WEBVTT - Queen Elizabeth II's Greatest Regret 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:04.440 Welcome to noble blood, a production of I heart radio 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:08.480 and grim and mild from Aaron maankie listener discretion advised. 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:24.480 On September eighth, twenty twenty two, Elizabeth the Second Queen 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.760 of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth realms, died at her 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:33.680 summer residence Balmoral in Scotland at age ninety six. She 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:38.040 had reigned for seven decades, the Queen through the space 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.680 race and the dawn of the information age, the fall 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.840 of the Soviet Union and the rise of the Internet. 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:49.280 She hosted the Kennedys at Buckingham Palace, Rode Horses with 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:54.600 Reagan and sent Dwight Eisenhower a recipe for scones. Fifteen 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:59.800 prime ministers formed governments in her name, including Winston Churchill. 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:05.000 Seventy years on the throne, for most people around the 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:10.319 world she was the only monarch in memory, a constant presence, 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.959 both physically on money and on stamps, but also in 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:21.440 the popular imagination through jokes, references, songs and through every 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.759 mother who had ever corrected the table manners of their 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.560 child by saying would you too with your mouth open 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:32.760 if you are having dinner with the Queen? The monarchy 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:38.279 itself is a strange and antiquated institution. If you've listened 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:42.040 to this podcast, you understand how odd it is when 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:48.760 vast political power is arbitrarily inherited, and inherited by well 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:53.160 people who, for all the pomp and ceremony that tries 0:01:53.200 --> 0:01:56.480 to turn them into deities, remain, at the end of 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:02.760 the day, just people with the normal jealousy's insecurities, vanities 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:08.200 and mistakes that people make. The death of the Queen, though, 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:12.200 isn't just the death of an individual, it's the death 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.120 of a symbol, because in the twenty one century, with 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:22.640 political power almost entirely granted to democratically elected representatives, the 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:29.160 monarchy is symbolic. Like Sherlock Holmes or Paddington Bear, the 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:36.359 Queen was an institution synonymous with Britishness. That Paddington comparison 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.200 becomes all the more self evident with reports of mourners 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:44.960 leaving marmalade sandwiches as tribute at the gates of Buckingham Palace. 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:50.280 She's a symbol of British tea towel kitch, of a 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:54.760 bygone era that we might falsely remember through Rose Tinted 0:02:54.840 --> 0:03:01.200 Downton Abbey Lenses. A Symbol of Happy Childhood Memories, Watch doctor, who, 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:05.080 of course, there are many around the world who understand 0:03:05.639 --> 0:03:09.760 the queen fairly, I might add, was also a symbol 0:03:09.960 --> 0:03:14.760 of an imperialist and colonial power that caused tremendous pain 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:19.880 across the globe. For better or for worse, the Queen 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:24.639 was a fixture in every sense of the word. She 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:29.080 was fixed, I think, in a world in which change 0:03:29.080 --> 0:03:34.920 is near constant and terrifyingly fast and the future is well, 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.720 pretty scary, there was a comfort in thinking that this 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:45.000 one thing was just there, remaining the same, not changing, 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:52.400 not doing anything different, just there. The Queen understood that, 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:56.200 that that fear of change and the need to cling 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:59.960 to comfort was as much the purpose of the monarch 0:04:00.200 --> 0:04:04.600 in the twenty one century as anything else. Sometimes to 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:08.960 her detriment, she refused to bend to modernity. She did 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:13.520 not reveal much of her personality, let alone her political opinions. 0:04:14.280 --> 0:04:18.520 Whereas Princess Diana was able to captivate attention with her 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:24.839 vulnerability and charisma, Queen Elizabeth had an almost opposite strength. 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:30.200 She wouldn't burn bright necessarily, but she would burn along 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:36.599 in action was her most powerful action. With that in mind, 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.159 I want to draw your attention to one particular crisis 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:44.880 moment in Queen Elizabeth's reign, a disaster in Wales that 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:49.039 tested her instincts as a monarch. In her many years 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:51.760 on the throne, the Queen would look back to the 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.480 event that occurred in Aberfan in nineteen sixty six and 0:04:55.640 --> 0:05:00.520 call her response her greatest regret. The Chat Lenge of 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:05.200 balancing spontaneous action with one's position as an a political 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:09.600 fixture is only becoming harder in a world of constant 0:05:09.720 --> 0:05:13.800 access and social media. If the monarchy is going to 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:18.640 survive after Queen Elizabeth's death, perhaps the new king, Charles 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:22.480 the third, might learn from his mother, both from her 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:29.400 successes and from her failures. I'm Dani Schwartz and this 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:45.480 is noble blood. It was before a mid semester break, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:51.040 and so on October one, the students of punk glass 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:55.240 junior school in Aberfun were only there for half day. 