UNBROKEN HOPE UNDER THE RAINBOW

The thunder rolled around the valley yesterday afternoon. It was one of those days of heavy showers - when the rain pounded the earth and washed the streets.

I was working in Malcolm’s office, high over the gardens and level with the rooftops.

I didn’t know, when I wrote that post about The Queen, that the following day would be her last with us. I can’t claim it was prophetic. It was just observation.

Up there on that rainy afternoon, I had the BBC news open in a tab, and it seemed the worried world was suddenly articulating what I’d seen and felt in the early hours: time was short. Under medical supervision, Her Majesty was ‘comfortable’ and her family were rushing to Balmoral to see her.

The storm rumbled in the distance. Noisy rain came and went, and the grey sky occasionally flickered with lightning. It seemed as though the turbulent weather was bookending the long reign of Elizabeth II - from the rain-washed concrete of London in June 1953, to the downpours of September 2022. And in between, something rather more happy and glorious.

The news broke at 6:40pm. Sammy and I were in Sainsbury’s at the time, and it was only when we came out and our phones came back into signal that we found out.

“Look!” said Sammy, pointing to the sky. I smiled. There between the clouds, from one grey bank to another, was a small section of brilliant rainbow, arching peacefully, neither end touching the earth. I knew what it meant.

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Understandably the world is sad and shocked, mourning and afraid. The news was full gravitas in black, with touching points of thankfulness and reflection, as you might expect.

Social media too (despite the small cadre of non-royalists) was desperately sad. None of us remember the old king; none of us really know anything other than that one constant figurehead of our nation; none of us are quite ready for Charles III. None of us were ready to say goodbye to Elizabeth II.

We didn’t know until later, but it turns out that the same rainbow we saw had also been over Windsor at the time. There it was - that ancient symbol of hope, in as bright a set of colours as Her Majesty’s wardrobe, spanning the deep grey sky; never starting, never ending, just a section of a much longer story.

Enough has been said. I can only tell you about how I feel today, and I think it’s a combination of sad, hopeful, and profound. I couldn’t tweet, “Sad, sad day” or post montages of The Queen on Instagram. Plenty of people out there express the sentiment far better in their own heartfelt way. But there’s a much deeper reality I think, when it comes to this period of national mourning. And that is that we can be thankful, privileged, and greatly honoured to have lived so long in the Second Elizabethan Age.

I feel broken-hearted, yes, but also a sense of unbroken hope. I think that’s what she would have wanted us, Britain, the Commonwealth, me, to have felt on the darkest, stormiest, rainiest of afternoons: that there really is hope, that it stretches far beyond what we can see, that it shines through our sadness, refracts in our tears, and reminds us that heaven was always here all along.