I admit to a weakness for pomp and pageantry. I am, after all, a child of Empire, and swore allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II every Monday morning for years on end. So I watched the recent Trooping of the Colour, part of the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, and thoroughly enjoyed it, admiring the military precision and all the discipline required, the glitter, the splendour, the dashing aristocrats of the equine world, the sheer vividness of the unrolling scene. And all in honour of the Queen’s birthday.
It seems ludicrous to compare a supremely privileged life with the one led by an illiterate Peloponnesian peasant, but I compare the Queen and my late mother-in-law quite often. Yiayia (I always called her that) was unsure about her birthday. She told me she had been born in May, but I once had to help her find her ID card, and this important document had her birthday listed in November. There were never any celebrations for her, as most Greeks put more emphasis on their name-days. But Yiayia, having been named after a pagan goddess, could not even mark a Christian anniversary. It did not seem to bother her at all, for this was simply the way things were in her world.
Her Majesty and Yiayia were obviously both female, and both wives, then widows, and mothers of a goodly number of children: Yiayia had six and had lost others. And both did what was expected of them. At a time when individuality was being increasingly emphasised, both the Queen and Yiayia chose to play the roles life had imposed upon them. But I’ve often thought that, really, they had no choice.
I think it was Patrick White who wrote that any manner of life is lived in the cage. Prince Harry, in London briefly, would surely agree, as in the notorious interview with Oprah Winfrey he said that in his English life he had been trapped, without necessarily realising the fact. He went on to say that his father and brother were trapped, too: the old clash between freedom and choice, as against duty and obligation. Hollywood was fond of this theme in the past: think Roman Holiday and The Prisoner of Zenda. In these films, both deemed to be culturally important, princesses have a taste of freedom, but ultimately choose the path of duty, shown to be a powerful force. I’m not sure how strong the