#TheQueue

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Archive on 4: #TheQueue

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Mark Thomas explores why the British believe they’re born to queue.

From the miles of singing Brits who queued for the Great Exhibition to #TheQueue for Queen Elizabeth II, Mark Thomas explores why the British believe they’re born to wait in line.

If there was ever a written constitution of Britishness then ‘queueing’ would have its own chapter titled #TheQueue with an image of humble mourners lining the streets of London to see Queen Elizabeth II lying-in-state. As Mark Thomas reveals through the archive though, the ‘humble queue’ may in fact be nothing of the sort. Instead, it’s a microcosmic minidrama - a place of shifting alliances, shame, anger and sometimes love and reconciliation - that speaks volumes about who we are and who we think we are. 

Mark talks to Angie Hobbs, Professor of The Public Understanding of Philosophy at Sheffield University, who suggests that the queue for the Queen was the queue Britain had been training for all its life. Our queuing prowess is all part of our self-mythology, she suggests. We really aren’t the only nation who can queue.

Archive reveals queuing to be a bit like a classroom for grown-ups. Adults take on improvised roles: the queue joker, the queue grumbler, the passive-aggressive queuer. Mark finds that in truth the Brits are the most grumbling of all the nation’s queuers because they expect things to be done more efficiently than they are. He recalls the ‘passive competitiveness’ in his favourite Eddie Izzard sketch - ‘The Supermarket Queue’. 

Mark talks to Stephen Reicher, Professor of Psychology at St Andrews University, who describes a rehashing of tropes from the war-years and how queueing became a shortcut to “Britishness”. He points to the way in which patience in queuing can be seen to be a bit like the Blitz spirit, fair play, stoicism - employed when a country needs to affirm a sense of national identity during national crisis.  

Mark joins David Lammy MP during his constituency surgery to discuss how he observes the queues in his constituency in Tottenham North London.  What’s poignant is the reality that queueing often means things aren’t working properly. 

The real question Mark asks is not why we queue, but why we think we’re so good at it?  

Produced by Sarah Cuddon
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio Four.

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