Queen Elizabeth’s death sees Britain lose a rare shared point in national awareness

On April 5th 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic had shut down much of the world and confined most of her subjects indoors, Queen Elizabeth made a televised address from Windsor Castle “to the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth”. Seated next to a table, she looked just as she had for years, wearing a green, crepe dress, three rows of pearls and a diamond and turquoise brooch.

The first part of her four-minute message was the kind of pabulum she had been reading out for almost 70 years, praising National Health Service staff and other front-line workers. But it became more personal towards the end when she recalled her childhood during the second World War.