The Queen Mother and I

I completed my Biology degree in 1971. Somehow I managed to achieve an honours degree despite not being the most diligent of students. The college insisted on putting lectures in the morning and I was usually up all night at various gigs or talking madly about the state of the universe.
I must have found some time to absorb a bit of biology on the way.
As my degree was a London University degree they had a big award ceremony. This was to take place in the Royal Albert Hall with the Queen Mother giving out the awards.
Being something of a rebel with waist length hair and attitude, a dislike of the establishment and distaste for all forms of elitism, I was not that enamored.
Indeed the whole ceremony smacked of everything I stood against – elitism, monarchy, the establishment. The Albert Hall was OK though. I’d seen Country Joe and the Fish, Roy Harper and Hendrix there.
My Mum and Dad urged me to go but I declined. It wasn’t my thing. It was only years later that I fully appreciated how selfish I’d been.
I was the first person in my family to achieve a degree. To my Mum and Dad it was a really big thing. My achievements made them proud. They had sacrificed a lot for me to be educated and I had treated it all so lightly. For them to have had a photo of me receiving my degree, in cap and gown, from the Queen Mother would have been something huge.
So much for principles.
I still feel immensely guilty to this day.