What stiff upper lip? Queen's death had London black cab drivers weeping

Photo by Ryan Johns on Unsplash

Television-watchers in distant parts of the world were probably not particularly surprised to see women sobbing on the streets of London and teary black cab-drivers parked on The Mall, near Buckingham Palace.

That’s supposedly because of a quarter century-old experiment in what we might call national gene-editing. In 1997, in the aftermath of Diana’s tragic death, Britain’s stiff-upper-lip DNA was partially replaced by let-it-all-hang-out material on account of a daily diet of TV soaps, reality shows and suchlike.

I’m not sure that’s wholly true but it is right to admit to some surprise British men and women areso publicly abandoning themselves to their emotions.

Many of the women the world saw weeping at the (long-dreaded but entirely expected) passing of the 96-year-old Queen seemed to be either middle-aged or headed that way. They looked like they normally kept calm in all weather and sensibly restricted themselves to the tissue-restoring delights of a c…