Cllr Richard Cotton speaking at last night’s meeting

FORMER Mayor of Camden Richard Cotton has likened the grief felt by those mourning the Queen to the moments that follow a death in the family.

The Labour councillor was speaking as Camden Council held a special all-member meeting last night (Monday) in which councillors, aldermen, members of the public and Town Hall staff paid tribute to the Queen.

Here is what Cllr Cotton said:

“For somebody that I’ve met only once, I find myself mourning, and feeling really quite desperately sad as if close relativehas passed away. I suppose part of the reason is because I turned 70 a couple of months ago, which means that her late majesty, was the head of state for my entire life. The first penny chews that I bought, were purchased with a penny with her face on it.

The first postcard I sent home from the school holidays, has a stamp with her head on it. And obviously every banknote I’ve ever spent has her head on it. My current shiny new blue passport has actually references her. At the age of seven, I remember being taken out into the school playground to sing God Save The Queen on Commonwealth day and we all had to learn something about every Commonwealth country. I can’t quite remember what learned about Anguilla but there you go.

I can remember joining the throngs in The Mall for her silver jubilee, which also happened to be mine.

And of course, for her golden jubilee. She was to me a symbol of continuity in an age of very rapid change and something that means a lot to me having relatives in other parts of the Commonwealth – a physical link to the Commonwealth and something that she promoted and as someone has said earlier, it probably wouldn’t exist without her.

I think that she was linked to my parents’ generation, as she promoted the values of that generation; one chief amongst which was playing by the rules and who can forget when her own husband died, there she was in black with a face mask on sitting alone?

But perhaps one of the most wonderful memories is one of the most recent for all of us, I think, and that is how could we have loved her any more than when the when she did that Platinum Jubilee sketch? With Paddington Bear? What acting ability apart from anything else.”