I would like, this week, to invite you to join me in celebrating 120 years of partnership….well, technically, I suppose it’s 120 years of partnerships – two, to be exact. The first accounts for 50 of the years and the second for the other 70.

Last week, Bernice and I finally got around to celebrating with family and friends our golden wedding. We felt the absence of Micha’el, Tslil and the boys, but we hope they will be able to come over later in the year. We hope our guests enjoyed themselves, but we’re not especially bothered if they didn’t, because we both had a wonderful time, and even those of us (no names, no pack drill), who had resisted long and hard the calls to have a public celebration admitted, after the fact, that it had been the right decision.

While not recognising ourselves in all of the lovely things that were said by others at the celebration (but certainly recognising each other), Bernice and I reckon that we do make a pretty good partnership, largely because we complement each other (even if we occasionally omit to compliment each other). For example: one of us ensures that there is a healthy meal on the table every evening, and the other one ensures that The Times crossword is completed every day; one of us never fails to do the laundry every week, and the other one never fails to generate enough dirty clothes to justify the weekly wash. You get the picture, I’m sure. Anyway, as I said at the celebration, when Bernice said ‘Yes’ 51 years ago, she made me the happiest man alive…and nothing in the last 50 years has changed that situation.

What is, from my point of view, most remarkable, is how little I have to do to maintain my side of the bargain. Bernice has always said to me that the day I fail to make her laugh is the day she will leave me. So far, so good, although we have had a couple of close-run things, when I’ve lain awake for hours until finally, at 11:50 at night, I think of a joke, and then I have to wake Bernice up to tell her quickly before the clock strikes midnight.

Now that the celebrations are over, we both feel we can relax a little, and stop tiptoeing around each other, offering to take out the rubbish or cook a favourite meal, in the hope of getting a better review in the other’s speech. The pressure is definitely off, and an air of normality has descended on the Brownstein household.

The other partnership I want to celebrate this week is that between Her late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, and the story of the world over the years of her reign. Like most of us, I cannot remember a time before Elizabeth acceded to the throne; her reign seems to have been a fact of life throughout my entire lifetime.

And now, suddenly, even if entirely expectedly, it is no longer, and she is no longer. The shock of a different version of the royal anthem is palpable. Banknotes and coins portraying King Charles seem unimaginable.

Even the rewording of the prayer for the Royal Family recited in synagogues every shabbat and chag will take some adjusting to, despite the fact that, over my lifetime, there seem to have been tweaks every few years, of which, latterly, we became aware only when we travelled back to England for a family simcha or holiday: after Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales, after his marriage to Diana, after Diana’s death, after the Queen Mother’s death, after Prince Philip’s death. Throughout all these adjustments, the one constant in this prayer has been: ‘Our sovereign lady, Queen Elizabeth’. And now it is not there.

In the aftermath of the news breaking on Thursday, I have been surprised by the strength of the reaction, not so much at the personal level as at the official level, throughout the world. President Biden ordered that the American flag, on all US public buildings, military bases, warships and embassies, be flown at half-mast until after the Queen’s internment, in a demonstration of good judgement that his forebears showed a sad lack of 250 years ago. Although I suppose that, if the Queen bore no grudge over the slighting of her great-great-great-grandfather George III, I should also try to get over it.  

Nepal and Brazil both declared three days of national mourning. In the case of Nepal this is almost understandable, given the association of the Gurkhas with Britain, and particularly with the British army. But Brazil!  I have trawled the internet in vain for an explanation of this. It is true that Portugal and England enjoy the world’s oldest still-active alliance (dating back to the 14 Century), but it is equally true that last Wednesday marked the 200^th anniversary of Brazil’s independence from Portugal.

Even Cuba announced a period of national mourning (although from 6AM to 12 noon on Friday sounds to me less like a period of national mourning and more like a timeslot for the delivery of a new fridge).

I’m not quite sure how to explain this official expression of identification with what is, quintessentially, a loss that is owned by the British nation and the nations of the Commonwealth. I suspect that it reflects the fact that Elizabeth, more completely than any other individual, encapsulated the ways the world developed throughout her 96 years.

There cannot be any other person who has held meetings with so many prime ministers, presidents and other world leaders: from Churchill to Truss and from Eisenhower to Biden, from Khrushchev to Putin and from Coty to Macron. Past British prime ministers seem unanimous in their appreciation of her wise counsel.  Elizabeth travelled around the world and presided over an era that saw the vestiges of Empire replaced by a growing Commonwealth. During her reign, 48 countries joined the Commonwealth, which was an institution that she always passionately believed in.

She was also, by the time of her death, one of the dwindling number who had served in the Second World War. That service, as a vehicle mechanic in the ATS, both anchored her in the event that more than any other helped shape the second half of the twentieth century and also represented a move by the royal family into a world that promised to be (whether that promise was fulfilled or not) less privileged and less sexist.

While Elizabeth’s passions were more traditional – horses and corgis and country life – Prince Philip was keenly interested in science and technology. With his encouragement, the Queen embraced advances in modern media as new ways of reaching out to and communicating with her people.

Although it was unplanned, Elizabeth’s reign also reflected changes in family life throughout Britain. She grew up in a warm and close family. However, her own marriage, which began as a fairy-tale romance, apparently went through some rocky patches before mellowing into a close relationship of love and mutual respect. When it comes to her children, it seems that they have managed, in their personal lives, to encapsulate many of the malaises of modern society, from infidelity and divorce to sexual offences. In the next generation, we have seen accusations of racism and tension between fathers and their sons, siblings and their partners.

Some of this, particularly the relationship between Princess Diana and the royal family, threatened the monarchy’s standing in Britain. However, curiously, and partly as a result of the Queen’s ‘opening up’ about her annus horribilis, her horrible year, she seemed to emerge from these events ultimately more firmly rooted in the country’s affections.

In more recent years, she allowed her keen sense of humour to emerge a little more, and clearly enjoyed her limited acting career. However, the quality that most clearly characterised her is of course her sense of duty and her dedication to service. These may not seem particularly fashionable qualities, but when they are demonstrated with such clarity and unswerving faithfulness for an entire lifetime, they draw admiration from all who are aware of them.

There are, I believe, some republican rumblings in Britain, although all surveys indicate that this is very much a minority view. When we see the high regard in which Elizabeth was held, it seems to me bizarre for Britain to choose to throw out those centuries of tradition.

Clearly, Charles is not yet held in such universal esteem, but, from all I have seen and read in the last days and weeks, it seems clear to me that he is more than aware of the nature of the task and challenges that face him, and that he is eminently ready – after a 70-year apprenticeship – for his new role. I also have no doubt that his redoubtable queen consort is the perfect partner to support him in all that lies ahead, and all the signs are that William and Kate will, in the fullness of time, be ideally suited to carry this extraordinary institution into another new era.

All of this, on rereading, sounds rather fulsome, and I have no doubt that some of my readers will be scornful of what they will see as sycophancy. However, it really does seem to me that Britain’s constitutional monarchy represents a standing in the world, and a continuity that can ride the storm of any individual aberration, that no other system can match. I therefore have no difficulty declaring: God Save the King!

Meanwhile, our own dynasty, in Portugal, continues to thrive.