When Elizabeth II goes out she carries a handbag, but, we are told, it does not contain any money, except maybe on Maundy Thursday when she gives away coins to the deserving poor.  My friend Elizabeth, from down the road, also takes her handbag with her when she goes out, and she doesn’t have any money in it either.  That’s because it has all been spent on the essential bills she has to meet: gas, electric, water, phone and so on.  I think she is one of the deserving poor but no one has given her specially minted silver Maundy coins.

Elizabeth II does not pay rent on her numerous homes; Windsor and Balmoral Castles, Buckingham Palace, Sandringham House and all the lodges, cottages, gatehouses and tenant farmhouses that go with those estates.  Indeed, people pay her - to live in some of those cottages and farmhouses or to visit her castles and palaces.  My friend Elizabeth, from down the road, doesn’t pay rent on her home either.  That’s because her income is so low that she’s on housing benefit.  And the only time anyone pays to visit her house is when she hosts the MacMillan Coffee Morning once a year.

Elizabeth II does not shop in places like Marks and Spencer, Primark or Debenhams.  Instead she is visited by dressmakers and tailors and designers and even specialist milliners to see to her hats.  My friend Elizabeth, from down the road, doesn’t shop at M&S, Primark or Debenhams either.  That’s because we don’t have any of them in Accrington, and anyway she’d not be able to afford their prices.  When she really, really needs to replace a totally worn out garment however, she is fortunate that Accrington does have a plethora of charity shops: the one for the stray dogs, the one for the foals and horses, one for the blind and one for the deaf and blind, one to promote sport, the Red Cross one, the British Heart Foundation one and Age UK and probably, no definitely, others that I’ll not bother recording just now.

Elizabeth II does not have to go online to book an appointment with a doctor.  She has one on the payroll, along with the cooks and bottle washers, the gardeners and equerries, the footmen and ladies-in-waiting.  My friend, Elizabeth from down the road, doesn’t have to go online to book a doctor’s appointment either.  That’s because she is over 65 (well over if the truth be told) so can ring up the medical practice, as long as she is prepared to wait, as she might be in a queue of seven, eight or nine.  And when she eventually gets through, she’ll only be offered an initial telephone consultation, in maybe two weeks’ time, which isn’t ideal, given the state of her hearing, and that’s only going to get worse.

Elizabeth II does not have a passport.  Why carry a document that requests help and protection in her name?  If she’s there, she can ask for it herself.  And as she is head of state of so many countries, they can’t stop her from visiting, can they?  My friend Elizabeth, from down the road, does not have a passport either.  She’s never been in a position to be able to afford a holiday abroad and has had to make do with a couple of nights in a boarding house in Blackpool, or maybe a Shearing’s coach trip to Whitby or suchlike.
Elizabeth II has her face on the coins and notes of our currency and on the stamps, and her name is to be seen in myriad places on plaques from when she opened this hospital or visited that library or planted yet another tree in a park.  My friend Elizabeth, from down the road, also has her face and name on one of her most prized possessions – her bus pass – which enables her to get to the hospital, or to the library, or to the park where she can sit beneath a tree that someone else has planted.

Elizabeth II is celebrating her platinum jubilee and there will be street parties, fly-passes and processions and all round good times being had by many on the additional bank holiday we’re getting to mark the occasion.  My friend Elizabeth, from down the road, is hoping to get lucky and be given something special from the food bank, as she’s too proud to go empty handed to any local street party.  But she will watch it all on the television and will reminisce about the time when all the neighbours piled into the one house on her street that had a television to watch the coronation seventy years ago.

By Anne T Taylor, Oswaldtwistle Writers.