8th of September 2022
The British Australian Community acknowledges the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. The monarchy has remained a symbol of continuity and Anglo identity for centuries. This is especially true of Elizabeth, who served for a record seventy years, through a period of transformative change. It was a record not only of endurance but of duty, discipline, and dignity.
The Queen’s absence will affect millions of people. A person familiar to several generations, almost a member of the family, will be gone.
The BAC expresses its condolences to King Charles and the Royal Family.
Elizabeth was Australia’s monarch for the whole of my conscious life. In 1954 her cavalcade drove through Parramatta, in Western Sydney. Though a toddler, the event was significant enough to leave a mental image of the crowd and my mother standing on a wooden box, her personal and portable viewing platform.
Queen Elizabeth became a familiar and for many a comforting and reassuring figure. She helped unify people of varied classes, religions, and ethnicities, by staying above the political fray. As Britain and other parts of the Commonwealth become more diverse and lose their organic cohesion, we hope that the Queen’s successors will exert the same centripetal tendency.