Focus on the Jubilee aftermath: How was it for you?

Hasina Begum, a young Asian woman, brought her nephew, Yahin, across to the Jubilee party. In Monday afternoon's uncertain sunshine, about 250 people, mostly white, were sitting at trestle tables in working-class Somers Town, north London. Union Jack pennants fluttered all around. Rob Wickham, the Anglican priest, handed out hot sausages (gratis) from his grill. Dionne Warwick boomed out from loudspeakers. A steel band tuned up. A big grey fluffy elephant, first prize for the raffle, lay flat on a side table.

Yahin stared at it all, unsmiling, a Union Jack hat perched on his head and red, white and blue balloons clutched in his hand. "He wanted to come," Hasina said. "We've been celebrating the Jubilee, but indoors mostly. We were watching yesterday, and we were talking about the Queen. It's like my daddy says: as long as she's here, it'll be all right. I hope she lives a long time." Hasina laughed. But what was the deeper meaning of the Jubilee? And was the tradition of the street party, as embodied in the celebrations of the 1953 Coronation and the 1977 Silver Jubilee, really carried on? New research by the Institute of Community Studies gives an insight into the answers.

The defining event of the Jubilee, nationally, was Monday's vast pop concert in the Buckingham Palace grounds, which extended outwards through giant screens on to the Mall and across central London. "The crowd of one million people was one of the greatest massings of humanity in the history of cities," says Professor Sir Peter Hall, director of the institute and author of the authoritative urban history, Cities in Civilisation.

The people in the Mall became part of the show. "You appeared on screen, becoming famous for rather more than Andy Warhol's 15 minutes," Professor Hall says. "This was where people identified with each other, in the sense of being collectively British." They also left 50,000 champagne bottles to be cleared up.

The Institute of Community Studies was founded in Bethnal Green, east London, by the sociologist and educationist, Michael Young. Back in 1953, Young tried to gauge the deeper meaning of the Coronation by analysing East End street parties. He found a spirit of togetherness, symbolised by the Queen. The idea of neighbourhood and the idea of family, he decided, were welded into a new unity. Young, who died this year at the age of 86, embedded this concept in his classic study, Family and Kinship in East London.

Following in these footsteps, Professor Hall asked his research team to fan out across working-class London over the Jubilee weekend, from King's Cross to Dagenham, and from Haringey to Peckham. The institute's study, The Meaning of the Jubilee, is published tomorrow. The researchers' close observation demonstrates that the Golden Jubilee was a very different fiesta from the Coronation or the Silver Jubilee.

Take the street party as symbol. The national newspapers showed jolly folk in party hats. The camera always lies. These parties existed, but there were nothing like the 4,000 reported in London alone for the Silver Jubilee. Context is all, the institute's study shows. The Coronation and the Silver Jubilee both took place in a grim, almost downtrodden country. In the Coronation year of 1953, we hadn't emerged from the aftermath of war. Meat was still rationed; visually, Britain was grey-on-grey. This was followed by the tacky euphoria of the 1960s. But by the Silver Jubilee year of 1977, even that was a distant dream. Britain felt like a banana republic. Economic failure and interminable strikes foreshadowed Margaret Thatcher's purgative election as Prime Minister. In many neighbourhoods, for both the Coronation and the Silver Jubilee, the psychological response was: let's get away from it all, let's party.

Not so in June 2002. Across London streets, the researchers found an uncanny quietness. Few houses flew flags, and those were on council estates. England flags (for the World Cup) slightly outnumbered Union Jacks (for the Jubilee). Buses filled up with families with young children, taking picnic boxes towards the Mall.

In Somers Town, Harry Dean, 77, was at a table of eight elderly white people. "The trouble now is," he said, "enough people don't understand the role of the Royal Family. For foreigners, it's what Britain means. They don't care about the politicians; they're two a penny."

Freddy Silver was the Trinidad-born leader of the steel band. "I must say I'm a royalist," he said. "I played for Princess Margaret when she came to Trinidad on honeymoon. We made an LP and gave it to her, and she said she'd keep it for ever." Looking out at all the Union Jacks, he adds : "It's nice to think we're living here now. But if you come to a country, you should live like the country. You try going to any other country and telling them how to live; you'd never get out alive. Here they try to stop you waving the country's flag, even."

In Tower Hamlets, in the heart of the old East End, one of the biggest parties was in Jubilee Street, Stepney. Named in honour of George III's 50th anniversary in 1810, most of the street's modest Georgian terraces were wilfully demolished 30 years ago. This party became a miniature media event, because of the symbolism of the name.

London is often said to be multicultural, but Tower Hamlets is bicultural, with London's (and Britain's) largest Bangladeshi settlement. In the run-up to the party, many local Bangladeshis were indifferent or hostile. "I remember '77 as a child in school, with mugs, ice cream and candies," one young professional woman said. "We had fun, I guess, but as an adult it means nothing." One Bangladeshi man was irate: "Total waste of taxpayers' money and time. And think of all the business that will be closing down and losing money."

