I have just finished reading the beautifully toned piece by Ian Jack (They say the Queen was crowned in a different country. But some things in Britain never change, 10 September) and I was stirred to join in the discussion of mixed feelings and myths surrounding a family among us and yet so very far apart from us.
I grew up on the Balmoral estate, so my life was sometimes immersed in royal visits and all the razzmatazz that that brought, but mostly we lived a quiet rural life of snow and village gatherings among a quiet, humble people. We saw the royals often and would speak to them, but they were definitely very different and their concern was transitory and not genuine. I began to discern what polite, rather than genuine, interest meant. People think Jacob Rees-Mogg is out of kilter with most of us and that is exactly what the royal family felt like – even more so in reality.
Theirs is a hard balance to strike. They need to appear accessible enough while preserving the necessary distance to keep them special and different because, if not, it would all end in us seeing that the King in fact has no clothes on.
Susan MacRae
Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire
• Ian Jack must have somehow had access to my own thoughts – and I suspect those of many others – when he described the events of the past few days as a dualism of “scepticism and affection”. I am among the majority of people younger than Jack who until 8 September – or, in my case, 5.30am on 9 September in New Zealand – had only ever known one head of state in their life, and it did seem strange that the Queen would no longer be present.
When looked at logically, the notion of a constitutional hereditary monarchy seems absurd and yet, mysteriously, the system appears to work reasonably well in delivering a stable and relatively corruption-free democracy. Like any other system of governance, it does have its faults, which should never be ignored, but on balance I think I know which way I will be voting on any future referendum.
Although I am conservative on many social issues, I am on the left economically, which may possibly account for that mixture of “scepticism and affection” that Jack so accurately described.
Anthony Newey
Paraparaumu, North Island, New Zealand
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