Out of line
Queuing, it's what the British are renowned for doing - and doing very well. Better than anyone else in the world, if reputation is to be believed.
Take the Wimbledon queue.
It's held up as a supreme example of Britain's prowess when it comes to queuing. The likes of tea, cake and camping chairs often make an appearance. It even has its own code of conduct in case, heaven forbid, anyone doesn't understand how the queue works.
But Wimbledon is an exception when it comes to standing in a long line, say social historians. Despite the UK's formidable global reputation, queuing in a calm, good-natured manner has not always come naturally.
"We're supposed to be so wonderful at it but really that reputation is built around a whole mythology to do with the British and queuing," says Dr Joe Moran, a social historian and author of Queuing for Beginners: The Story of Daily Life from Breakfast to Bedtime, kazinform refers to BBC.
The temporary nature of queues makes it hard to trace their history, but key historical events are said to have shaped how the British queue and their reputation for being so good at it. One is the industrial revolution.
"The orderly queue seems to have been an established social form in the early 19th Century, a product of more urbanised, industrial societies which brought masses of people together," says Moran.
People were moving in huge numbers from the countryside into towns changing the patterns of daily life, including shopping.
"More of a barter system existed in local markets, the whole way people shopped was more informal," says historian Juliet Gardiner. "Traders started moving from market stalls into shops as they moved into towns. In the more formal setting of a shop people had to start to queue up in a more structured way."
Despite the mass expansion of manufacturing not everyone reaped the financial rewards and poverty was rife.
"Queuing started to become associated with extreme hardship as the poor had to queue to access handouts and charity," says Dr Kate Bradley, a lecturer in social history and social policy at the University of Kent.
But what really shaped Britain's reputation as civilised queuers was World War II.
"Propaganda at the time was all about doing your duty and taking your turn," says Bradley. "It was a way the government tried to control a situation in uncertain times."
The queue became loaded with meaning, drawing on notions of decency, fair play and democracy and the myth of the British as patient queuers was forged, says Moran.
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