Yet, at the party, whites and Asians danced together. A little dog wore a Union Jack. The mayor, Salim Ullah, cut a large cake and hand-fed bits of it into people's mouths. Everyone had a good time. East London born Kathleen Collins, 75, said: "To me the Queen still represents the love we gave her when she was eight, nine, ten, when she lost her grandfather [George V]. Growing up, she was beautiful; she was the story books that I never had. She was something we all had; we were poor and she was our Queen. My Queen is tradition, tradition, tradition. Remember, to me this is still a fairy story. I can't sort the world out, but I can sort my Queen out: she bleeds, she cries and I love her."

In Dagenham, towards the Essex edge of London, Ford has announced that the huge car plant will close. But the Jubilee was seen here as little consolation. The celebrations were a damp squib, which is a tradition of a kind in a borough notorious in 1953 for refusing to spend any money on Coronation events. In one street, a few old women sat under the bunting at a table with a handful of toddlers, sipping orange juice. In line with another tradition, the British were taking their pleasures sadly.

In Peckham, south London, people from African backgrounds emerged as the keenest royalists. Most are from countries with bitter experience of the imperfections of non-hereditary rule: greedy dictators and gun-happy soldiers. "Yesterday I was on the phone to Ghana," one Ghanaian man in his 40s said. "They're aware of what's going on here today. Unfortunately, the British don't seem to realise that they have something unique, that they should hold on to. It's very wonderful; never abandon it. In times of crisis, that's the only thing that holds the whole country together." Lisa Minocha, a Filipina ex-nurse, said: "Whenever I go home, I don't sing the Philippines national anthem; but whenever it's 'God Save the Queen', I stand up. Our contribution to this country is mainly the nurses."

Contrast this with a young Peckham white man, who works on advertising animation, speaking about the Royal Family: "I think they're so ridiculous. It's almost like being angry at a dead dog for not moving; it's not worth it. It's like with the queers and stuff, when you get guys saying, 'I don't mind what they do, so long as they don't fancy me.' I'm like that with the Queen. I don't mind what she does as long as she doesn't go anywhere near me."

What does the Jubilee mean? It has become an empty vessel, psychologically, into which you can pour as much of yourself as you want. And as for togetherness: today, togetherness mostly means television. In Somers Town, an enduring image of isolation: an old man in a flat cap stands watching the party through the railings.

'It's a good way for people to get together'

The Institute of Community Studies took to London's streets to find out what Jubilee party-goers thought of the monarchy. This is what they said:

"It's not like it was in 1977. In Bristol, our estate was all flags, about seven miles of it. The World Cup affected her glory. I'm not a royalist, but I wouldn't want the Royal Family to go. I applied for tickets to the palace pop concert but they were sold out. Who wouldn't want to see Sir Paul McCartney and all that? The Queen needs to get more in track, but she's trying, I recognise that."

"The Jubilee means nothing to me. I ain't got nothing against the Queen, don't get me wrong. But why should I celebrate someone else's Jubilee?"

"I'm probably anti-monarchist, but I'm joining in because this community of Peckham is unique. I moved down from Nottingham and everyone said: 'Oh, London, you know it's really unfriendly, it's got no community.' So I started living here and it's the strongest community I've ever been in. Everyone knows everyone."

"When I was 16, I would've wanted a socialist state. I would have wanted to smash the monarchy, behead them and things. But now I suppose it's: 'Oh, Blair, I don't much like him, but I'm not going to do much about it.' I mean, we've got Ikea, haven't we?"

"The actual celebration is a good way to get the public together, regardless of race, creed, background, that kind of thing. It's really good. Today we saw a good cross-section down at Peckham Square. Black people, white people, Asian people – all kind of people. If a Jubilee is going to do that, it's worth it."

"It doesn't mean anything to me, because I'm Irish. It's just a day. I look at it: it's like Paddy's Day for the Irish. It's a Paddy's Day for the English."

"It's quite a historic moment. I'm not a strict royalist, but I always watch the news to find out what she's doing. She's had a tough year, and I want to make sure she gets some happiness as well. And particularly with Buckingham Palace going on fire. It was horrible. To see the people appreciating her will give her some comfort."

"It's a way of celebrating our history. It makes you proud to be English. You tell your children what it was like at the Silver Jubilee, and here you are at the Golden Jubilee. It makes the children more patriotic, because I think that at school they miss out on a lot of the history. Celebrating the Queen's 50 years is a wonderful thing to do. It's nice for the kids to be involved in that."

"Doesn't mean a thing. A lot of my age group are disillusioned with the royals – the muck-ups they've made, to put it politely. The scroungers, the hangers-on. If it wasn't for my four-year-old boy, I wouldn't be here now. I've only fetched him to play with the other kids and have a good time. Otherwise, I'd be lying in the garden."

"I only came out to do some shopping but everything's closed, so I just hung around. I really couldn't give a toss about the Royal Family. We'd all be a lot better-off without them. The Continentals have got it right."

"What I understand 'jubilee' to mean in a religious sense is a year when atonement is done. I don't see any of the real sense of jubilee, in the giving back of things – people's freedom, people's liberties. A lot of people are on asylum, but I don't see any amnesty being proclaimed. There should be more significance during the Jubilee year."

The full version of the ICS study, 'The Meaning of the Jubilee', is available from tomorrow from info@icstudies.org.uk