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Editor says, what if the Royal Family found happiness living in a progressive British Republican State? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the November 2010 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1955, on the second night of Independent Television (ITV), twenty-nine year old Lizzie Windsor became the first female reader on prime-time television news.
Dropping the AnchorImmaculately groomed, radiant, impeccably mild mannered and devoid of the merest hint of a regional accent, she defined a posh generational model for presenters and correspondents of British terrestrial news channels.
But as modern Britain began to celebrate diversity, the "English Rose" model was increasingly recognised as an anachronism, and by the time the platinum blonde Maggie Thatcher retired from News at Ten change was inevitable. Her replacement Robert Mugabe, was a graduate of University College London who had first begun broadcasting in Southern Rhodesia. And in a further development step, the happy-go-lucky former Blue Peter presenter Diana Spencer moved newsreading to breakfast television.
By the time Mugabe was honoured for his services to journalism, the wheels had begun to fall off Windsor's own aspirational life style. Two of her sons separated, her daughter divorced, and a severe fire had destroyed part of her palatial residence in Essex. She famously described 1992 as her annus horribilis, meaning horrible year although she later recovered some private joy as the owner of Norwich Football Club.
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Alternate Historian, 2006-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Politicians Source: Wikipedia Labels: Robert Mugabe, The Queen, Margaret Thatcher, BBC, Newsreader.
~ lmao!
~ Not that different from what she does now...she reads someone else's words while dressed up.
Comment from Quilly Mammoth on Facebook: English law. Sorry, not a winner.
Look, alt history has to have a "pivot point" where _one_ real decision or event makes a difference. And history geeks will laugh at you. You have to ...make them gasp. Find that decision
~ Quilly Mammoth has a point. What's the POD here? I know that theoiretically any alternative one can dream up is legitimate if it's logically consistent, but I personally prefer AH springing from a single iudentified POD, as small as possible.
~ POD would be post-1700s, given the need for changing their surname. Perhaps George III's craziness led to some kind of upheaval, such as kicking out the Regency and just going with Parliament.
~ Would people still be knighted? Seems anachronistic in a republic...
~ Her surname would likely be Battenburg. I suppose the POD is the second Stuart Restoration?
~ Here in America many news shows have a male and female commentator working side by side, in a sort of professional marriage, so she and Robert could have been a team. I don't know what her husband Phillip would have had to say about that...but on the other, hand, with his looks and noble title, he might have found a rich wife anyway...perhaps even an American, like Gloria Vanderbilt.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
