The living, dull-eyed upholders of our class system

In these rural parts, advance sales of golden jubilee mugs have apparently been going briskly. The word on Mere Street is that those attending the parties to be held on virtually every village green in the area may have to do with lesser souvenirs – commemorative postcards, or perhaps a Union Jack plastic hat bearing a patriotic message in fancy writing.

For some of us, it will be a slightly tricky weekend. We like the idea of a four-day holiday, fairs, bouncy castles, oak-planting and loads of fun for all the family. We can hardly complain about an occasion that breaks the trudge of routine and brings communities together, even if it is in the illusion that something significant, maybe even historic, is taking place.

It is the focus of all this excitement that is the problem. Hardly have the tears dried and the little plastic flags been put away after the passing of the country's favourite grandmother when it is all about to start again – the glutinous editorials in the papers, the hushed and reverent documentaries on TV and radio, the stupid, ecstatic expressions on the faces of Her Majesty's subjects as they are revealed on the news bulletins indulging themselves in an orgy of self-abasing loyalty.

We shall join in the parties, of course – republicans like to enjoy themselves like anyone else – but it will be with a certain smiling aloofness, a touch of self-mocking embarrassment, like a dad jogging about on the dancefloor at a teenage party.

It has been a good year for the Royal Family, they say, and it must be admitted that, with a couple of deaths, a miscarriage, and a general sense of national insecurity, events have worked in its favour. Yet those 21-gun salutes, the absurd and expensive ceremonial of the Queen Mother's funeral, have also pointed up the terrible mismatch between the scale of apparent national devotion and the mediocrity of the dull, ordinary family to whom so many accord semi-divine status.

I have only met a few members of the Royal Family – the Queen Mother at a racecourse, Princes Anne at a reception, the Duke of Edinburgh at a gathering for authors and publishers at Buckingham Palace – but what they all shared, it seemed to me, was a deep sense of boredom at what they were obliged to do.

Their ancestors may have been able to get away with living a life of extreme luxury in exchange for a bit of waving and ribbon-cutting, but these days all that has changed. The world looks for more from the British monarchy. It expects drama, conflict, death, an enactment of the mess of everyday life, but on a grand stage.

They are, of course, unable to deliver, and there is no reason why they should be expected to. As a family, the Windsors are, if anything, less intellectually interesting or emotionally evolved than the national average. Under the new pressures brought on them by an obsessed and exploitative press, their marriages crack, they make fools of themselves. Idiotic opinions are expressed, feeble bad-taste jokes told.

When, just now and then, a member of the family tries to break out of the gilded cage and live a vaguely normal life, the press, recognising a threat to the best and easiest copy in town, turns on him or her, presenting them as odd, greedy or stupid.

As the luckless Prince Edward and his wife have discovered, the media always win on these occasions. The idea that the son of the Queen might earn a living as an ordinary, semi-successful TV executive was seen to create a dangerous precedent, and the Wessexes were forced out of work and back into the royal soap opera, where they play minor, mostly comic, parts.

The Windsors must never change. That is part of the deal. While even the smallest public relations stunt – an interview, perhaps, or a minor, well-publicised breach of protocol – is welcomed by grovelling apologists as yet another example of a new, modernised monarchy, the truth is that, in all significant respects, the Royal Family represents the most fossilised and dreary form of conservatism.

Their social circle, their views, the way they behave, the schools to which they send their children are all governed by the same thing: class. What was true 30 years ago when Prince Charles attended the same university college as me and, rather than risk exposing himself to what Cambridge life could offer, moved about in an exclusive gaggle of goofy, beagling pals, is still true today. The Windsors are the living, dull-eyed representatives of privilege based on birth, and, while they are at the centre and focus of national life, our society will remain as class-ridden as it has ever been.

That has an influence on the way the media works and probably makes us look faintly foolish on the international stage, but the most serious damage is to ourselves. This long weekend will see a nation playing with itself, boss-eyed with self-indulgent excitement, hooked on the dangerous drug of royal nostalgia.

terblacker@aol.com