Letter: Britain at its best and worst for Diana

Sir: For all my adult life I have been in favour of this country becoming a republic. This has not stopped me also being in favour of fairness, and I have been appalled by the injustice of the public attitude to the Royal Family, particularly the Queen, during the last week.

Whatever the grief felt by the public, it can only have been a fraction of that felt by two young boys losing their mother in such traumatic circumstances. Of course the Queen's first priority was to join in a family effort to help them cope. Expecting her to abandon this task in order to symbolically hold the public's hand was selfish, childish and insensitive. Did those who professed such deviation to the Princess of Wales really consider that it would help her sons to hear their father and grandmother criticised so savagely?

If the public truly wants the monarchy to continue it had better pull its collective socks up. Otherwise it may be that nobody will want to take on the job of being the monarch, and who could blame them?

JANET TINBERGEN

Oxford