‘There has been something primary about Elizabeth Windsor’

A royal obituary writer reflects on the art of the prose memorial

Dear Millers,

Today we have a royal double-header: first up, an essay from former Financial Times editor Brian Groom about the art of writing royal obituaries — something he gathered first-hand experience of when penning the obituaries of the Queen Mother and Prince Philip.

“Queen Elizabeth II has been my life’s monarch,” Phil Griffin writes in our second piece on the late monarch — a personal essay on what she meant to him. “She was, as a schoolchild described her in a Platinum Jubilee vox pop early this summer, ‘very good at being Queen’. “

But before this, the latest on the closure rumours swirling around the Oldham Street pub, The City, plus three Premier League matches will be postponed ahead of the Queen’s funeral.