A pub snug by the Thames in south London is perhaps not the best place to judge the national mood in the wake of the demise of a monarch who has sat on her throne for 70 years. Or perhaps it is exactly the right place to tell us that the British — those who live in the nation’s capital at least — have outgrown the need for what has become little more than a tourist attraction. To others, it is the end of an era of certainty and stability. To still others, it is the death of nostalgia itself.

A bus stop on Tottenham Court Road in London displays an image of Queen Elizabeth II on 8 September 2022. (Photo: Tristan Fewings / Getty Images)

To another category of Brit, it’s hardly news. “Ninety-six-year-old woman dies? It’s up there with ‘dog bites man’, innit,” one of the pub’s denizens said. Someone significantly younger working at The Oval, where the deciding third Test between England and South Africa will not resume until Saturday at the earliest, quipped with cutting simplicity: “Damn. On a random Thursday.”

The cruel truth is that Elizabeth’s death has been 70 years in the making. All in one tweet, the Royal family’s blue-ticked account said: “The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The King and The Queen Consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow.” And that was that. They didn’t even bother using all of the available 280 characters. Thanks for coming, Liz. Don’t forget to leave your crown at the door.

Crowds gather at the Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace in London following the death of Queen Elizabeth II in Balmoral on 8 September 2022. (Photo: Dan Kitwood / Getty Images)

Doubtless, she will be mourned in grandiose style in public in the coming days. There’s nothing the British do quite as well as public emotion, whether they’re cheering for their football teams, supergluing themselves to roadways during protests, or bidding farewell to the only constant in their lives. Pomp and circumstance, they call it. 

King Charles III

But are the real people in this complicated country — the urban elite, the rural ranks, the Conservatives and the Labourites, the bosses and the trade unionists, the Leavers and Remainers, the colonisers and the colonised — ready for King Charles III? It is an irrelevant question, because he’s coming, ready or not. In fact, he’s already here. Besides, there is that most British of things to consider: a queue. Behind Charles, William is already having his head measured for a crown. 

But, for longer than most of the population of the UK as well as that of many other countries, the queen and what she represents have held sway over their lives to a greater or lesser degree. She has, it’s difficult to deny, been the figurehead for decisions on the language they speak, their system of government, their debt and their relationship with the wider world.

They should know that the British aren’t taking this too badly. Maybe that’s just what it means to live in a country where things work — the lights stay on, women walk the streets alone at night fairly confident they will be safe, and there is a semblance of equality (or at least far more than in viciously skewed societies like South Africa’s). The queen is dead? Who cares? Someone will be around to make sure everything is alright. Keep calm and order another pint.

That’s exactly what happened in that pub snug by the Thames. The television stayed tuned to the story, with the footage showing hordes gathering in the rain outside Buckingham Palace. But the sound was turned off in preference for some or other flavour of muzak, and the show went on. Mine’s a hazy IPA. What are you having? 

The ghoulish jokes weren’t long in coming. What if Boris Johnson’s last act as prime minister and Liz Truss’ first achievement in the job was to give the queen a fatal dose of Covid when they visited her at Balmoral on Tuesday to, respectively, resign the position and be invited to form a new government? The code the PM would have been given when Elizabeth died was “London Bridge is down.” Whereupon Liz, the punchline went, would have said, “What are you on about? I can see it from my office and it’s perfectly fine.”

Joke’s on the UK

But the joke is on the UK itself. In 1977 the Sex Pistols sang, “God save the queen, she ain’t no human being. There is no future in England’s dreaming.” By 2017, John Lydon, the frontman for the world’s most prominent punk band, had revised that opinion to: “She’s a human being and I will sorely miss her as a human being on planet Earth. It’s not her fault she was born into a gilded cage. Long may she live.” 

In 1986 The Smiths brought out an album called The Queen Is Dead. Here are the first two verses of the title track: 

“Farewell to this land’s cheerless marshes
Hemmed in like a boar between archers
Her very Lowness with her head in a sling
I’m truly sorry, but it sounds like a wonderful thing

‘I say, Charles, don’t you ever crave
To appear on the front of the Daily Mail
Dressed in your Mother’s bridal veil?’

Ooh, ooh, ooh … And so I checked all the registered historical facts
And I was shocked into shame to discover
How I’m the 18th pale descendant of some old queen or other. ” 

By 2019, Morrissey, who sang those words to millions of adoring anti-royalists and mere republicans, had reinvented himself as a target for criticism with his views slammed for being a stream of consciousness that didn’t seem to extend beyond misogyny and racism.

At least Lydon and Morrissey once held convictions that bore scrutiny and asked difficult questions that needed answering, then as now. The generations they have given sway to seem to have forgotten how to care, in all sorts of ways. Let the pints pour. DM