Sometimes he reads or shares parts of newspaper articles with me as I prepare supper. Yesterday he read from a column by a sketch writer who’d obviously collected some anecdotes about the Queen, one of which was from a man who’d been a peacekeeper (I think) in Aleppo. He’d been talking to her Majesty about his experiences there and had realised that he was about to cry. She’d clearly noticed it to and touched his arm and then proceeded to break up some scone and hand it to him urging him to use it to feed the corgis. ‘Sometimes its easier not to talk,’ she’d said as they sat there together feeding the dogs. It calmed me, he’d recounted afterwards, and my need to cry passed. I’m glad she was kind, I said to him. Yes, I am glad. May she rest in peace.
