Danny Singh, born and raised in London, but now based in Rome and Canterbury, gives creative English language lessons and teacher training courses all over Europe. He also offers stimulating monthly presentations on language related issues at Rome’s biggest international bookshop and has his own YouTube channel which contains a series of interactive English video lessons. He is author of two books, “I was a happy man...then one day I came across Laughter Yoga” and “Learning English through the mind and the body” and is currently working on his third book, “Life is full of surprises”. He regularly attended Pilgrims TT summer courses in  Canterbury as a Guest Speaker. Website: www.laughnlearn.net 

Email: singh_danny@hotmail.com

 

Editorial note

This article was originally published in the Summer 2023 issue of IN mag (the Slovenian IATEFL mag).

 

The Ambassador meets Danny Singh

The subject of the Queen and the monarchy has been controversial on many occasions, but none more so than at the IATEFL Slovenia conference 2023, where having arrived for the official opening ceremony of the conference and looking forward to tasting some home-made wine and rakia accompanied with a range of savoury delights, I was told that the UK residents needed to meet the UK ambassador who happened to be there. Once I’d hastily managed to sip some champagne that had kindly been offered, Jeremy Harmer recognised me and said that the Ambassador wanted to have a word with me. What could she possibly want? Was I finally to be rewarded for all my hard work and dedication to the UK? Not quite. She introduced herself, then mentioned that she’d noticed the title of my workshop in the programme and wondered what it was all about. I then proceeded to give an outline of what was planned for that session, when it suddenly dawned on me as to why she was asking the question. She had made it clear during this short introduction that she was highly sympathetic to the Queen and any high charged attack or abuse of the Queen would be frowned upon. I therefore ventured to reassure her that I had no such intention and insisted that everything would be fine.  

 

The Queen is dead

In 1986, The Smiths, a popular band from that period came up with a song entitled, The Queen is dead. It was a critical attack on both the Queen and the monarchy, however, it wasn’t in any way particularly offensive and indeed no radio or TV station ever considered banning it. Morrisey, who was the lead singer of the band and responsible for most of the lyrics created by the band had a way of being critical, direct and satirical at the same time. I’d highly recommend that readers of this article have a listen to this song before proceeding any further. In this way, you can develop an idea of Morrissey’s style and get in the mood for the rest of this article. Although I am not a fierce critic of the Queen or monarchy, this is actually one of my favourite songs by the Smiths, both for the lyrics and the upbeat music.

 

Are Queen really dead?

On 24 November 1991, the news came through that Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen a group that had rocked the country with some amazing music during the 70s and 80s had died of the HIV virus which was rife at that time. Music fans were in shock. The tabloid press on the one hand acknowledged him as a great singer, while on the other criticized his lifestyle and looked upon his death as a kind of punishment for having committed a variety of sins, the most important one of which was having had homosexual relationships. The band itself was in shock and decided to organise a tribute concert to honour him and raise awareness of this disease which was destroying so many people’s lives.

The concert was held at a packed Wembley stadium in April 1992 and featured not only the expected friends of Freddie who sympathised with his homosexual views such as George Michael and Elton John, but bands like Def Leppard and Metallica. This made the event an even bigger success and raised thousands of pounds for research into fighting the HIV disease. Since then, there has been a film called, Bohemian Rhapsody focused primarily on their “live” aid performance in 1985 which made them the standout band on that amazing day. Various Queen tracks have been re-released and even today in 2023, Queen are still considered one of the greatest rock bands in the history of music. The artist may have left us, but his music lives on. As if this isn’t proof enough, at the IATEFL Slovenia conference in 2019, Freddie Mercury, yes the man himself, made a surprise appearance, proving that whatever you read in the press, one thing is for sure, Queen are not dead. 

 

The Queen meets Danny’s mother

Now that you’ve all finished listening to Bohemian Rhapsody and a few other excellent Queen tracks, we can move on to the core of this article. I usually present this first picture to my students and probe them with questions. Do you recognise anyone in the picture? What’s the location? Who are the other people in the photo? When was this photo taken? This often stimulates animated discussion, especially over the age of the Queen at the time of the photo. Once we’ve exhausted as much information as we can get from this photo, I show them the second one, which was taken just a few seconds after the first. Students are then asked to discuss what might have happened to create this scene where everyone in the picture has burst out laughing. Here we often get a wide range of opinions about what has happened.

The photo was in fact taken in November 2001 and the Queen was opening a new section to a day centre in London which my mother regularly attended. Just before the Queen entered the room, the director announced that her majesty was arriving, upon which my mother asked what they should do. The director replied that they should just carry on playing their game and act as if the Queen wasn’t even there, which is precisely what they did. However, before that, my mother asked the director what they should do if the Queen asked them about their game, to which the director replied, “Do you really think the Queen is going to ask you about your game?” “I suppose not,” replied my mother and so they continued. Naturally enough, once the Queen saw that she was being totally ignored, she asked the fatal question about the game which resulted in everyone, even the serious director laughing out loud, not something that happened often in front of the Queen.

 

Is the Queen really dead?

In an average group of ten students, there is usually one who believes that my mother is one of the characters in the photo, while the other nine are often totally oblivious to this fact, which also adds to the entertainment in this lesson. These two photos are the public face of the Queen, but once the cameras were turned off, my mother who had previously regarded the Queen as a formal, distant kind of person, noticed that she was extremely humane and compassionate, which aside from being a complement to the Queen, is a sign that she was publicly performing a role and therefore acting, which was indeed one of her great passions. Queen Elizabeth may have officially passed away on 8 September 2022, however, her experience of living through an array of UK Prime Ministers and almost a century of historic events, not to mention the pleasure she has given many ordinary people means that her legacy remains intact.    

 

    

Please check the Pilgrims f2f courses at Pilgrims website.

Please check the Pilgrims online courses at Pilgrims website.