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.719 They had raced to school in the rain, their boots 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:02.400 squelching in the and hoods pulled up against the drizzle. 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:07.320 That area of Wales is usually wet, getting over sixty 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.000 inches of rain a year, and so it wouldn't have 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:12.840 been abnormal for them to have been shaking off their 0:06:12.920 --> 0:06:16.159 jackets and stomping the mud away as they settled into 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:19.159 their seats to begin their day with a traditional hymn. 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:24.239 All things bright and beautiful. It was, in other words, 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:29.640 a perfectly normal day. Until the students heard a low rumble. 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:34.440 The rumble became louder. It would later be described as 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:38.280 like the roar of a jet engine. It was an 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:43.719 avalanche approaching, tumbling down the hill nearby faster than anyone 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.960 could have imagined, but not an avalanche of snow or Earth, 0:06:48.320 --> 0:06:52.960 but the slurry or waste from the coal mine nearby. 0:06:53.400 --> 0:06:58.080 It happened before anyone knew what to do. The school 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:03.240 and much of the town was buried. The roar abated 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:10.080 and the town became eerily silent. Aberfan became a mass grave. 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:17.440 To understand what happened in Aberfan and why, it's important 0:07:17.480 --> 0:07:20.800 to go back in time. The whales became a coal 0:07:20.840 --> 0:07:25.280 mining center during the industrial revolution in the late seventeen hundreds. 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.720 Its True Coal Hey day was during the nineteen twenties, 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:32.920 when more than a quarter of a million workers were 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:37.640 making their livelihoods in coal mines. By the nineteen sixties, 0:07:37.720 --> 0:07:41.800 at the Merthyr Vale Colliery Outside Aberfan. That number was 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.680 just down to eight thousand, but still it was how 0:07:45.800 --> 0:07:50.160 those eight thousand men made their living and supported their families. 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.960 Coal mining is a messy business and part of the 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:57.520 process is that waste rock is generated in the digging. 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.520 The best way to deal with that way east is 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:05.360 too elegantly enough stack it up in piles that are 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:10.160 referred to as tips. In nineteen sixty six there were 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:14.120 seven tips from the Mirth R Veil Colliery. The seventh, 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:18.320 which had begun in nineteen fifty eight, atop a sandstone 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:22.480 base above a natural spring on a hill above Aberfan, 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:26.720 was more than one d feet tall. Of course, in 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:32.480 retrospect it seems obvious that a massive waste pile shouldn't 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.840 have been built atop a hill with a primary school 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:41.160 just below. And citizens in Aberfan complained to the mine 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:45.000 and to the National Coal Board. But nothing was done. 0:08:45.720 --> 0:08:50.240 And worse than nothing, the response back from the powers 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:54.400 that be seemed to be saying, in not so many words, 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:58.640 keep making a fuss and will close the mind altogether, 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:03.080 and then will you make your living. And so the 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.720 mining continued and the spoil tip on top of the 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:13.200 hill continued to grow. Later after the disaster, the National 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:18.600 Coal Board would face an examining tribunal who would report. Quote. 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:24.080 The aberfan disaster could and should have been prevented, but 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:28.319 it was a matter not of wickedness but of ignorance, 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:35.240 ineptitude and a failure in communications. End. Quote. It was 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:41.040 a rainy autumn in a rainy place that day on October, 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:46.520 the sludge on the hill became swollen with water, thick 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:52.680 and wet and black, and then the tip gave way. 