I’ve been reflecting this morning – after a two mile walk with our family hound Bendigeidfran – on The Crimea Conference of 1945, held in the beautiful resort of Yalta on the south coast of Russian’s Black Sea peninsula. It was a week-long meeting, at the beginning of February, when leaders of the UK, USSR and USA met to sort out the arrangements for the defeat and occupation of Nazi Germany. The global ‘powers’ of the day were basically re-drawing the global map for a future post-war world.

The world that Ann and I were born into. Ann was born at the end of that fateful year of 1945, and I a few years later. I remember playing with gas-masks in my paternal grand-parents house and being fascinated by family war medals. I will never forget the sight of my ‘Taid’ at night-time, pulling the black-out blinds down before closing the curtains – and that was in the early 60s! “But there’s no fear of bombers tonight, Taid!”

I was blessed to have known my Nain and Taid (he was part of the UK’s North Russia Expeditionary Force to Archangel, May 1919 – but that’s another story, although I must add, for now, that he was a non-combatant, in his white apron, busy baking bread for the troops. To this day I am still proud to be ‘of-the-family (Teulu) of’ Tom the Baker.  Yes, I was blessed to have known my Dad’s Mum and Dad, and sad to this day that I have no memory of Mam’s Dad, Shem Jones the Fisherman, although I do have slight memories of Elen, my Nain Gyffin, my maternal Grand-mother.

This funeral morning, while out walking, I was accompanied by many family memories, both happy and sad – memories that also embraced the new family that I became a part of when Ann and I met. Two families came  together when we met,  and a new ‘cloud of witnesses’ created, that has accompanied us to this day.

I didn’t know Queen Elizabeth, or members of her family, although I know some facts about them. Who doesn’t! When I heard of her death eleven days ago, I paused for a few moments to remember her seventy years of dedication to a very public vocation as the Queen of the UK and fourteen Commonwealth realms. The ‘Global Boss Woman’ as one commentator referred to her. For many of us Brits, she was the symbolic figurehead of the British state. I used to think of her as the UK’s supreme diplomat.

I remember Churchill’s state funeral on the penultimate day of January 1965. I was 15 years old. Our family watched it on our black and white TV. Years later I remember looking back on that national event as a symbol of the final passing of the British Empire. The Suez Crisis of 1956 was the beginning of the end of that Empire. I was 6 years old at the time. Although I don’t remember that event, I do remember studying its implications for us as Brits as the 1960s came to a close.

I suppose that’s why our government, to this day, likes to play the role of a sort of ‘senior-junior-partner’ to dear old Uncle Sam. It’s better than having no role at all to play on the global stage.

I’ve cried quite a bit today, off and on. Not crying – which for me is much more superficial – so much as weeping, because in my opinion the latter has more depth. Weeping is a joyful event laced with sadness: remembering my parents and ‘marriage parents,’ as I like to think of my in-laws, along with my grandparents and other favourite family members.

Some of them I know from photographs, faces forever gazing at me from the past. I may not ‘re-member’ them, although I’m privileged to be ‘a-member’ of their family.  Our family. My family.

Some of them died in wars, “doing their bit!”

I thought of the Family Windsor, another family that will also be weeping today, once they get out of the public glare. But I don’t imagine that they will be weeping for the other thing I’ve been grieving for today.

Grieving: ‘to be sorrowful, or in distress’. I have been struggling – emotionally as well as intellectually – since 24 February this year, when, after 8 years of provocation, Russia entered, invaded – call it what you will – Eastern Ukraine, in response to an operation carefully choreographed by the UK, USA and its military arm in Europe, NATO, over many years.

It’s been 11 days of gun-salutes, soldiers, uniforms, flags and banners, tears, more soldiers and officers, bright red uniforms, marching bands and more tears, politicians and celebrities, the ‘great-and-the-good’. Eleven days of intense wall-to-wall state propaganda, on TV and radio, in newspapers and magazines, in shop windows and on street-corners.

It’s also been over 6 months of a totally different kind of military dynamics, although there’s nothing ceremonial about them. These have been real guns and artillery fire, with real fighting soldiers in blood-stained uniforms: real tanks and missiles, and real offensives and retreats, with no time for slow marches and ceremonial. A military spectacle peppered daily with reporters and experts proclaiming the ‘truth’ on our TVs and laptops. Media high priests and priestesses, integral to our bombardment by an orgy of Western propaganda and misinformation, the likes of which I have never seen before in my lifetime.

