The death of a monarch from the perspective of a ex-police communicator

It was inevitable, yet no one really wanted to believe it when the announcement came of the death of HRH Queen Elizabeth II.

Since I started my career in police communication many years ago, I was made familiar with Op London Bridge. As everyone by now probably knows, this was the plan that would be put into effect as a result of the death of a ‘significant’ member of the royal family. We all knew, however, that it was about The Queen (as she will always be known).

I read this plan many times over and as I progressed through my career, I contributed in small ways to the media response on behalf of the force I was working for. As fate would have it, I got some practice in for such an event as I managed the comms for the funeral of past prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. It was a monumental event that I had trouble truly getting to grips with at the time, but I felt honoured to be so involved in the operation. I have many memories of the event that I will never forget and it certainly shaped the way I viewed media handling moving forward.

Op London Bridge has always been there for every police officer and public sector communications professional - yet it was put to the back of our collective minds as we dealt with the day-to-day of whatever scandal, incident or news event came our way. When we dusted off the plan for the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, it hadn’t been updated to reflect the invention and adoption of social media. This made for a very rapid response on our part when, ironically enough, we found out about her death on Twitter.

I always said that I would leave police communications after the funeral because there was never going to be another like it, apart from for The Queen. I joked I didn’t want to wait around that long for something that would just make me cry in the toilet of a control room somewhere in central London. 

I received a message from a good friend and ex-colleague of mine simply saying ‘London Bridge has fallen’. 

I was at JFK, and it shocked me that I should be stood, sobbing uncontrollably in front of a lot of bewildered Americans. Then the news spread and as it did so, I found I had some sort of pavlovian response - check the headlines, message family members, mentally run through the operational order. I even started formulating lines to take in my head. Except this time, neither myself or my colleague were going to be executing the operational plan we had both worked on. 

It dawned on me that being a communicator in the public sector is more than just a job and it takes emotion, empathy and having a stake in what you are communicating about to do your job well. As I watched the events as they unfolded, I could almost predict them to the letter. After all, that’s what an excellent communication strategy should do - provide you with enough certainty that you know what to do and when to do it without stress and pressure.

I saw so many of my friends and colleagues talk about their involvement and what they had to do and all I kept hearing was ‘we want to get it right’ or ‘we have to do our best’. This collective desire to make this work is what sets public sector comms apart - there really is a genuine desire to do the best you can despite the worst of circumstances.

This is not about being patriotic - although I have found that since I’ve lived in the US, I have become more patriotic - this is not about being a royalist - but it’s about showing the country, and the world, that in times of terrible sorrow and grief, the British ‘just get on with it’ attitude has demonstrated the fortitude and professionalism of many thousands of people. 

The pride I felt when seeing my fellow officers and communicators doing what they do best was a feeling I am not ashamed to shout about. This showed the world that you can be unified and work well together, regardless of opinion and experience. 

I’ll never lose the ‘split screen’ when something happens - one side is the event happening, the other side being in a control room with the wonderful buzz of responding to an incident. Sometimes I wish I could because the hardest part second to losing my lifelong anchor was not being able to serve her to the fullest of my ability now that I am no longer part of the British Police Service.