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:02.920 Bulldozers set to work immediately, trying to dig away the 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:07.559 one hundred and forty thousand cubic yards of black sludge 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:12.880 that had consumed the primary school and the town. Firefighters, 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.800 policemen and countless volunteers began digging at the earth with 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:21.280 their bare hands, horror struck at the faint sounds of 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:25.720 wailing they could hear coming from below. The men digging 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:30.040 had come straight from their jobs at the mine. John Humphries, 0:10:30.120 --> 0:10:33.199 a Welsh journalist who had been reporting there that day, 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:38.080 described them. Quote. There they were when I arrived, their 0:10:38.080 --> 0:10:42.040 faces still black save for the streaks of white from 0:10:42.040 --> 0:10:45.400 the sweat and the tears as they dug and prayed 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:49.760 and wept. Most of them were digging for their own children. 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:55.640 End Quote. The community continued their efforts at finding survivors, 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:59.199 digging every single day in the wreckage of the school 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.200 for a week straight. But after that first day no 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:09.040 more survivors were found. It was a national tragedy. Twenty 0:11:09.080 --> 0:11:12.800 eight adults were killed in the disaster and one hundred 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:17.920 and sixteen children, half of all of the children in 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:22.680 the towne of Aberfan, were dead. Of course, in moments 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:28.479 like that, of senseless loss and unimaginable grief, the monarchy 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.640 is there to offer comfort and to help draw attention 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:37.080 to relief efforts. And Prince Philip arrived in Wales the 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.080 very next day, along with the prime minister at the time, 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:44.600 Harold Wilson, and Lord Snowden, the husband of Princess Margaret. 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:50.200 But the Queen wasn't there. The question is why? The 0:11:50.280 --> 0:11:55.360 answer is, well, we're not sure. It seems a decision 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.440 was made and that decision was to dispatch Prince Philip 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:04.760 in the Queen Place. But whose decision was it? According 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.720 to the Queen's former private secretary, Lord Charteris, the Queen 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:12.640 had been given bad advice. Quote. We told her to 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:17.000 stay away until the preliminary shock had worn off. End. Quote. 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.160 The thought was that if the Queen went while the 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.240 relief efforts were still underway, it might cause a distraction 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:29.920 divert resources among police or security that otherwise might go 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:34.960 toward digging still. Another adviser presents a different picture of 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:40.040 the discussions happening within the royal inner circle. Biographer Robert 0:12:40.120 --> 0:12:45.359 Lacy quoted an adviser who said we kept presenting the arguments, 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:51.160 but nothing we said could persuade her. STOICISM and aversion 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:55.880 to emotional gestures was a feature of Queen Elizabeth's reign, 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.839 not a bug, as they say. She was averse to 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:04.839 doing anything that might have an outsized reaction, even if 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:08.920 the reaction might be good, because it risks the possibility 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:13.680 that it might not be. Consider that Elizabeth's Moore, let's say, 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:18.280 Les a fair sister, Princess Margaret, offhandedly remarked that people 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:22.560 should be donating toys to Aberfan for the remaining children. 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:28.400 The consequence of Princess Margaret's remarks was that toys overwhelmed 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:32.800 the town, overflowing from the cinema and the donation centers 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:37.120 to the point where it was a distraction from relief efforts. 0:13:37.720 --> 0:13:41.200 If you do nothing, the queen seemed to believe, then 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:46.880 you can do nothing wrong, except, of course, sometimes you can. 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:52.400 In action is also action, and as the days crept 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:57.679 by and the relief efforts became exhausted, eventually it was 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:03.320 decided that the Queen would visit Aberfan. After all, it 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:07.720 was eight days after the disaster. The deaths were counted 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:12.280 and there was no more digging. When the Queen arrived, 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:16.960 a young girl approached and presented her with a posy. 0:14:17.400 --> 0:14:22.400 The note attached red from the remaining children of Aberfan. 0:14:30.080 --> 0:14:33.680 According to a number of the morning families, the Queen's 0:14:33.760 --> 0:14:37.720 visit was a great comfort. She stood with the parents 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.400 who had lost their children, listen to them, made them 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:47.080 feel less anonymous, less alone. The crown was here with them. 0:14:47.520 --> 0:14:53.760 The country saw their pain. That was what her visit symbolized. Still, 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:58.200 she had waited eight days. Maybe it would have been 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:02.080 a distraction if she had come earlier. Maybe the grief 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:06.520 would have been overwhelming and the relief efforts too chaotic 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:12.120 to accommodate a royal visit. But still, sometimes you can 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:16.239 only regret and think what you might have done differently. 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:21.400 Queen Elizabeth the second certainly did. The Queen would return 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.440 three more times the village of Aberfan in her reign. 