Andrew Marr, former BBC star journalist, now editor of the weekly The New Statesman and every day on the air of LBC radio, announced to its listeners the news of the death of Elizabeth II. He is also the best-selling author Elizabethans, How Modern Britain Was Forged. It describes the very special relationship of the British people to their Queen and anticipates the style that Charles III will adopt.
L’Express: You who have observed British life for decades, how did you feel when you learned of the Queen’s disappearance?
Andrew Marr: I am not a monarchist and I have forty years of experience behind me. Yet tears immediately came to my eyes as I said the words “Queen Elizabeth is dead”. I think my generation suddenly relives the death of their parents. We have a special relationship with the Queen: here is someone we don’t know and yet with whom we have a close and personal connection. We have always known her, our parents too. It represents our link with History with a capital H. Looking back on it afterwards, questioning my feelings and those of others, sometimes anti-monarchists and yet they too are in tears, I understood that there was a place special for this queen, as for the Virgin Mary in Catholicism. Her femininity makes her a maternal figure who speaks to everyone. She personified reconciliation, warmth, union, something we sorely miss today.
This closeness, this familiarity, Elizabeth and her family initiated it, so to speak, from her coronation, broadcast on television…
Indeed, and it has not always been a success. There was this documentary, Royal Family in 1969, to mark Charles’s accession to the title of Prince of Wales. Elizabeth and Philip opened the doors of their palace to television cameras. A good idea on paper, but it created some embarrassment at the time as their lives were so far removed from those of their subjects. Elizabeth nevertheless persisted, she and her husband wanted to modernize the monarchy and appear closer to their subjects.
Isn’t Charles also modern? For example, he wants a smaller royal family…
Absolutely, but he must be careful because all these openings and inaugurations of schools, bridges, hospitals and so on, which we hardly talk about but which allow them to be seen and therefore to serve the nation , require a large number of family members. However, his brother Prince Andrew is offside due to the Epstein Affair, and Harry and Meghan have gone to California. If they don’t surround themselves with young members of his family, he will burn out…
Charles is also expected to cut the royal family’s running costs…
Yes, I expect him not to use and open Sandringham Castle to the public, and possibly even Buckingham Palace. It will be more frugal. Moreover, I spoke to many friends of the king, they all say that he understood that as king he will no longer be able to carry out his activist campaigns and that he will be discreet. He has, at his side, Camilla, now Queen Consort, who was very unpopular in the 1980s because of her role in his divorce from Diana. But today, she has won the affection of the public who see a king finally happy and relaxed, which he was not when he was younger. Moreover, she is a woman who is direct, has a sense of humor, a sense of derision and likes to smoke and drink. She is very similar to Prince Philip. The queen loved him very much.
Tell us about the Queen you knew and followed on some of her trips across the country for the BBC…
Britain has a fascination with celebrities, the super-rich, starlets, influencers, and more. She was always wary of it and tried as much as possible to avoid this world. In fact, she was the opposite. I remember accompanying her on a trip to Wales. We went to see farmers, a school, a hospital, a retirement home, she spoke to everyone but especially to ordinary citizens, those who make the country work. The day was long, it was cold, it was raining, and yet she took the time to talk to everyone. It wasn’t glamorous, I can assure you. This is how you earn the respect and affection of a nation.
On the air, you read President Macron’s press release, why?
Yes, superb text which touched us enormously, one of the most elegant among all the tributes from all over the world. We can say that this is a very interesting period, politically, for relations between our two countries.