Queen's Platium Jubilee a pivotal moment for royal family - Jayne Dowle

And after that we’re hoping to make our way to Buckingham Palace to see which ‘working Royals’ turn up on the balcony.

As a measure of the current health and status of various Royal family members, I reckon that this balcony appearance will be pivotal. If we see nothing else for the four days of jubilations, that particular event will go down in history. Hopefully for all the right reasons, and not because Prince Harry abseils up the side of Buckingham Palace to get on the photographs.

But I digress slightly. Obviously, if I’m making the effort, I need a special outfit. I’d heard about the bargain £14 Jubilee-special 1950s-style red, white and blue midi-dress at Asda, so nipped online to order one.

My 16-year-old daughter, sitting beside me, drew a firm line at the matching £8 ‘daughter dress’ – she’s already bought a Vivienne Westwood-ish Union Jack T-shirt – and my husband laughed and said I’d look like a mobile flag, but I was undeterred. And disappointed. I quickly learned that the dress had sold out within hours. Asda is now reportedly in hot water with its customers because it simply hasn’t made enough of the bargain garments to meet demand. I’m sure I can pull something suitable together from red, white and blue items I already own, but what an interesting retail tale of our times this is.

Asda’s triumph – and if you can meet disaster headlong and still come out smiling in today’s retail world, you’re doing something right – adds sharp perspective to the news that M&S is to close 32 town stores in the next few years.

In a statement, M&S bosses said that the closure decision had been forced on the company, blaming the Russian war, Brexit and town centre locations losing “impetus” thanks to “failed local authority or government policy”.

These are all interesting points and unusually outspoken in political terms for a retailer. M&S has now pulled out of Russia, at an estimated cost of £31m. Brexit has brought increased tariffs and higher prices that the beige slacks-wearing Farage fanclub never anticipated. And local government and Westminster politicians should certainly take heed; the next time they’re planning a party, the nearest M&S Food Hall might have shut up shop. Thanks to WFH and rising train fares, commuters are melting away faster than a Belgian chocolate ice cream.

However, there’s also another reason. Boring stock. M&S has been missing the mark with fashion for decades now, many style watchers would argue, with safe and steady items no-one under 40 would touch. Failure to respond imaginatively to such a momentous occasion as the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee is a strong case in point. I haven’t seen fights breaking out in person or online to bag the navy blue pure cotton Jubilee crew neck sweatshirt, £22, as yet and that’s because it looks kind of American and misses the prevailing vintage vibe entirely.

There’s one way to respond to this Jubilee if you’re feeling slightly uncomfortable about overt displays of nationalistic fervour right now, and that’s to embrace the trad, the quirky and the slightly kitsch. Asda got it spot on.

The question is, will the Royal family? Not just this week, but going forward. Will this Platinum Jubilee be the last hurrah of a dynasty which is in danger of becoming outdated – my daughter’s GCSE history teacher, chillingly, laughed in her face when Lizzie told her that she admired her namesake and wanted to go to London for the Jubilee – or will it show the Royals a way to reconcile their oft-precarious position with British people’s respect for the past and pride in the present, despite buffeting winds at home and abroad?

For so long, we’ve heard that the Royal family must be ‘modernised’. When Meghan Markle came along, she seemed like an ideal cheerleader. However, we all know what happened next, and now we’re looking at a vacuum where a united family should stand. Could consolidation work instead, by tapping into traditions and reminding ourselves that our history helps us to still (just about) stand head and shoulders about the global melee? Would this help Great Britain go forward? Are the Royal family brave enough to try? We shall find out soon enough.