Quill PR celebrates the life of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and mourns the loss to her family and to the nation. Rest in peace Your Majesty. God save the King.
The death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II came as a shock to many who had seen her smiling brightly to her new Prime Minister and even to the old one, just two days previously. Her death was going to be sooner rather than later but nevertheless it made our nation stop and reflect on a momentous event: a very real and great loss.
Did we need to know our Monarch personally to feel this? We did not need to know her personally nor her us. Respectively we meant something to each other purely by our existing – Her Majesty as our Queen and us as her public.
Something we understand, given the business we are in, is that the Queen was the best PR person this country could ever have had. Some individuals she met will have inspired her in some way and she has inspired. And many more will have learnt more about the Queen and her life in this past week than they had previously known. The week of mourning has allowed this.
A period of mourning is important for many reasons: it is a show of acknowledgement of a loss, a respect for that person who has died and it is a time of safety for those grieving to be allowed to grieve and have that grief also acknowledged. It is rarely given the prominence we have seen it given in the last week for the Queen.
That is something that could change – that we understand that a time of mourning should be in place for all people as they experience the death of a loved one.
While the Royal Family has a further week of mourning, as a nation we go back to work and normal lives and move on. But as we do, now is a good time to take something else with us – one of the final things our Queen left us with – a reminder of how we can be a nation brought together (in the main) in unity (even republicans expressed condolences and respect for the Queen’s life and work).
So as the headlines return to news and comment about inflation and interest rates and the impact on investing and on stock markets fluctuating and sterling losing against other currencies and the cost-of-living crisis and decisions for some as to whether to heat or eat, all things that could unite us but could also divide, let’s focus on the unity.
The Sunday Times ran a story Economy braces for chill as the nation mourns, reporting that restaurants, bars and concert venues saw bookings cancelled following the death of the Queen and economists warned that the national holiday for the funeral will lower output by £2bn making GDP shrink for a second consecutive quarter – the technical definition of a recession.
After all, the important things are really all about the money – yes?
As we enter what for many will be a difficult winter, with talk of privations and crisis, unity should mean we reflect as to whether it is for some a crisis or just a difficult time and how, as a society, we need to help those for whom it really is a catastrophe.
Photo by Simon Hurry on Unsplash
