RIP Her majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second:

As we say goodbye to our Queen and usher in a new Prime Minister it is a new era for us as a country. I can’t help but smile when I think of the Queen. She lived a long rich life. Using her position to bring respect and a sense of Pride to Great Britain. I am not a royalist neither am I anti-royal. I did however have a huge amount of respect for the Queen. She was dignified and humble in her approach to leading as a woman. An example to us all. In her faith she was devoted, and I believe it is God who helped her lead as she did, with such amazing grace and humility. Perfectly human and completely royal!

The Queen has been painted in many ways and we have been surrounded with images of her throughout the last 70 years, not least on all our stamps.

My favourite however is the above image with her eyes closed and in perfect serenity. It is a beautiful photo showing her strength and peacefulness. It is by an artist called Chris Levine.

It was a happy ‘accident’ that resulted in Chris Levine’s meditative portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. It was a commision to commemorate the Isle of Jersey’s 800th year of allegiance to the crown in a holographic portrait, a process that involved an extraordinary technological array: a high-resolution digital camera which moved along a rail taking 200 images over eight seconds, a 3-D data scanner and a medium format camera which he could use, if necessary, to capture information he could texture-map onto the 3-D data sets. The queen was required to sit still for 8 seconds at a time, and between the passes she closed her eyes to rest. Levine was struck by the beauty of her meditative state and snapped the shutter.

A picture like this would have been inconceivable 20 years ago. The formal portrait has for been losing its appeal.. Closed eyes are normally reserved for great singers and musicians, who are in tune with another world; Kings, Queens and statesmen had to have their eyes open and fixed firmly on the here-and-now.

In recent years, the Queen has been well celebrated in a range of different portrayals. Tibor Kalman imagined her as a black woman in his series What if?,

while Alison Jackson made her out to be, well, just like the rest of us. Which is why we almost feel like we know her..

We saw her at Christmas every year, just like our Nan. Her speeches passed on wisdom and summarised the year, maybe a little like our Nans ?!?…She has always in my mind been connected to my Nan, who also passed away at the age of 96 last year. I think she wanted to be like her majesty. So much so that the rose I bought for her in my garden was called the Queen Elizabeth rose. Is this going to be a tribute to the Queen or my Nan? Well maybe both! They are intrinsically connected.

Maybe that is why so many are effected emotionally by the Queen who they never knew personally? Do they too remember their Nans or Great Nans? They both lived through the second world war and saw incredible changes in the last few decades. They outlived and survived when many younger passed on. They both had long marriages and where part of the same generation: proper and morally upright. They brought family together. Thankfully my Nan never had to cope with a young playboy Duke of Edinburgh (if we are to believe the series on Netflix). My Grandad was loyal, upright and a proper Londoner!

So as the Queen and my Nan have both left this world for higher planes. We are left with a legacy. The war generation are slowly fading, but let’s hope we can remember and take from them a sense of how to act morally upright, treat people with dignity, look to God for our strength, laugh at difficult situations and the ability to stand up for what we believe.

RIP Queen Elizabeth the second and Nan.