Help, I've fallen for the Queen

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To curtsey or not to curtsey? That was the dilemma I faced last week when I was invited to a reception for the media at Windsor Castle. Now, I have a lot of time for Elizabeth II, but like many people of my generation I appear to have been born without the deference gene. The idea of bowing, let alone doing some weird dippy stuff by sticking one leg behind your foot, just doesn't appeal. On the other hand, if the Queen invites you round to her place shouldn't you abide by her rules? Isn't doing anything else just acting like some snotty, self-righteous student? Isn't it, quite frankly, rude?

Matters were complicated by my six-year-old, a graduate of the Walt Disney School of Royal Studies. "Mummy," she said, examining the invitation, eyes wide with wonder, "you're going to tea with the Queen." And then, with a shriek: "Let's do curtseying!"

As carefully as I could, I explained to Evie that her mum was not entirely comfortable with the position of an, er, hereditary monarchy in a rapidly changing, um, modern world.

"Don't be silly," snapped my daughter, with a withering look the Princess Royal herself would be proud of. "And don't do a small curtsey. It has to be a Big One!"

Reader, I practised. A bob here. An awkward slither there. But, come the big night, I still wasn't sure which way I'd go: defiant, upright republican or sycophantic, stooping monarchist? Or maybe I should just adopt the Cherie Blair position: dip your head, while pretending to be flicking-your fringe out of your eyes?

St George's Hall in Windsor Castle was packed with famous faces from newspapers and TV. Looking round, I couldn't help wondering how many of us had written things that would have deeply wounded our hostess, had she been unlucky enough to read them. A number of prominent anti-monarchists strolled in, excusing their presence with the over-loud jokiness you hear from teenage boys at a grown-up drinks party. One columnist told me he was there out of curiosity.

I'm not sure I believed him. In Queen and Country, a wonderful documentary to mark the Golden Jubilee that begins on BBC1 tonight, Asha France, a young black law student, says with rather greater insight: "To be honest, you just do not say you like the Queen, you do not say you respect the Queen. But, if she was to come into your home town or your street, you would go down and see her - so long as no one spots you! - you would be there just so you can say, I did see the Queen!? That power, its strange gravitational pull, was evident from the start.

At the age of 21, an impossibly grave and lovely Elizabeth addressed the camera thus: "I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service. But I shall not have the strength to carry out this resolution alone, unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do."

I dare anyone to watch that speech without being moved: it's like the moment in the fairy tale when the princess walks towards the spindle. You know that she's going to be transformed and that there will be no going back. She leaves the normal mortal world behind and, whether we like it or not, she did it for us.

And goes on doing it, 50 years later. In Parliament yesterday, the Queen rededicated herself to the service of the country, her life having, thankfully, been long not short. How enjoyable to observe the republicans when the Queen entered the hall at Windsor on Thursday night; all that raucous scorn contorted into embarrassed smiles and tongue-tied schoolboy silences. The muchmocked thing could not be mocked close up because, being supremely gentle and dignified, it demanded gentleness and dignity in return.

Her Majesty is unbelievably tiny and round like Mrs Pepperpot, and a Hanoverian heaviness now hangs over that sweet, eager face, giving it a fierceness that must come in handy for making one's former prime ministers behave themselves at the dinner party from hell. But it's impossible, as I discovered, to be in the same room as her and not experience a slight change in your body chemistry. It's like standing near a mountain or a great monument: for a few seconds the life-clock stops and you say, like a child, I did see the Queen!

And the curtsey? Well, I didn't get near enough to find out whether I could bring myself to do it or not. But the thing about Elizabeth II is that she doesn't have to make you stoop to conquer. And that, I think, is a real cause for celebration.