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‘If we look now at Paris, one thing is too evident:
that the Baker’s shops have got their Queues, or
Tails; their long strings of purchasers, arranged in
tail, so that the first come be the first served, - were
the shop once open.’
Zut alors! The masters of the queue French?
Well we mustn't assume that we are the only ones
who know how to do it. In Spain you might walk
into a busy shop and find a whole crowd of people
with no discernible queue but that’s not to say there
is no order there. The Spanish have their own
efficient method – on arrival they shout “Who’s last?”
Having thus identified the only person they need to
keep tabs on they can relax knowing quite clearly
when their turn is. Some countries have embedded
queue priorities into their legal systems, for example
in Brazil, the elderly, disabled and pregnant have a
legal right to jump the queue. Which reminds me of
that old World War Two joke where the shopkeeper
asks the young woman in the long queue “Excuse me
miss, are you pregnant?” To which she replies
“Well I wasn’t when I joined the queue”.
Logic dictates that there must always have been
queues in shops but during the Second World War the
queue became a politically charged tinderbox that
should it explode might destroy public consent for the
war effort. Shortages of just about everything meant
that people would join a queue even before they knew
what they were queuing for. But of course not
everyone had to queue and those who did weren’t
fooled. Housewives queued alright but the notion
of the jolly, uncomplaining queue is a myth. People
queued because they had no other choice and the
government did what they could to quiet dissent,
sticking Queue Priority labels into the ration books
of mums-to-be but the notion that the nation queued
with a smile on its face is the smoke and mirrors of
war time propaganda and the queue emerged from
the war as a litmus test of political success or failure.
Queuetopia
In 1948 a survey by that fascinating project called
Mass Observation reported that there was;
“no other current topic that arouses such immediate
and fierce reaction … as the subject of queues …
which clearly to many is the symbol of all the
frustrations of this post-war era.”
Winston Churchill was quickest off the mark to
exploit the frustrations of queuing brought about by
post-war shortages. In an election broadcast in 1950
he coined the term
Queuetopia
to describe a Britain
under socialist Labour rule. It worked. The labour
government lost the 1950 General Election with
Labour Party officials openly admitting that;
“the last election was lost mainly in the queue at
the butchers or the grocers.”
When rationing finally ended things eased a little and
the new self-service supermarkets promised shoppers
that in future they’d only have to queue up in one
shop instead of four of five. But the myth had been
exploded. The British do not like to queue and
furthermore long queues were now firmly seen as a
sign of national decline and political failure. From the
1950s onwards the letters pages of the broadsheets
provided a regular platform for grumbling about
queues especially in the Post Office and if the flames
of the fire ever died down they could be fanned back
into life at any time by the stories emerging from
Soviet Russia about what were seen as the long
queues inherent to communism. The papers embarked
on their never-ending mission to prove that we are all
going to hell in a handcart becoming fond of saying
that British queues were the longest
“this side of the
Iron Curtain.”