0:15:25.960 --> 0:15:29.840 Though the power of the monarchy is largely symbolic, now, 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:34.160 that power is still legitimate. Case in point, during one 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.920 of her later visits, it was revealed that the government 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:42.040 had used the Aberfan disaster fund in order to fund 0:15:42.120 --> 0:15:46.520 the removal of the six remaining slag tips. That sounds 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:49.920 all well and good, but that money had actually been 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:55.280 set up explicitly to help the bereaved families. Queen Elizabeth's 0:15:55.360 --> 0:15:59.320 visit helped bring attention to that corruption, which led to 0:15:59.360 --> 0:16:04.200 the money be repaid to those families. On her final 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:08.800 visit to Aberfan, in against the advice of her advisers, 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.920 the Queen insisted that she take off in a helicopter. 0:16:13.440 --> 0:16:15.920 The ground was too wet, they said, and the weather 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:20.040 too erratic, but she insisted because she thought that the 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:24.000 children would like to see it, and so off in 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:29.280 a helicopter she went. I highlight the Aberfan disaster because 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.960 it captures at once what I believe to be the 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:37.400 monarchy's greatest weakness, but also their strength. Its weakness is 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:42.040 that its stability comes from inaction the royal family can 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:47.440 never be dazzling or unexpected. There can be no great victories, 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:52.720 because to achieve any victory is to risk defeat. The 0:16:52.880 --> 0:16:56.680 Queen understood that more than anyone, that her role was 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:01.040 to be less a person, with whatever one or desires 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:06.400 came from that, and instead be an institution, to let 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:10.800 her personhood be subsumed by the role. That was her 0:17:10.800 --> 0:17:15.560 sacrifice and that was her duty. Elizabeth the second was 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:20.119 never supposed to be queen. Her father was King George 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:23.520 the fifth, second son, and so her uncle had been 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:27.280 in line for the throne. He was King Edward the eighth, 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:31.200 but for several reasons that we've already discussed on this 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:35.800 very podcast, he was entirely unsuited to the position. He 0:17:35.920 --> 0:17:39.879 abdicated in order to marry an American divorcee, in what 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:46.359 Elizabeth's family saw as a fundamental betrayal, a selfish dereliction 0:17:46.440 --> 0:17:51.040 of duty. She would never do anything like that. She 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:56.360 would honor the institution of the crown at all costs. 0:17:56.400 --> 0:18:01.400 She would do her duty, withstanding whatever small humiliations and 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:06.760 criticisms it required. She would be the human statue that 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:09.359 the nation could look to so that she could be 0:18:09.400 --> 0:18:14.040 able to achieve what I believe is the monarchy's greatest strength, 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:20.680 to make people feel seen comforted. If the Queen represents 0:18:20.760 --> 0:18:24.199 the entire nation, when she is there with you, you 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:33.119 know that the nation is with you too. That's the 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:36.640 story of Queen Elizabeth the second and the Aberfan disaster, 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.000 but stick around after a brief sponsor break to hear 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:42.639 a little bit more about the human side of the 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:59.920 late Queen. The Queen is such an institution that sometimes 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:03.000 it's easy to forget that she was in fact a 0:19:03.080 --> 0:19:08.400 real human being. There's one anecdote I love, possibly Apocryphal, 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:11.880 but that shows her sense of humor. The Queen's favorite 0:19:11.920 --> 0:19:16.280 spot was balmoral. The castle located in the Scottish countryside, 0:19:16.560 --> 0:19:19.400 and often she would walk across the hills to take 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:22.280 in the views. One morning she was walking when she 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:27.800 encountered a pair of hiking tourists. Incredibly, they didn't recognize 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:31.840 her and made conversation. They heard that the queen sometimes 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:36.000 stayed around there. Was that true? Yes, she replied it was. 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:42.520 The tourists became excited. Have you ever met her, they asked. No, 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:47.080 the Queen deadpanned. She pointed to her guard, who was 0:19:47.119 --> 0:20:00.320 standing nearby at a respectful distance, but he has yeah. 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:12.040 Noble blood is a production of I heart radio and 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:15.760 Grimm and mild from Aaron Mankey. Noble blood is hosted 0:20:15.760 --> 0:20:20.600 by me Danishwartz. Additional writing and researching done by Hannah Johnston, 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:25.439 Hannah's wick, Mirra Hayward, Courtney Sunder and Laurie Goodman. The 0:20:25.480 --> 0:20:29.680 show is produced by Rema Il Kali, with supervising producer 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:34.399 Josh thane and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams and 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:38.399 Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from I heart radio, visit 0:20:38.440 --> 0:20:41.879 the I heart radio APP, apple podcasts or wherever you 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:43.119 listen to your favorite shows.