England’s reigning Queen Elizabeth holds a place in my history. My family bought our first television set and allowed me to stay home from school to watch her coronation. We cheered the new queen from Temple TX. For years after that, I had a recurring dream that Queen Elizabeth was coming to dinner and I had nothing prepared. I would awaken in a cold sweat after trying unsuccessfully to cobble together a dinner from leftovers I found refrigerated in my grandmother’s multicolored Pyrex dishes.

After reading this lovely piece by Suzan St. Maur, I think I would not stress so much over an unexpected visit from the queen, but rather would order in Chinese and look forward to a chance to chat with a hardworking woman who prepares her own breakfast cereal. Of course, I’d want to ask her about the upcoming royal wedding and what advice she’d give to the soon-to-be princess Kate. What would you ask the queen if she came to have dinner with you?

An inhumanely overworked elderly circus elephant, perhaps? Nope. She’s the Queen of England.

Or to be more correct, she is Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, (titular only) Head of State of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland plus 15 other Commonwealth realms. Those realms include Canada and various Caribbean nations plus Australia, New Zealand and some further nations in the south-west Pacific.

Of course the British Republicans sneer and snort, waving anti-monarchy banners and saying how dare a woman like Queen Elizabeth complain about her workload when she lives in several different palaces and doesn’t have to worry about paying bills or maxing out her credit card.

Well, I don’t care what the Republicans say: this woman, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, to my mind is a huge inspiration to all of us who value the work ethic.

Unlike other vastly wealthy women, she wasn’t able to choose a lifestyle or career à la Paris Hilton, Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart and so-on. She was born into her job and had no choice. So without so much as a jump up and down on Jay Leno’s armchairs or a spell in rehab after shaving her head, she grabbed that legendary stiff British upper lip and got on with it. Elizabeth may shout and rant at her beloved Corgi dogs when life gets frustrating, but not a word gets said out of place at official levels.

Did she, and does she still complain? Probably she did, and still does, but behind closed doors. Given the choice I suspect she would have been a contented gentlewoman who loved her children, horses and dogs and led a fairly boring, basic-but-financially-comfortable British life.

Even now, we read in the media that she and hubby Phil (a.k.a. The Duke of Edinburgh who also is still working, aged nearly 90, bless him) serve themselves their own breakfast cereals out of humble Tupperware containers and think the most exciting way to relax with the folks is to barbecue British sausages on a wood fire in the rain in Scotland.

Glamorous, it ain’t.

To women who work around the world, it’s a sobering reflection to think that a woman like Queen Elizabeth II really isn’t a fairy queen leading a charmed life, but a hard-working professional who makes most of the fat-cat billionaires sunning themselves around priceless Bahamian swimming pools look like, well, just that. Fat, lazy people who may have worked hard to get where they are, but aren’t obliged to work so hard any more until ill health or death overtakes them – unlike her.

Whatever you think about the idea of a monarchy you’ve got to hand it to Elizabeth. She is an inspiration to working women everywhere.

Do you agree?

About Suzan:
Canadian-born best-selling author Suzan St Maur is a contributor to Sarah Arrow’s UK-based BirdsOnTheBlog, one of Forbes’ top 100 women’s websites in the world today. Suzan and Sarah also run the associated blog HowToWriteBetter.net.

Suzan’s most recent published book is “How To Write Winning Non-fiction.”