And what, exactly, did this 'unprecedented display of emotion' consist of? Look at the pictures and videos of the crowds. What are all those people doing? Queuing, that's what. Queuing to buy flowers, queuing to lay flowers, queuing for miles to sign books of condolence, queuing for hours to catch trains and buses home after a long day of queuing. Then, a week or so later, queuing to catch buses and trains to get to the funeral; queuing overnight to secure a good position to watch the procession; queuing to buy more flowers, drinks, flags, newspapers; standing patiently in lines for hours waiting for the cortege to file past; then queuing again for buses, coaches, tubes and trains. Quiet, orderly, disciplined, dignified queuing.
Certainly, there were tears, but we did not scream or wail or rend our clothing or cover ourselves in ashes. Watch the videos. You will hear one or two rather feeble 'wails' as the coffin first emerges from the Palace gates, but these are clearly deemed inappropriate, quickly shushed, and not taken up by the rest of the crowd, who watch the procession in silence. The first people to turn up on the day after Diana died laid flowers; this was taken as the correct thing to do, so all subsequent visitors dutifully laid flowers. After the funeral, a few people started throwing flowers as the hearse drove past, and again the rest obediently followed their example. (No-one threw flowers at the horse-drawn coffin earlier, of course: however overcome by unprecedented, un-English emotion, we know better than to frighten the horses.)
So, there were tears and flowers - neither of which strikes me as a particularly abnormal response to a bereavement or funeral. Apart from that, the English paid tribute to Diana in the most English possible manner, by doing what we do best: queuing.
CAR RULES
Before we can even start to look at English unwritten social rules about cars and driving, there are a few 'universals' about cars that need clarifying. Across all cultures, humans have a strange and complex relationship with the car. The first thing we need to be clear about in this context is that the car is not primarily a means of transport - or rather, if that sounds a bit too extreme, that our relationship with the car has very little to do with the fact that it gets us from a to b. Trains and buses get us from a to b: cars are part of our personal territory, and part of our personal and social identity. A bus can take you to the shops and back, but you do not feel at home in it or possessive about it. A train can get you to work, but it does not make socially and psychologically significant statements about you.
These are cross-cultural universals - basic, rather obvious facts about humans and cars. But we can now move straight back into discussions of Englishness, because the English, of all nations, are the most likely to resist or even vehemently deny at least one of these basic facts.
The Status-indifference Rule
Specifically, the English like to believe, and will often doggedly insist, that social-status considerations play no part in their choice of car. Even at the height of the BMW's yuppie-image heyday, for example, upwardly-mobile English executives claimed that they bought their BMWs for their excellent German engineering and design, comfort, reliability, speed, handling, BHP, torque, low drag-coefficients and other rational, no-nonsense qualities. Nothing to do with social image. Nothing to do with status. Nothing to do with vanity. Nothing to do with impressing colleagues or neighbours or girlfriends. Oh no. It's just a bloody good car.
English women, and some English men, will admit to aesthetic and even emotional reasons for choosing a particular car. Men will say that their flashy Porsche or big Mercedes is 'a beautiful car', women will tell you that they want the trendy new VW Beetle because it is 'so cute'; both will even confess that they 'fell in love with' a 'gorgeous' car in the showroom, or that they have always had 'a passion' for MGs or Minis, or that they are 'sentimentally attached' to their rusty old banger.
We might even go so far as to acknowledge that we choose cars that we feel express our individual 'personality' or some aspect of our self-image (cool, sophisticated, stylish, fun, quirky, eccentric, sporty, sassy, sexy, honest, understated, down-to-earth, manly, professional, serious, etc.). But not our social status. We will not admit to buying or wanting a particular make of car because it is associated with a social class or category to which we wish to be seen to belong.
Class Rules
The 'Mondeo Test'
But the truth is that car choice, like almost everything else in England, is mostly about class. If you are conducting research - or just have a mischievous nature - you can trick English people into admitting, albeit indirectly, the real social-class reasons for their car choice. You do this not by talking about the make of car they actually own or would like to own, but by asking about the brands they do not like and would not buy. Mention the Ford Mondeo36 to a member of the middle-middle or upper-middle classes and they will automatically make some sort of sneering jokey comment about 'Essex Man' or insurance salesmen - in other words, the sort of lumpen lower-middle-class person associated with this particular make of car. 'Mondeo Man' is the current generic euphemism for this social category.
Some upper-middles may be too polite, or too squeamish about appearing snobbish, to sneer out loud, so you have to watch their faces carefully for the characteristic brief wince or little moue of distaste that will be triggered by the word 'Mondeo'. Among the higher or more secure reaches of upper-middle, the reaction is more likely to be mild, benign, somewhat condescending amusement37, and the genuinely upper class may simply have no idea what you are talking about. I found that the Mondeo-test is a pretty good indicator of class-anxiety: the more scathing and contemptuous someone is about Mondeos, the more insecure they are about their own position in the social hierarchy.
This is not a question of price. The cars driven by Mondeo-despising upper-middles may well be considerably cheaper than the reviled Mondeo, and the almost equally ridiculed Vauxhalls and other British-made 'fleet'38 cars. But however inexpensive and lacking in comfort or luxury features, the Mondeo-despiser's car will be a foreign, preferably Continental make (Japanese cars are not favoured, although marginally more acceptable than Fords and Vauxhalls). The only exceptions to this anti-British rule are Minis and big, four-wheel-drive 'country' vehicles such as Land Rovers and Range Rovers. Those who regard themselves as being a class or two above Mondeo Man may well drive a small, cheap, second-hand Peugeot, Renault, VW or Fiat hatchback - but they will still feel smugly superior as Mondeo Man glides past them in his bigger, faster, more comfortable car.
The 'Mercedes-Test'
Upper-middles who pass the Mondeo-test - those who are merely mildly amused by your suggestion that they might drive a Mondeo - may still reveal hidden class anxieties over the Mercedes. When you've had your complacent little chuckle about Mondeos, try saying 'Now, let me guess... I'd say you probably drive a big Mercedes.'
If your subject looks hurt or annoyed, and responds either tetchily, with a forced laugh, or with a scornful comment about 'rich trash' or 'wealthy businessmen', you have hit the adjacent-class insecurity button. Your subject has made it into the upper-middle 'intelligentsia', 'professional' or 'country' set, and is anxious to distinguish himself from the despised middle-middle 'business' class, with which he almost certainly has some family connections. You will find that his father (or even grandfather - these prejudices are passed down the generations) was a petit-bourgeois middle-class businessman of some sort - perhaps a successful shopkeeper or sales manager or even a well-off car dealer - who sent his children to smart public schools where they learnt to look down on petit-bourgeois middle-class businessmen.