[moved from 'Queen Mother - RIP' in General Chat]

Any death of a family member is of course devastating, and my condolances go out to Charles, Harry, William, the Queen, and all others who knew and were close to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon ("the Queen Mother" ). Personally, I feel nothing whatsoever, but that doesn't mean I can't deeply sympathise with what they're going through.

However, any (tenuous) hopes I had that some form of perspective would be kept by the media on this matter are so far being dashed - "excessive" barely begins to cover things. The Queen Mother lived a long and comfortable life, can take much of the credit for helping George IV to keep going through World War 2, and died at an impressive old age. She's led a far fuller existance than most could ever dream of.

What she did achieve (qualified with her flaws), and her historical role, can be rightly appreciated, and her death duly mourned. But here's (again tenuously) hoping that the response swiftly begins to approach what's proportionate to the actual event.

---

by Desire
...Maybe not, but a family bereavement is always hard for one reason or another. Just because you don't really care about it shouldn't mean that we should be disrespectful in complaining about the media attention this has attracted?

You may or may not have noticed that I haven't posted in this thread up until now. That was intentional! I may agree with you, but I chose not to voice that opinion because I feel that if nothing else, the family left behind deserves that respect.

---

The Royal family deserves their bereavement to be respected as would any other family who have lost someone close to them. As do the members of the public who's grief over the death is perfectly sincere. That their is such strength of feeling out there, and the consitutional ramifications, warrents a fairly extensive level of coverage.

But the events in the Middle-East (for example), with Yasser Arafat being close to death on the end of an Israeli shell (which would have consequences too terrible to comprehend) being reduced to virtual non-coverage by the Queen Mother's death seems more than a little wrong to me.

I empthatically respect the grief caused by what's occured. I just wish that other matters hadn't been marginalised to the extent they were because of it, which I personally consider to be as disrespectful to those poor people involved as would be making light of feelings surrounding the Queen Mother's passing.

(This is just explaining why I feel as I do on the matter, and not intended to instigate a heated debate in this thread - I apologise for any offense caused, it certainly wasn't intended.)


(Edited by Byron 01/04/2002 16:09)