The Young Victoria

Having a deep-rooted obsession with the Victorian era that bypasses all my other obsessions, such as my extreme disgust and hatred of wooden spoons (because the thought of them being wet and rubbing on my clothes makes me want to be sick), I know that one day I might not hate wooden spoons, but I will always love the Victorian era.

With this in mind, obviously I was going to watch The Young Victoria on the night it came out. The only person who shoulders my obsession wholeheartedly is my mum. She drove me to Derbyshire to see Chatsworth, patiently waited for me to finish trying on the replica costume dresses in the V&A museum, and didn't tell me it might have repercussions on my friendships when I rented Mrs Beeton's book of household remedies from the library for show and tell in primary school, when other people took cool stuff in.

Naturally, she took me to see the film. I'm not going to review it because it wasn't fantastic but wasn't boring, and I don't really know what to comment on apart from the generic Emily and Rupert as Victoria and Albert were good, blah blah. This is just a gesture of my feelings towards Victoria, which are very favourable indeed.

She became Queen at 18. She refused to sign a Regency Order, which basically meant that if the King died before his niece, Victoria, turned 18 she couldn't become Queen until she was 25 and would co-represent the country alongside her mother, the Duchess of Kent. The monarchy would be relatively desolved and men behind the scenes would run the country behind the facade of Victoria and the elderly Victoria. Everyone was pressuring her to sign this order since she was a young teenager; at one point her mother's advisor actually tried to force her signature using her own limp hand when she was ill in bed.

She slept in the same room as her mother until she was 18, and wasn't allowed to walk down the stairs without holding someone's hand until she was Queen.

She took cocaine for her period pains, had nine children because she loved sex so much and didn't know about contraception, (her son Alfred was suspected of being Jack the Ripper), and she and Albert had a gold plaque made for the end of their bed commemerating the date they first slept together.

Because she loved her husband so much, when he died of typhoid aged 42 after 20 years of marriage, she dressed in mourning every single day for the rest of her life, which some might say is emo, but someone who is so revered in public perception has little room to express themselves: it was business as usual as soon as the love of her life died. She had a clay mould made of Albert's hand and was rumoured to sleep clutching it every night, and she insisted the servants lay out his clothes, shaving brush, and flannel every morning after he died.

Victoria was percepted as cold, austere and uninterested in her people or her country. This was very untrue: she was passionate about making life for the working classes better and did a lot of work for the improverished East End, building schools and hospitals for the 'gutter children' of the future.

Her famously coined phrase "we are not amused" was, in fact, a valid comment, and not a snobby remark. She said it at a public event commemerating soldiers in the Civil War, when an ex-soldier who lost his leg in battle was walking up the street hobbling on a stick, and some people in the crowd were sniggering at his misfortune.

Ok, I'm done. Basically, I love Victoria and all things Victorian VERY much. Thank you for humouring me if you've got this far.