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On morning television, the moment was singularly somber — the departure of the hearse bearing the flag-draped coffin of Queen Elizabeth II. But at the very same hour, as fans in shorts and Ray-Bans streamed into London’s Oval stadium for a long-anticipated cricket match, you wouldn’t have guessed the country was preparing for the most royal of funerals.
“I don’t think the Queen would want us to sit at home mourning,” said Natalie McGinn, a 36-year-old business consultant, meeting a friend outside the arena’s Hobbs Gate. “Also, at the end of the day, (there’s) the economy. Things are happening. We’ve got to keep going … So, yeah, I’ve got to go and grab our tickets now.”
On most any other week, the fact that people in this city obsessed with fortune, fashion and buzz are pursuing life at full tilt would hardly be noteworthy. But 25 years after many Londoners sobbed openly in the streets after the sudden death of Princess Diana, the boisterous crowds packing pubs and flocking to theaters over the weekend was telling.
For some, particularly younger people, it reflects ambivalence toward the crown. To others, it’s testament to significant differences in the public’s sense of connection with the 96-year-old monarch and her former daughter-in-law, who was just 36 when she was killed in a Paris car accident in 1997.
And for many, it’s about respecting what they believe the queen herself would’ve wanted: for everyone to carry on.
“She was a great go-getter. She wouldn’t have wanted the country to stand still,” said Vanessa White, exiting the Palace Theater in London’s West End after taking in an afternoon performance of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” with daughter Abi, 16. “A lot of the theaters are just coming out of the pandemic. You’ve got the actors and actresses, they don’t need any more disruptions,” she said.
White and many others make clear that they already miss the queen and speak of her fondly. Indeed, thousands have flocked to the gates of Buckingham Palace in recent days to leave bouquets and notes of affection for Elizabeth. Some there pointed to her lifetime of fortitude as a model for their own lives and described her as a grandmotherly figure. The mourners, though, have been self-selected — those who feel a particularly strong attachment to the queen.
The crowds at Buckingham Palace evoke memories of the days in 1997 that followed Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris.