A brutal war is raging in Europe. An undeclared war, in legal terms, that heralds the end of the world conjured up at that meeting in Crimea seventy seven years ago.

That ‘new’ post-war Europe, born in 1945, is literally dying before our eyes. The world of our childhood has gone for ever. With over 500 global heads of state gathered together in London today, the Queen’s funeral is also the funeral of the old Europe.

It isn’t just the Elizabethan age that’s come to an end today. In a surreal sort of way, the world designed in the beautiful resort of Yalta is also being buried today.   

Queen Elizabeth’s funeral also allows us – if we dare look – a sedate glance at the impending death of another imperium, this time the ‘American one’. A death enacted thousands of miles away from US shores, by the bloody sacrifice of Russian and many many many many more Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.

As for the politicians favourite propaganda phrase or mantra, that speaks of the Ukraine conflict as the ‘West’s proxy war,’ don’t be fooled.

It’s war! Full on war.

N.A.T.O. – the military arm of the US Empire – is at war with Russia. I think of it as the North Atlantic Terrorist Organisation.

It’s the ‘Dollar War’ as I call it: the American Empire’s fight- to- the-death to remain the global No1 super-power versus Russia’s fight for its very survival. A war planned by a very powerful US family, with a fanatical ideology that will use Europe as a stepping-stone in its bid to defeat its ‘other enemy’ further away from Europe. (More about ‘the Nuland-Kagan Family’ again. This family is the real architect of the Ukraine war, with Jo Biden their current US front-man).

It saddens me that King Charles III is the figure-head of a nation that is more than happy to be the USA’s junior partner in this war. As king he has no real power in geopolitics, although as king he would have to sign that piece of paper should the UK have the courage to formally declare war on Russia.   

It saddens me that the so-called ‘crown prerogative’ gives another Elizabeth – our PM Liz Truss’s government – the power to ‘wage war by any means’ without consulting parliament, if deemed necessary in the coming months. I wonder what Tom the Baker and Shem the Fisherman would make of it all?

Members of my extended family – as with as the millions of families watching events today – will have many different reasons for remembering the 19 of September 2022, a key date in our history. Monarchists. Republicans. The Don’t knows. The don’t cares.  

And what of the Family Windsor?

Two ‘ceremonial’ wives met yesterday in Westminster, when Teulu Windsor of London came face to face with Teulu Zelenski of Kiev. Yes, the daughter-in-law of King Charles III, the newly appointed Princess of Wales, Catherine, met Yelena, wife of Ukraine’s rich and famous comic-actor turned US appointed puppet-president, one Volodymyr Zelenski.  

Our ‘old Europe’ tried to build a new future after the horrors of Nazi-led Germany. That Nazi heritage is alive and well in 21^st century Ukraine, and has, since 2014, been reeking-havoc, once again, in Europe, with US and UK assistance this time round, both militarily and economically.

The US based Nuland-Kagan Family has always been honest when talking about Europe, best summed up in the words of Mrs Victoria Nuland-Kagan, the high-ranking Jo Biden official in charge of Ukraine: “FU$K EUROPE”.

My paternal grand-mother, Mary Elizabeth, lived to within a few months short of a century. She used to joke that after she died she wanted R.I.P. carved on her gravestone. Rest-in-peace? No! ‘Return If Possible’ is what she had in mind!

There will be no return to the Elizabethan Age, that overlapped with the Era of the Yalta Conference. Ours is the age that is already bearing witness to the demise of the American Empire and a Europe lacking in maturity, vision and confidence to include Russia in its plans for the future well-being of our grand-children and great-grand-children.

If only Elizabeth the Good, as many have hailed her these last few days, had had real power to be the Global Boss Lady to the family of nations. If only that young princess in London might end up having real geo-political power, when she becomes Queen. Who knows, she could end up being remembered as another Catherine the Great.  

There will be another day of pomp and ceremony in London next Spring, when Charles III is officially crowned King. I wonder if the clown-prince of Kiev will still be in office, irritating us with his daily Big-Brother-esque comic performances.

I wonder?