Remembering the Queen

The Queen died today at the age of 96

This morning Vancouver time we woke up to the news that members of the Royal family were rushing to Balmoral Castle in Scotland to be by the Queen's side.

The news cycle was constantly reminding views of the situation, having royal experts on talking about the same thing in every imaginable angle, showing the same footage over and over again.

After we left Whistler to return to Vancouver, we checked our phones to find out the Queen had died. She was 96 years old.

She and Prince Philip visited Vancouver in 1983

For the majority of people on the planet, she is the only Queen we have known since childhood, a constant grandmotherly figure in our lives who put duty before everything else. Perhaps her only misstep was not sympathising with the people's profound sorrow over the death of Princess Diana in 1997.

Her children have had some scandals -- Prince Andrew the latest to cause great distress with his association with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Nevertheless, she held her family together and they continued to march stoically.

But that brave face is now gone, leaving many bereft and wondering what is in store with King Charles III who will make a formal address tomorrow.

Today many were recounting their encounters with the Queen on the radio and on social media, some humorous, others touching. She and her family even hung out with a family on their potato farm in Manitoba in the 1970s! They are lounging on those terrible wide nylon ribbon folding chairs in a backyard.

I saw her from a far distance in BC Place in 1983. Students were invited to come to the massive stadium that held over 60,000 people to sing a song to her and wave small Canadian flags. As she entered in an open-top car wearing a yellow suit and straw hat, we all screamed and shouted as if she were a rockstar as the car made a loop around the stadium.

Visiting a HK outdoor market stall in 1975

We all thought she looked at us and waved our flags even more frantically.

When she left, she made a speech in which she thanked everyone for the flowers she received -- so much so she could now open a flower shop.

During her 70-year reign, the British empire crumbled with decolonisation -- a good thing -- and she embraced the inevitable.

It would have been fascinating to know what she thought of the Chinese and Hong Kong's fate after 1997. But it was her son Charles who attended the ceremony who had some interesting observations.

In his diary he wrote everyone he spoke to was optimistic about Hong Kong's future, but added: "In the background was the sneaking worry about creeping corruption and the gradual undermining of Hong Kong's greatest asset -- the rule of law".

Then he concluded: "Thus we left Hong Kong to her fate, and the hope that Martin Lee [Chu-ming], the leader of the Democrats would not be arrested."

Charles represented the Queen at the handover

Charles also lamented how the loss of Hong Kong was the end of Britain's Empire, as it had been the jewel in the imperial crown for the best part of the UK's 156-year colonial rule.

Many in Hong Kong are mourning the passing of the Queen by posting old photographs of her visiting the city in 1975, and of her profile on pre-1997 coins. 

It's interesting to note how prescient the now King was 25 years ago on worrying about Lee being arrested. It was only a matter of time...

Meanwhile it is absolutely atrocious that Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu choses to release the blandest statement ever on the death of the Queen.

While many other dignitaries try to recall specific incidents or places where they met her, Lee just sticks to the fact that she was the longest-reigning monarch at 70 years, and how she was "greatly respected, admired and praised by the British people",

She was Queen of Hong Kong, her face was on the then colony's currency, postal stamps, her portrait hung in government offices and schools, and Government House had crockery with "ER II" on them. School children sang "God Save the Queen".

The Queen's head was on Hong Kong currency

To deny her Royal Highness was a big part of Hong Kong is outrageous and a pathetic attempt to erase her from the city's history, and to continue the ridiculous narrative that it was not a British colony.

Along with the nostalgia of Hong Kong before 1997, the Queen just may have become yet another sign of quiet resistance, of insisting to remember her in one form or another.

Wonder what she would have thought of that.

As Paddington Bear says, "Thank you ma'am... for everything".