Explainer-in-brief: A modern history of Britons and queues
Every national identity comes with stereotypes. A big one with the Brits is being patient masters of standing in a queue.
The last example is the 4 mile long Queue to see the Queen’s coffin. Despite surely being the most momentous, this is not the only long queue in British history and culture. Another iconic one is the queue for Wimbledon – which effectively becomes a one night camping trip.
The queue even made it to politics, when in 2016 then President Barack Obama warned that if the UK was to go for Brexit it would be “in the back of the queue” for a trade deal. Brexit supporters claimed the Cameron government had told Obama to say so, using as proof the fact that Americans usually use the word line instead of queue.
Historians fairly point out, however, that queues don’t always carry a positive connotation. There were queues for rationing during the Second World War, and the dole queues in the 80s. And who could forget the pandemic-era queues? Maybe queuing can be an art as much as a burden.