Royal photo opportunity missed for good

Queen wav­ing in pass­ing car with a bill­board of come­dian, Adam Hills look­ing bemused. Photo © JournoNews.com

I went to see the queen and all I saw was a flash of her mint green suit.

It had been a spon­ta­neous deci­sion to seize the day and take all three of our chil­dren out of school to wit­ness this his­toric royal vis­i­ta­tion. It was quite plau­si­ble after all that this could be Her Majesty’s last visit to Bris­bane. They would remem­ber this occa­sion for years to come.

The enthu­si­asm of miss­ing school and see­ing the queen was tan­gi­ble. Every­one made sure their shoes were appro­pri­ate as I’d relayed a story about Prince Phillip snub­bing a royal fan after he caught sight of their old, scuffed shoes. We would be more than ready for the prince and the queen with our neat attire and well shod feet.

We announced our deci­sion to visit Her Majesty to friends and our neigh­bour and her three chil­dren together with three more eager friends took up the offer to accom­pany us. All were nat­u­rally delighted to take a day off school thanks to the sanc­tion­ing by our edu­ca­tion min­is­ter. Our new roy­al­ists ranged in age from Grade 4 to Grade 11—civilised, man­age­able ages not prone to get­ting lost or behav­ing inap­pro­pri­ately in Her Majesty’s pres­ence (we of course visu­alised her shak­ing our hands and con­ge­nially chatting).

We set off at 8am, intend­ing to pick out our spot along her South­bank route. The train trip was uncom­pli­cated and we were lulled into a false sense that per­haps we were among only a hand­ful of royal watch­ers out on this sunny Octo­ber morn­ing. We dis­em­barked at South­bank, and still, the crowd was not overwhelming—a promis­ing sign. The only early birds like us were some pret­tily frocked lit­tle girls car­ry­ing posies of flow­ers while accom­pa­nied by their suit­ably ele­gant mums. The flow­ers, we dis­cov­ered later, would be their ticket to the queen. (Note to self: Next time, bring extrav­a­gant bunch of flowers—preferably con­tain­ing a few native species bound to be given the nod for their patri­o­tism. Bor­row adorable child to accom­pany flowers.)

A young girl waits patiently with roses for the queen Photo © JournoNews.com

We decided on a spot near the wheel where we could see the queen as she ascended the stairs to QPAC. Accord­ing to secu­rity, we would have a good van­tage point as she and her entourage later drove through the arbour. What we hadn’t quite counted on was the crowd that slowly filled our lit­tle view­ing spot. Or that we would not be able to leave our sta­tion for five hours for fear of for­ever los­ing pre­cious ground. Never under­es­ti­mate the wily ways of unsus­pect­ing lit­tle old grannies car­ry­ing fold up stools and sport­ing a benign smile. They can take your spot from right under your nose with­out a hint of shame.

The sun beat fiercely for an Octo­ber morn­ing and as the hours went by; the main enter­tain­ment became wit­ness­ing SES vol­un­teers res­cu­ing swoon­ing elderly roy­al­ists and dehy­drated chil­dren. Caged behind secu­rity fenc­ing, with­out shade or nearby water sta­tions, it was not sur­pris­ing we com­mon­ers were fad­ing fast.

Dehy­drated Roy­al­ists revived in the shade by SES vol­un­teers Photo © JournoNews.com

As one Life­guard vol­un­teer was heard to say: “The old ducks are drop­ping like flies”.

After what seemed like an eter­nity and after sev­eral mut­ter­ings from our jaded clan that an air-conditioned class­room was start­ing to sound rather appeal­ing, there was a roar from the crowd. This sig­nalled Her Majesty had dis­em­barked from her cruiser and was head­ing towards QPAC.

We were parched and seared from hours in the sun but we rose to the occa­sion and snapped away at … well, at the back of people’s heads. Where was the woman? We knew she was wear­ing mint green from the mas­sive tele­vi­sion screen we had glimpsed ear­lier, but there were so many hats and so many hang­ers on it was hard to dis­cern where the lady of the moment was at all.

I hoisted up a squashed and sweaty tod­dler behind me to catch a glimpse of the queen.

“See, she’s the old lady with the pale green hat,“ I said, barely able to see her myself.

He looked at me with a bemused expres­sion and I had a sud­den real­i­sa­tion he hadn’t a clue what he was look­ing at. Nor did I. Well, I did see her mint green suit for a sec­ond from the shoul­ders up—and the back of her match­ing green hat—oh yes and I should be grate­ful for the glimpse of her white-gloved hand wav­ing to the crowd.

“See, she’s the old lady with the pale green hat,“ I said Photo © JournoNews.com

Only later did I realise that in my fren­zied bid to see the queen, I had com­pletely missed Prince Phillip. And then it was over. The queen failed to walk up the QPAC stairs as pre­dicted and must have snuck through another entrance to greet flood vic­tims. We would have to wait for a proper look when she drove past us in the royal pro­ces­sion. May I add that peo­ple were still pass­ing out in the heat and there was no water to be had. The drinks seller had long run out of cold drinks and the crowd was so thick, there didn’t seem any access to water bub­blers at all.

Fear­ing one of our large party would flake out in the half hour wait for the queen to re-emerge from QPAC, I decided to be the water scout. Loaded with a back pack of empty water bot­tles, I headed off. A tired look­ing SES worker directed me to a bub­bler along the edge of the river and I pre­pared to stand in a long line. There was, how­ever, a mere trickle ema­nat­ing from this water source and I pre­dicted it would take me ages to fill 11 water bot­tles. I also feared I would be lynched by a thirsty mob for hog­ging the bubbler.

I decided wash basins in the ablu­tion block were a bet­ter option. So I headed once again through throngs of onlook­ers now gath­ered at the rain­for­est where she was due to appear later, to the ablu­tion blocks. There I was greeted by a long queue. Finally, I reached water and filled up 11 water bot­tles to revive a parched troupe. Buoyed by my suc­cess­ful quest, I pushed my way through crowds once again, and finally, had our van­tage point in my sights. Just then there was a roar of excite­ment and I saw cam­eras held aloft pho­tograph­ing the queen and her entourage dri­ving within a hair’s breadth of our spot. I had missed the entire royal drive by. My oppor­tu­nity to glimpse the queen close up was for­ever dashed.

Only Her Majesty can draw this kind of atten­tion! Photo © JournoNews.com

I did later see the video footage on my daughter’s iPod—and the pho­to­graph taken by my son as she drove past.
She looked enchant­ing and I’m told by a for­tu­nate friend who actu­ally got to see her up close, her skin is translu­cent and unblem­ished for a woman of her age. She’s also charm­ing, atten­tive and some­what smaller than she appears in photographs.

I’ll have to take her word for it.

© Lois Nicholls