Afternoon:
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REPORTS of the Queen's thrifty recycling of outfits, and of food and energy conservation, have me yodelling with unfamiliar monarchist glee. It turns out Her Majesty is just like me. But it's taken a global recession to make the rest of the world catch up.
Recently, HMQ wore two old, familiar outfits on a visit to Slovenia, and even had some 20-year-old material, given to her as a gift, run up into a formal gown for a state banquet in Ljubljana.
Now I've never gone quite that far, not being regularly in receipt of either banquet invitations or gifts of fancy schmutter. But I still put on my 10-year-old wedding suit for special occasions and still occasionally struggle into my first smart suit, purchased from Paul Smith 20 years ago.
My leather winter coat is 15, and no expensive sartorial purchase I've made ever gets thrown away until it disintegrates. (I may not go so far as Prince Philip, who wears a 51-year-old pair of trousers, but my father-in-law has a dinner suit that's been in his family for three generations.)
Similarly, I may not have corgis to feed leftover toast and marmalade to but I'm with the Queen 100 per cent on the use of Tupperware to keep cereal fresh. Like the kitchens of Buckingham Palace I recycle leftover supper into lunch, and boil carcasses for stock. If I ever shot a stag I'm sure I'd eat every edible part and decorate my house with the rest. Just like the Queen.
Like her, I've been known to stalk from room to room turning lights off and radiators down to reduce bills. She sticks to her antiquated Roberts radio, I to a clunky stereo bought 18 years ago.
The annual tomato harvest from the Gro-bag in the yard of Curtis Towers differs only in scale from the yield of fresh fruit the Queen gets from the grounds of Balmoral. Indeed, HRH's decision to give up the royal yacht Britannia in 1994 was not so far removed from my choosing to get rid of my Honda Accord and join a car club in 2006. She attributes her parsimoniousness to her "Scottish blood". Rather, it's a sign of someone both sensible and adaptable.
But I feel most in tune with the Queen at Christmas. Not so much the going to church, waving at crowds and then making a speech on the telly, or the personalised presents to her servants of silver-plated drinks coasters (although kudos to her for getting them made at a discount in China). In fact, it's in the area of domestic staff that the Queen and I part company. But when it comes to the family aspects of Christmas, I'm right with her.
Like my family, the Windsors favour word games and charades over flashy board games. Like mine, they have a big lunch and then pick at leftovers for the rest of the day. And like us, they give each other cheap but useful presents. The Queen, for instance, once gave Princess Anne an ironing board.
As we acclimatise ourselves to a world where we address our needs rather than our wants, could we hope for a better exemplar of sensible thrift? The Queen, I mean. Not me.
Reader views (2)
Let's eat! Long live the "thrifty" Queen!
- Princess3018, Scottsdale, Arizona, 29/11/2008 04:17
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In that get up, She looks like my mum's old char lady.
- Jon, London, 28/11/2008 17:24
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