When I was a teenager it was cool to be considered anti-Establishment. Perhaps it’s cool for all teenagers to feel that way, even the current Tory prime minister who, as a young Liberal Democrat, proposed abolishing the monarchy altogether. But times change. People change.

I grew up during the decade of Punk when a healthy disregard for all things authoritarian was a given. More than anyone else, the Queen symbolised a notion of order. It was therefore only right that she should be the most obvious receptacle for our irreverent displeasure. There was nothing truly revolutionary or violent in our position, despite the tabloid papers attempt to paint it that way. It was more cheeky than cruel — disrespectful yes, but with a sense of humour. ‘We love our Queen… ‘ Rotten sang after all, ‘And God saves.’

My generation of self-proclaimed reprobates used our mischievous skills (learnt at the altar of McClaren, Foucault, and Guy Debord) to disrupt the status quo, or at least try to mess with it. We became entrepreneurs, self-motivated egomaniacs doing what we could to de-stabilise the system while fleecing it for as much money as we could.

We may have had dreams of something significant, but most of us so-called creatives ended up working as advertisers, marketeers, brand consultants, television programmers, journalists. We were salesmen — a generation of Willy Lomans — no more and no less.

New Labour was the apogee of our influence, a rebranded political party that for a decade managed to convince the country better times lay ahead. That was until forces beyond their control — 9/11 and the financial crash of 2008 — brought reality screaming into view, revealing the limitations of those bedazzled by a belief in their own infallibility.

Until then we had been happily benefiting from the largesse of the Establishment and its associated corporations, hoovering up their investment, their sponsorships, their praise. We had welcomed their support, allowing ourselves to be seen not only in their company but under their logos and banners. In our minds it wasn’t selling out, it was cashing in. Or so we told ourselves. They were the new patrons, the new Popes. It was how the smartest of us survived.

Some lucky few made good sized fortunes from the arrangement, media whizz-kids selling their independent companies to the highest bidder. The comedians at Talkback, Bob Geldof, Tony Eliot at Time Out learnt from their forebears — hippy entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Chrysalis’ Chris Wright — selling up when their stock was at their highest. It was good times… for some.

Nowadays however, such a renegade approach seems almost mystical, built on a world of cocksure innocence, something now subsumed by the boot of the conglomerates, the masters of the universe, the Ayn Rand-inspired super-egos, the likes of Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Jeff Bezos. Positioning themselves as edgy outsiders, they have become the rulers of all, collecting every data point of our lives, before selling it on or using it for their own self-advancing purposes. We are mere blips, binary numbers on an endless scroll.

The death of the Queen allows us to take a step back from this debilitating reality. It’s a reflective time. We not only take stock of what the Queen meant or at least signified to our lives, we also, by proxy, examine ourselves, our values, what feels important. For those of us who have suffered a comparable loss, hundreds of thousands during Covid, the situation feels more acute, mothers, grandmothers, fathers and grandfathers, and in too many cases, children, all gone. The resultant emotions therefore aren’t hard to access.

But beyond the emotional response, there is also an acknowledgement of the Queen’s role in our lives, the meaning of the monarchy. For the majority of people, it seems, or at least we are led to believe, it is something with which we are not only satisfied but also need. It establishes a sense of order, of uniformity, of continuity, of stability. Such is the febrile nature of our times, the existential threats permanent, the sense of atomisation profound, the losing of a symbol so deeply embedded within our framework gives us permission to come together, to find common ground. It is how the period of mourning is designed, a decision made by those at the top of society that this is the narrative we should all believe in, the one to be most firmly embraced. If they are correct in their assumption, and that this is indeed the way everyone feels, events can proceed unchallenged. Should they however measure it wrong, as the Royal family did after the death of Diana, rumblings begin, a groundswell of angry public opinion, the first murmurings of revolt.

But for the time being, a collective position has been taken, an understanding that this is the way people feel, and therefore is the way everyone should behave. The BBC is summarily shackled, playing its role as the nation’s broadcaster (an opportunity to ingratiate itself with its detractors thus boosting its chances of retaining its charter) faithfully trotting out the establishment line. Anyone foolish to stick their head above the parapet and question if not mock events — see the footballer Trevor Sinclair and the comedian Kevin Bridges for examples — is swiftly despatched to a metaphorical tower. Meanwhile, the bastions of the ruling classes rise up, the clerics, the military, the politicians (past enmities forgotten), the lords, gathering as one. Major, Blair, Brown, May, a rehabilitated Cameron and Johnson, line up in black to pay their respects in a series of carefully crafted speeches.

Out on the streets, the great unwashed, speak of rainbows, of symbolic clouds, of the reunion of the Fab Four, and other such nonsenses. They enthusiastically compare the Queen, a woman they might, at most, have encountered for seconds, to their own mother or grandmother. It’s a collective madness, delusional, and reminiscent of North Korea. But the people want it, they need it, these confected moments of magic. Like simple folk staring at the rise and fall of the sun, they long to find meaning.

Though mercifully lacking the hysteria that surrounded the death of Diana, the loss of the Queen still allows performative acts. The age of the selfie, unlike in 1997, is now organically embedded, offering greater opportunities. The cellophane wrapped flowers are still in abundance, the cloying notes pinned to stuffed toys tied lovingly onto railings.

When all this detritus of lachrymosity is cleared away what will be left is Charles, the new king. A forgiven adulterer, he is now the nation’s representative, its standard bearer, its beacon. He rules over a nation greatly diminished since the accession of his mother. Post Brexit it is now an entity splitting at the seams, the Scottish nationalists and the Irish republicans both agitating to pull away. Has he the nous, the power, the personality to keep this island together? Time will tell. But fearing the possibility, one feels the Establishment is taking this opportunity of transference of regal power to bolster its credentials, to remind the populace of what they have, the pomp and circumstance, the tradition, the history, the elaborate codes. As the massed ranks of cavalry take to the streets, their uniforms bold, their weaponry gleaming, they act as reminder of solidity, of the known as opposed the unknown, the complex abyss should we throw everything away. But they also represent a symbol of power, a rigidity of thought, of behaviour.

Many are happy to live under such auspices. To them, a sense of order is all that can be trusted, the only thing holding society together. Reject it, or simply pick at its seams, and one risks destabilisation, a re-framing of the way life has been and should forever be.

How long these types should stay in the ascendancy remains to be seen. Certainly their ways have created a manifestly unfair society, no matter what they might claim.

But for now such questions have been put on pause. For a fortnight at least, the prime minister Liz Truss and her hopelessly unqualified cabinet have been given a breather.

Once Elizabeth II has been lain in her grave however, the obstreperous forces of reality will rise once again, and with them, the familiar voices of my generation of anti-establishmentarians.

© Simon Fellowes 11/9/2022