Trying to get the mad, broody chicken off her addled eggs

A friend who is not normally receptive to left-wing or republican ideas suddenly exclaimed at dinner in my house the other day that he was bored, sickened and disgusted by the Queen and all the royal family, and thought it was high time they were removed. In the mood of the moment, nobody seemed disposed to disagree, although compassionate noises were made from some quarters about the Queen Mother and the Waleses. In the ensuing discussion, everyone observed that they were not aware of having felt this way before, but agreed that they felt it now — that is to say, at about 9.45 p.m. on Saturday, 12 August 1989. There had been nothing to annoy us about the royal family in the news. It traditionally keeps a low profile at this time of year.

There was no reason to attach the slightest importance to this sudden feeling in the company. Apart from the young, whose opinions on most subjects are worthless and two of whom, on this occasion, were in any case French, the company consisted of industrious, successful people in their forties, none of them within twitching distance of the levers of power. Nor did any of the company attach much importance to their change of heart.

Goodness knows how my friend Wallace Arnold would have -reacted, had he been present (he is not the sort of person one has ever yet actually asked to dinner), but my own reaction was to enquire why this change of heart had come about. There seemed to be a general feeling that the royal family had been around long enough; there were too many of them; there was too much about them in the newspapers and magazines; they exercised a generally stultifying influence on the country.