By Shaun Forrest
My first memory of the Royal Family is from when I was four years old. Every day my dad would walk me to primary school from our flat on the high street, stopping at the newsagents on the way to buy his Sun Newspaper and 20 Lambert & Butler. This Monday morning was slightly different though, along with his paper and cigarettes my dad purchased a bunch of flowers. We left the shop and instead of turning left towards my school we went right towards the Linlithgow Cross, a large stone well that has stood outside the town’s Burgh Halls since 1807 and represents the centre of the town. My dad, a working-class man from Edinburgh, was in my eyes a tough man but he lay those flowers down that day with a tear in his eye just like the thousands before him who had put down bouquets and tributes. The date was September 1st, 1997, the morning after Princess Diana of Wales was murdered. At the time I didn’t understand what was going on and even now I’m still unsure why a working-class man from Edinburgh had such affection for a Princess that was in every way an opposite to him.
Fast forward 23 years, the world is watching another type of royal car crash. The son of Princess Diana, the Princess figuratively and literally hounded by the press, was now trying to save his own wife by working with them. Prince Harry has always been seen as the outsider. He always struck me as that young boy who was angry at the world but couldn’t do anything about it. A boy who had his mother ripped away from him and was made to stand by her coffin while the entire world watched. I would be angry too; I would want to run as far away from that life as possible, and finally he has. The wedding of Harry and Meghan was just another flex of the British Empire and the controversy surrounding it was a stark reminder we haven’t moved too far from those days of slavery. Because Meghan was a person of colour the media and households around the country were shocked and disappointed. Even the Royal Family themselves had to have a conversation about how dark the first-born child’s skin might be. This didn’t shock me, our oldest institutions are merely symbols of an Empire built upon genocide, slavery and colonialism.
The divide between The Royal Family and the common people of the country they rule is definitely growing wider and deeper with the idea that these people sitting on thrones are just another form of celebrity such as Oprah. Harry and Meghan’s interview was filmed against the beautiful sunlit backdrop of California where Oprah, Harry and Meghan all live on the same street. This was the meeting of British Monarchy and American Chat Show Royalty and, ultimately, they are found to be equally as hollow and meaningless.
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