A Right Royal Knit-Wit (Saturday Snapshot)

And now for something completely different for this week's Saturday Snapshot... a Not The Jubilee Knitted Queen! I spotted the pattern in Fiona Goble's Knit Your Own Royal Wedding (published last year by Ivy Press) and decided she would be perfect as Alan Bennett's book-loving monarch in The Uncommon Reader, but I altered her a bit.

I changed her face and hair, because when I followed the instructions she looked like an Oompa Loompa, from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the film starring Gene Wilder, that is, not Dahl's book, or the Tim Burton movie). And I made her a glittery, golden crown, studded with red jewels, because otherwise how would you know she is the Queen? In addition she has a book, and is wearing spectacles, so she can read it, and pink, fluffy slippers instead of shoes. because, she says, one has to take care of one's feet when one spends so much time standing and walking! Her cardigan is a little old and shabby and has probably been worn on too many visits - read the book and you'll see that her maid threatens to outlaw just such a cardigan.

Here, I'm afraid, my imagination took over, for this is not her usual chair. Ma'am as she is known around the Palace (to rhyme with jam or ham rather than charm or farm) prefers a nice upright seat, with a firm back, and likes to keep her feet on the ground. But her favourite chair was sent away for conservation and came back with a shiny, slippery satin seat, to match the gilt party chairs in her office. Her private secretary explained, rather sternly, that the chair had been restored, at great expense, to its original state, and is now an object of desire, much admired by those who know about these things. So the Queen gave a reception for the restorers and conservators, to thank them for their work at her various homes, and to show her gratitude she insisted that the chief conservator must sit on her own special chair, where he spent an uncomfortable couple of hours sliding around on its hard, slippery surface. The Queen smiled. If one thinks about it, she thought to herself, though it may be the kind of expression not suited to polite society, there is more than one way of skinning a rat.

Early the next morning the chair had disappeared, and in its place was this very battered and squashy 'recliner' belonging to the chief conservator, who likes to relax in comfort, if not style. Her Majesty, who is not given to lolling about, is disconcerted each time the back drops down but, as she says, one cannot be rude, especially when the chief conservator is 'unrestoring' her own chair. He did offer to put new covers on the gilt party chairs as well. However, the Queen said than you very much, but no thanks, And she smiled again, because one finds that those particular chairs discourage unwanted visitors from remaining too long.

I had such fun knitting the Queen (not not to say making a story to go with her) I'm now producing corgis who will chase and chew books. And I've some orange wool in the scrap bag, so I could knit ginger-haired Norman, the kitchen assistant who advises the Queen about books and reading, and is promoted to being a page! Reading this through, I fear you will all think that a) I don't have to do with my time, and b) I must be totally mad (and you'd probably be quite right). But should anyone want to try their hand at a knitted Royal, it's not that difficult – I'm only a novice knitter, but I managed quite well, and the pattern can be adapted fairly easily. And if you've never read Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Queen, it's very funny, and you can see my review here.

For more Saturday Snapshots see  Alice's blog http://athomewithbooks.net/

A Very Uncommon Queen

This knitted Queen, from 

Knit Your Own Royal

Wedding, by Fiona

Goble, looks such fun

I may make one

Well, it’s the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s accession to the throne, so here are some reading suggestions for those who want to escape the brouhaha which surrounds the event. Firstly there’s Sue Townsend’s ‘The Queen and I’, in which England has become a republic and the royal family has been banished to a grotty council estate. I am not a huge fan of Townsend (I’m always inclined to think one reading of any of her work is enough) but she is very funny, and this would be a good antidote to the current monarchy mania – although I think the ending is a bit of a let-down, and I most certainly would not have written it like that.

Better still is Alan Bennett’s ‘The Uncommon Reader’, which I wrote about on my other site when I first started blogging.  At the centre of this novel (or perhaps I should say novella, since it is very short) is the Queen, older, wiser and more human – albeit more selfish – than she appears in Bennett’s ‘A Question of Attribution’. Here, in pursuit of barking corgis, she stumbles upon a mobile library van which calls at Buckingham Palace once a week, and consequently discovers the joys of reading. Her first book, by Ivy Compton-Burnett, is selected because she made the author a dame.  “Yes, I remember that hair, a roll like a pie-crust that went right round her head,” she recalls.

Aided and abetted by kitchen boy Norman, Her Majesty becomes an obsessive reader, and begins to resent time spent on official engagements, although travel can be put to good use: in a state coach she waves with one hand while holding a book with the other, hidden from view – reminding me of the days when I wedged a book beneath the lid of a school desk. I rejoiced as ER enjoyed my own favourites and, spurred on by her enthusiasm, vowed to extend my own reading and try something new (though I have to admit I still haven’t got round to trying Proust).

The Queen soon realises what many of us already know, that ‘novels are not necessarily written as the crow flies. And that reading leads to more reading as you chase allusions, check out facts, hunt for answers and search for truths. Her staff may wonder if she is going senile, but she has a sharp wit.  “A book is a device to ignite the imagination,” she tells a footman who tries to tell her a missing book has been confiscated by security and may have been exploded. And when her private secretary suggests she would better to stick with reading briefings, she says – with some asperity – that briefing is not reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point” she adds. “Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject. Reading opens it up.”

Her Majesty is, says Bennett, strangely democratic and approaches books ‘without prejudice’. They are ‘uncharted country’, so initially she makes no distinctions, and she likes the fact that ‘all readers are equal, herself included. Gradually she begins to discriminate, She develop eclectic tastes, writes notes on what she reads, and takes to discussing books with the people she meets – to the horror of her staff, who disapprove of her hobby. They search for a way to stop her reading, but the solution disturbs them even more, for the Queen decides she will devote the rest of her life writing…

Alan Bennett

If you’ve never read this, please, please, remedy the omission as soon as possible.  It’s a delight from beginning to end, literate, understated, quintessentially English, and beautifully written and constructed. Bennett always manages to use the perfect word in exactly the right place, and this is full of his usual wry, detached observations of the minutia of everyday life and human behaviour.

And if the real Queen does not resemble the character portrayed by Bennett, then she should try a little harder to match the image – his creation is up there with the Tooth Fairy and Father Christmas. Childish of me I know, but I really do want her to exist.