HM THE QUEEN: REMEMBERING A LIFETIME OF SERVICE

Following the death of Her Majesty The Queen, we remember a truly unique lifetime of service and dedication. The Queen exemplified duty throughout her long life and played a vital role at the heart of the way the Commonwealth continues to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

From a young age, while evacuated from London, she sought to reassure fellow evacuees in the early years of the Second World War with her first ever public address by radio in 1940.

By 1944, she was old enough to volunteer and was determined to play her part. She enlisted in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) and by March 1945 was trained as a mechanic, supporting the war effort from home soil.

In 1947, on the Queen’s 21^stbirthday, in a speech broadcast from Cape Town, as Princess Elizabeth, she dedicated her life to the service of the Commonwealth, saying at the time:

'I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service.'

Long and devoted, it surely was. In 1953 Queen Elizabeth II was coronated as she succeeded her father King George VI. Before her, was a Commonwealth still reeling from the impact of the second war in as many generations. Not to mention the new challenges arising from that post war landscape.

It was to this new, young monarch the Commission looked, when the time was right, to unveil its latest memorials to the missing. In this duty the Queen continued in the enduring precedent, set down by the whole Royal Family, to carry forward the memory of those who fall in war.

The example being set was clear, it is not just enough to construct and maintain memorials and cemeteries in honour of the dead – we must collectively choose to return and remember those for whom the structures stand and pass on that remembrance to future generations. In her unveiling speech at the Runnymede Air Forces Memorial in Surrey, on 17 October 1953, she said:

“Indeed the heroism of each will be remembered for as long as this memorial shall stand. But that which was done by all will, with God’s help, still be remembered when these stones have crumbled into dust. For wherever and for as long as freedom flourishes on the earth, the men and women who possess it will thank them and will say that they did not lie in vain. That is their true and everlasting memorial.”

In the years to come the Queen would unveil many more Commission sites. The theme of dedication to remembrance, of choosing to collectively keep alive the memories of those who sacrificed their all, continued to weave through her words and deeds.

On 5 November 1955, she unveiled the Second World War extension at the Tower Hill Memorial, which stands in honour of those missing from the Merchant Navy. Again, she stressed the need for the public to do their part in remembrance:

“…it is not here that their true memorial is to be sought. That must be found in the lives of all men and women who now and in the years to come hold fast to those ideals for which they died. We who believe that the cause of freedom in which they fought was just, can by our own lives, and by our own example to our children, best ensure that their sacrifice was not in vain. It rests with us, and with those who will come after us, to give to their heroism that enduring memorial which shall far outlast this garden and these stones.”

Beyond the ceremonial events that unveiled some our grandest memorials, she would continue to return to these important places of remembrance throughout her long life. Whether on milestone anniversaries or not, the Queen was a regular visitor to our sites throughout the Commonwealth.

And during those visits, she not only paid her respects to the dead, but rejoiced in the attendance of her fellow veterans, their stories, their camaraderie, and their lust for life – a life made all the more precious by the stones bearing the names of friends, comrades and family.

Through France and Flanders and the European continent, to farther flung, less well known war cemeteries. The Queen continued to help keep alive the memory of those from across the Commonwealth and the sacrifices they made.

In Nairobi and Nassau, in Malta and Malaysia, from the bustling centre of Delhi, to the quiet deserts of Eritrea and the jungles of the far east, the Queen never wavered in this vital part of her role as the head of the Commonwealth.

As time passed, there were fewer and fewer witnesses who lived through the World Wars remaining. And as a member of the ‘greatest of generations’ herself, the Queen understood how the key to everlasting tributes was through future generations.

By the centenary of the First World War, the Queen’s example, set to her family and Commonwealth, was beginning to be carried through by her own children and grandchildren. While she conducted fewer overseas visits in person, her commitment to personally attend the Cenotaph in London did not waver. Watched from a distance, her family travelled on in her name.

But the Queen would still be front and centre. In 2019, the eyes of the world turned to Portsmouth to honour the bravery of those who helped turn the tide of the Second World War in Normandy. In the shadow of the CWGC’s Portsmouth Naval Memorial she sat shoulder to shoulder with veterans and world leaders to continue the collective promise that we would never forget those who died for freedom.

Then in 2021, shortly before the death of her husband HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, The Queen undertook her first public duty since the Covid-19 pandemic began at CWGC’s Runnymede Air Forces Memorial.

The event marked the 100th anniversary of the Royal Australian Air Force. It was proof once again that no amount of passing time, nor a global pandemic, would dwindle her support for the Commonwealth, for those in service, and for the collective memory of those who went before.

While many a statue and memorial may arise in the Queen’s name in decades to come, her example, played out at CWGC sites over the course of a lifetime, shows that it is those of us left behind, as well as our monuments, who must keep remembrance alive. Only now, it is not our Queen calling on us to join her in remembrance of others; it is us being called on to remember our Queen.