Saturday, April 30, 2011

Royalty Eh . . . The Cleverest Thing I Ever Said

Royalty eh.

There's some great articles this morning on Lyn's Links about Royalty, and now I'll tell you my Royal Story:

The Cleverest Thing I Ever Said

When I was in Grade Four, Australia was abuzz with the news:
The Queen is coming to Adelaide!
Every day we had to go out onto our all-bitumen schoolyard to practise a sort of square-dance jig thing - with the GIRLS, even! - to the tune of The Cuckoo Waltz. It is branded into my memory. Da DA Dah! Da DA dah! Da DA-da da-dudda Dahhh!

We did it day in day out for MONTHS, true.

"Now when you do this in front of the Queen (et cetera, blah blah). . . " Mr Frick kept telling us, for we knew that schools from all over Adelaide would be there with us in one huge demonstration of our adoration and our splendid physiques.

It never happened. It all got cancelled for us plebs. Zip. We got given a little New Testament. O joy.

Oh no, I just remembered, that was when She was coronated. It was all a long time ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When I was in Grade SEVEN, Her Majesty was due to come again!

I was at a school where more than half the kids were the spawn of Ten Pound Poms, living in a nissen-hut migrant hostel just down the road, (and many of these people had really improved the society of Merrie England by the leaving of it.) They were really rough and tough, poor and mean, but they were oh-so-loyal to the country which had offered them nothing and been only too pleased to lose them, and they loved the Queen like she was their own Nanny.

Anyway the day came around, it was high summer and hot. All the kids from Reception up were loaded into buses - this is a school of about eight hundred kids, two-and-a-half Grade Sevens, classes each of FIFTY kids, (as I myself had occasion to teach later!) and the youngest of course being five-year-olds. It took a long time to load the buses, then the ride to Wayville Showgrounds was about eight slow miles through the middle of the hot city, and at last we pulled up at the jumping-off place, outside the oval where She was due to give us the honour of her presence. It was alongside the Animal Barns where the prize pigs and cows and other critters got judged, and it was on dry dusty dirt, with a North-facing iron wall behind us, in the sun, hundreds of kids standing and waiting.

Of all the schools we were the first there, so they put us on the very far end so other later schools could be marshalled conveniently in front of us.

We waited.

Schools kept arriving and getting slotted in front of us,
we all waited.

More and more schools, thousands and thousands of kids.

It was very hot, dust puffed up if you shuffled your feet, and all the kids were getting thirsty.

Some of the little kids started to cry. We big kids, I must say, did very well trying to comfort them, but there wasn't much we could do.

Our teachers, Mr Hall and Mrs Wallwork, tried to fetch us drinks but there were only a couple of glasses that could be found and the taps were fifty yards away and utterly crowded with uncontrolled other schools' kids who really did need a drink too but my school needed it most because we'd been there longest. No good.

Several kids including in my own class fainted. There was no help for them except to get us bigger kids to carry them into the bit of hot shade some distance away.

One little tiny boy came up to Mrs Wallwork, the other Gr7 teacher, and said in a tiny little shy voice, pointing gravely to another tiny kid who was in tears, "Please Miss Wallwork,
'e done a wee!" (it was EXACTLY those words, I will never forget!) and there was this poor little boy who would have to have wet pants for hours standing there crying his eyes out, my heart went out to him. Our poor teachers were beside themselves with trying to do something for the most distressed kids, but we were hemmed in and helpless.

We were there for probably an hour and a half, standing in close concentration.

At last the crowd started to move at the far-distant end of the assembled school groups - the last were first, and the first were last, just like in the Bible, and it took quite a while even for our school to start shuffling off to the oval entry gate, and at a snail-pace even then. We had the dust of tens of thousands of kids before us, it was hot, we were thirsty, kids in tears, shuffle shuffle shuffle, dust clouds, shuffle shuffle . . .

. . . It was then I thought of The Cleverest Thing I Ever Said:

I pointed my head downwards so I was fairly hidden, and yelled,

MOOOOOOO!!!

INSTANTLY other kids took it up!

Maa-aa! MOOOOOO! BAA-AA-AA!
THOUSANDS of kids! It went viral within seconds!

Kids started scuffing their feet surreptitiously deliberately, dust rose like in a big cattle drive, just about everyone was doing it.

A few kids started barking like dogs, there was neighing of horses and grunting lke pigs, chooks cackling, and many many sheep and cattle!

The teachers were in a panic, running around trying to shut us all up. But it was like punching holes in water, as quick as we were silenced in one part other kids started up again elsewhere, we were suddenly all laughing and loving it, the discomfort notwithstanding, and the insurrection lasted ten or so minutes, nearly all the way to the main gate. Every kid knew just what we were saying, and every kid was a revolutionary! I know Mr Hall was secretly delighted too, he earnt a lot of kudos with me that day.

So I knew now that the other kids like me were Republicans after all, and that forever they would feel as I have forever myself ever since then, that the Royals were privileged parasites and horrible hypocrites and I want an end to them and I want their symbol erased from the flag of my country.

When we finally got into the showgrounds we were the last and we were also the last this time, at the back in the bleachers and still standing in the sun. All the shaded stands were empty, but then got occupied by kids in private school uniforms, who were sneaked in late by a different gate, with the bluest nearest the front, but I didn't really mind - MUCH! - knowing as I did that She was going to get a stony reception from all my staunch kid compatriots when She came at last to grace us with her radiance.

In She came at last, in her black Roller, open top, ZOOM! around the oval at about 30 MPH, not even looking our way as they sped past, and my staunch troops, what did they do, they bloody-well CHEERED Her like you never heard kids cheer before in allyour life!

I knew then that the Republic was never going to be easy . . . I really did . . . from age 12.

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!