The shock was real. At an LBC radio microphone, announcing the Queen’s death, I found it impossible to hold myself together. I welled up. My voice cracked. Now, I am nobody’s idea of a rabid monarchist. Nor can the death of anyone at 96, even in this age of medical triumphalism, be considered a surprise.
So, what was going on? Alongside a momentous shift in the feel of the country, memories of my father’s death in 2020 were suddenly flooding back. This was the constitutional as personal. Friends and colleagues felt the same – that the Queen’s death reached them intimately, in a way they hadn’t remotely expected.
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