with men to whom they were neither related nor married, which was undesirable. In 2013, Sheikh Saleh al-Lohaidan even stated that driving a car would permanently damage women's ovaries. You have to know all this to understand what a grandiose coup the queen pulled off in 1998.

In 1998, the then crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Abdullah ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Saʿud, met Elizabeth II at Balmoral in Scotland. At the time, the queen did not miss the opportunity to personally drive the crown prince through the streets of the kingdom - what means driving, she raced through the streets with the completely terrified crown prince. Of the meeting, former British ambassador to Saudi Arabia Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles reports:

"The royal Land Rovers were driven up to the front of the palace. The crown prince climbed into the front seat of the Land Rover, as instructed. His interpreter took a seat behind him. To his surprise, the queen got into the driver's seat, turned the ignition key and drove off. Abdullah was not used to being driven by a woman, let alone a queen. His nervousness increased as the queen, who had driven during her time in the army, accelerated the Land Rover, driving through the narrow Scottish roads, talking all the while. Through his interpreter, the crown prince pleaded with the queen to slow down and focus on the road."

May the Queen now be doing her rounds in heaven. The Queen is dead.

Long live the King!

-------------------

Beside this anecdote, I learned two other things on TV yesterday. Having had 14 male and 3 female prime ministers, the first such man was Churchill himself, and he was anything but enthusiastic about her becoming Queen, wondering publicly: "But she is just a child!" . When they once met during a private audience, she nevertheless completely surprised him with her well prepared in-depth knowledge and questions on some urgent message from India or HongKong or any place there, some important news that even he, the prime minister, so far had not been reached by. Sh then asked him a about it, and gave her analysis of that situation, which perplexed him, and obviously her thoughts were such that the man changed his atittude completely and from then on the two were said to have become "friends".

And during the Rhodesia "crisis", to call it that, at some conference where international diplomats and leaders from Rhodesia met with the British, and the British prime minister's position was that it was a crown colony, which collided with the claim of black leaders to no longer accept that status and the ruling of the white, it is rumoured that behind the stage it was not the government but the Queen herself who ran the ultra-quietest of diplomatical efforts and was the driving force behind that this crisis solved peacefully and Rhodesia became Simbabwe, without violence or bloodshed with British soldiers involved.

Probably nobody else of our time has seen and met so many political actors and leaders from across the globe, than her.

[Commander Wallace]

^ Thank you Sky. I figured that someone here in Subsim would know the answer to that question.

[Skybird]

The mourning is for the present. But it is stories like these that will live over the time.

[mapuc]

(if this is not the right time to mention it then feel free to remove this comment)

Some minutes ago I suddenly came to remember the Opening ceremony of the Olympic in London 2012
Where we saw this scene with the Queen and Mr Craig.
You saw them entering a helicopter and later you could see them parachuting over the Stadium-Well it was a stand-in for the Queen.

It was a fun thing in this opening ceremony

Markus

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Skybird

She indeed was a car mechanic. Even better, the was a hot shot with racing. Yesterday I red this - historically true - story, from Achse des Guten.
She lived to the age of 96; she was a trained car mechanic; she paid taxes only since 1992;

U R referring to No. 230873, Second Subaltern of the Auxiliary TransportService No. 1, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor But when referring to QE 2, opening Parliament, her Irish State Coach was the official ride-of-choice!

[les green01]

rip just heard about it this morning

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by Aktungbby

With all due and sincere respect, she was quite fetching in that uniform.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by THE_MASK

We need a lot more Queen Elizatheth II in this world and a lot less Putins .

Concur


She was one of the good ones

[mapuc]

There's another major change in UK.

A majority have on every Christmas eve/day seen or heard their Queen's Christmas speech.
A Majority of the UK citizens hasn't seen or heard others than the Queen's Christmas speech.

Now King Charles III has to mantle this task.

Markus

[Platapus]

He has some impressive shoes to fill.


The best of luck to him

[Jimbuna]

Threads merged.