Introduction

Abstract

Watching the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations in June 2012, it was difficult not to be struck by the obvious scale and durability of commitment to the British monarchy. A reign which had begun in the austerity of the early 1950s was once again, 60 years later, generating national festivity against a background of economic uncertainty, albeit relative to a vastly increased standard of living for the majority of the population, compared to that of Britain in 1952. And, just as at the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation, witnessed by millions, lining the routes followed by the royal procession, or crowded around impossibly small television screens, peering at a very low-resolution black and white image — and again in September 1982, when huge crowds had welcomed home the task force following Britain’s successful recapture of the Falkland Islands — here was clear evidence of an unwavering and unapologetic sense of national community, an obvious desire to be part not only of that community, but of a national communion. The community, of course, may have been ‘imagined’, and the crowds may well have contained large numbers of tourists, as well as many British people who were not remotely aware of, or even interested in, the political or constitutional significance of the monarchy. Yet there was no getting away from the fact that participation was important, a sense of belonging to history in the making, the right to say afterwards, ‘I was there.’