IT'S almost as if a giant magnifying glass has been held up to the country.

The death of the Queen Mother has been one of those moments when the way we live, who were are, comes under scrutiny. Normally, being British, we just get on with things, not worrying about what brasher sorts might call the bigger picture. In a sense, such unquestioning acceptance may be why the Royal Family has survived for so very long. Many people remain passionate supporters of the Monarchy, and those who are indifferent shrug off thoughts of republicanism, and get on with life as it is, instead of wondering whether we could arrange matters differently.

My imaginary magnifying glass has uncovered much over the past week or so. It has exposed the scurrying ants of the establishment going about their business, stirring up support for the Royal Family in its gloomy moment.

There have been the media rows, of course - the absurd Daily Mail fuss about the colour of tie worn by the BBC1 newsreader Peter Sissons. Burgundy not black - a small matter, you might have thought, but not to the editor of the Mail, who scented disrespect on a grand scale. This artificial row was in itself disrespectful, kicking up a self-serving fuss in a moment of mourning; or so it quickly seemed.

After the Queen Mother's death, it appeared for a while that people were not much affected, that the massed ranks of mourners would not show. But the cynics - yes, this columnist included - have been confounded by the last few days when the mass show of support and sympathy welled to fill the streets, culminating in Tuesday's funeral.

The queues to honour the Queen Mother's death were good-natured and there can hardly have been a more thoroughly British expression of sympathy than the orderly queue. But away from the ranks of respect, there must have been those whose thoughts strayed little further than "that's a shame". Alongside those who dwelt at perhaps obsequious length on the life of service the Queen Mother gave, the great good she did for her country, there must have been those who thought she lived in cushioned comfort, her every whim catered for, even down to the reported £4 million overdraft that helped finance her life of Edwardian extravagance.

Great respect has been shown, and that's fitting, in that a long life deserves acknowledgement, even if plenty of other long lives are spent in less glorious circumstances, or curtailed sooner, due to hard grind. Others have given service, served their country in war, only to fade into a diminished old age.

While some hearts have filled with kindness and gratitude towards the Queen Mother, others must have sunk an inch or two, weighed by the mawkish sentiment and the thought that it was all just a bit much.

Whichever way you look at it, there is something odd about private grief made public. Very few of us knew the Queen Mother, yet millions mourned. Why was this? The answer lay in her role as the nation's grandmother, and everyone loves a grandmother, especially one promoted to icon.

Perhaps the lens of history will peer back at this juncture, seeing it as pivotal, important, a time when the passing of one largely loved Royal took on a greater significance. Might this turn out to be the moment when Britain decides to look forward rather than backwards, to shake off the shackles of history, to stop living in a Gilbert and Sullivan theme park, and to accept that a Royal Family is a dusty anachronism in the modern world?

Not a chance of that happening, of course. No, we will continue to queue and to offer our deferent thanks. Perhaps that's just part of what it means to be British.

Updated: 10:27 Thursday, April 11, 2002