ABSTRACT
The family discussions about the Royal Family have enabled patterns of common-sense thinking to be identified across divides of class, gender and generation. Similar thoughts have been echoed by males and females, young and old, in detached private houses and in cramped council flats. Voices, heavy with regional accent or using the modulated tones of the middle-class, could be heard repeating similar themesequating monarchy with Britain’s uniqueness, voicing anger at ‘hangerson’, ascribing greater interest to women, expressing sympathy for the hard life of royals and so on. Not only were the same commonplaces uttered in different settings, but similar patterns of discussion could be heard: demands that ‘they’ should set examples were being pitted against sympathetic declarations that ‘they’ were only human after all.
