Photo credit: 80s Actual
For whatever reason, I seem to be on a royal streak (flush?) right now. Here’s a brief memory of events from 32 years ago. Britain in the late 70s and early 80s was pretty conflicted (think strikes and riots and punk rock, not just tea and crumpets) – and what better to point this out than a massively expensive wedding at St Paul’s Cathedral?
July 29, 1981
The morning of the wedding, the TV
room was abuzz with royalists. Eileen
on the settee, a cockney queen. The rest
of us stayed in the kitchen drinking tea,
making snide comments about the Prince’s
large ears and the dangers of inbreeding.
Later, I listened from my bedroom as
the bride got the groom’s name wrong. It was an
omen, although we didn’t know it then,
her unending white dress flowing down and
out the door like a slick of North Sea oil,
just one more ’80s excess to regret.
Penguin Poems 