This blog starts with a warning albeit with no apology. As many readers will know, I am a staunch atheist and republican and in this story these beliefs play an important role. With this in mind, royalists of a religious persuasion might wish to stop reading now! For others, here is a story that was inspired by seeing a beautifully decorated walkway near our home in Richmond.

Every year Rohan and I spend the spring in our cottage in Brittany. Apart from being with friends and welcoming visitors there is gardening to be done. This year there was something more – by being in Treguennec we would be largely spared the prospect of street parties and media frenzy across the Channel sparked by the crowning of Charles III. Accordingly, as soon as we learned the dates of the coronation we extended our stay so that we would not arrive back in London till the adulation was over.  

Living in a village in France with nothing English in sight did indeed cushion us against many of the coronation’s excesses. However, through friends, the BBC and the on-line Guardian, we kept in touch and it was soon clear while our worst fears were not played out – apparently the public’s response was rather muted – much of the UK’s media, together with the Government and the establishment, bathed in uncritical coronation fervour. 

The British constitution requires us to have a monarch as our head of state, but if this tradition continues – to me a head of state appointed as a birthright is outdated not to say medieval – then his or her coronation should change. It should no longer be a lavish and garish pageant-cum-pantomime and no longer orchestrated – sanctified – by the church with their archaic and incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo. In addition, the incumbent should not be allowed to escape paying taxes; by decree, Charles III pays no income tax, capital gains tax or inheritance tax! In short, the current arrangements which celebrate the monarchy and serve to unify the church and the state are unnecessary and unacceptable.  Importantly, for me the Union Jack has become the symbol of all I so dislike.

When we did return to London I soon found myself walking down Church Court, a favourite route I take on my way to the shops. I choose it not only because it is a quiet pedestrianised walkway but because of its history – strolling down a pathway first paved in the 1500s is very special. But now there was more – down its length was an array of red, white and blue umbrellas put up as part of the borough’s coronation celebrations (see illustration). Now I was caught; initially seeing them swaying above in the wind was a delight, but soon I found myself viewing them as representing the Union Jack – they were a patriotic trick and my endowing  them with beauty was plain wrong. Days later, however I changed my mind; I managed to lose my perceived link with the coronation and I could once again see them as I had initially.

The way I make up my mind varies and overall is a bit hit and miss. Faced with an emergency, at least those that are medical, I switch to ‘auto pilot’ and make decisions almost instantaneously based on learned steps that have a logic. At the other extreme, choosing food in a restaurant has me paralysed – here no rules of logic apply! Somewhere in between I make snap decisions, presumably using judgements based on past experience, prejudice and some immediate sense of appeal, and this is what happens when I meet someone or see a picture in a gallery.

Seeing the coloured umbrellas in Church Court as representing the coronation impelled me to reject them on principle. However I changed my mind once I realised the colours of the umbrellas and the way in which they were arranged had their own intrinsic value and that anyway these very colours were not unique to the Union Jack, they are also those of thirty other national flags – including France and Russia. That I could free myself by changing my mind was a wonderful relief.

This blog is about a sight that greeted me when I returned to Richmond nearly two  weeks ago. The fact that I first saw it as distasteful, but now I go back and enjoy it as often as I can, shows how important it is to keep decisions under review. Clearly it is something I should do more often.   

The illustration is a photo of Church Court, an alleyway in Richmond decorated with umbrellas and which I walk down whenever I can.

For helping me write this blog I would like to thank Jo, Alan, Anis, Annie, Rohan and Vivien.