Before the Queen is laid to rest, I thought I’d take a short tour of royal commemoration down under. No bagpipes, I promise. Scroll down for queenly fashions and quaint colonial facts instead.
Or, if you’re over all things royal, scroll further for a link to new, free audiobooks.
Front Page Pics
The long-lived Australian Women’s Weekly frequently put Queen Elizabeth on its front cover:
1954 is sweetly retro — it looks to me like the cover of a romance novel. 1958 actually offers a free serial by the queen of regency romance, Georgette Heyer.
Don’t you think it’s interesting to see how fashions changed? Although, I do not share the Queen’s taste in hats, splendid crown excepted. You might have noticed, it isn’t just the clothes that evolve on these covers. The font, photography and attitudes do too. In 1956, AWW’s headline worries the Queen is working too hard. By 1973, it’s offering advice on how women readers can go get their own job.
If you want to see lots more, the National Library has put together a Women’s Weekly royal retrospective that you can visit online. The collection finishes in 1982 for copyright reasons.
Past Passings
To mark a monarch's death, Australian protocol apparently requires an impromptu public holiday. This was the case after Queen Victoria passed away in 1901. A telegram reached the new nation of Australia the next day. Bells tolled, flags lowered, and all post and telegraph offices closed — briefly. They re-opened between 6 and 7pm the same night.1
Some of the memorabilia to mourn Queen Victoria seems a little odd. Like this printed handkerchief:
Would you really want to dab your eyes or blow your nose on the royal image?
When Victoria’s predecessor died, the Australian colonies didn’t know for over three months. A ship docked in Sydney on 8 October 1837, bringing news of William IV’s death, but not the official notification. This put the colony’s officials in an awkward spot. They decided to wait. The official proclamation finally arrived with a boatload of convicts two weeks later. All civil officers were required to ‘go into mourning’ (black clothes, presumably) the next day, and Her Majesty’s subjects were ‘hereby invited’ to do the same.2
Times, technologies and people move on. Without bells, hankies or black crepe, Australians will be taking a public holiday next week, to mark the end of an era. ‘This is the evil in everything under the sun,’ as the Bible soberly puts it, ‘the same destiny overtakes all.’3
Free Audiobooks
For something completely different, the ABC has recently released several audiobooks by Australian writers. They include some excellent books. You can listen to them for FREE on the ABC Listen app. I recommend these three, all historical — one novel, one creative non-fiction, one history:
For instructions on accessing them, look here.
Next month in the Scroll
The Australian Historical Novel Prize longlist for 2022 has just come out. I’m hoping to dip into it and report back to you next month. Keep an eye on your inbox, around the middle Thursday of October. Until then, farewell.
[EXITS, with dignified royal wave…]
Ecclesiastes 9:3.