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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
National
Martin Belam

The most British thing ever: huge queue of royal mourners inspires gentle humour

Queen Elizabeth II Dom Joly King Charles III London
Union flags and flags with the Queen's face
Flags on sale in central London on 15 September 2022. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

The sheer number of people expected to file past the Queen’s coffin as she lies in state has produced a giant queue snaking through central London along the River Thames.

As well as numerous interviews with the people spending their time waiting to access Westminster Hall, the line has sparked memes and gentle humour online, not least because queueing is one of the things the British do so well.

Some have suggested that you are either in the queue, or watching the queue with fascination. Or possibly puzzlement.

The queue has come to symbolise the two positions you can take on the death of the Queen, neatly summed up in this one image featuring Ade Edmundson and Rik Mayall that went viral last week.

Or as someone else succinctly put it …

The line is being lightly marshalled on the understanding that, like queues for tickets at Wimbledon or the front row standing spaces at a major concert, it will be broadly self-policing in terms of allowing people to nip out to answer the call of nature or stretch their legs.

However, one helpful south London resident has augmented the official map to illustrate where you could pop off for a crafty pint.

There was gallows humour about the prospective length of the reign of the new King Charles III, who at 73 is the oldest person ever to ascend to the British throne.

There were questions about why the queue hasn’t got its own name.

Brian Bilston, as is often the case, had a humorous piece of poetry for the occasion.

Bilston’s argument that people would join a queue regardless of whether they knew what it was for was borne out by the scenes on the Embankment prompting one anecdote of a very different queue to be shared.

At least those queueing in London know what they are in for. But the more people thought about the queue, the more they began to ponder the very nature of the word itself.

People made various guesses as to where the queue might finally end. Swindon was posited by the comedian Dom Joly.

Others – regardless of whether the new prime minister, Liz Truss, is open-minded about whether Emmanuel Macron is a friend or foe – thought Paris was doing its bit to help out.

Some even suggested that the queue had grown so long, it had gained the ability to manipulate time itself.

There was nothing more meta than the fact that there was also a queue of journalists patiently waiting to interview the people patiently waiting in the queue to see the Queen.

And there was speculation that maybe by the end of the week every single person in the queue would have appeared on television themselves.

Still, everybody involved will have the satisfaction of knowing that they fully completed the game of being British.

And gained an anecdote to tell when it is just the right moment to try to impress someone.

But maybe the whole thing is unnecessary?

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