A rather strange thing happened to me last week, during a holiday in London.

I was cured of a lifelong tendency to turn pathetically tearful whenever I hear Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance March (alias Land of Hope and Glory).

The ultimate occasion for this uncontrollable blubbing, of course, is during the televised broadcast of the Last Night of the Proms. I have watched it time and again, imagined myself to be among that joyful, open-throated throng at the Royal Albert Hall, and tried to join in from my spot in front of the telly at Priestley Towers only to find myself silenced by the lump in the throat.

Why does it happen? Is it nostalgia for an imagined Britain of glorious days long gone? Are they bitter tears at the knowledge that this confused country of ours is no longer mighty, let alone in with a chance of being mightier yet? Whatever the reason, Land of Hope and Glory fills me up.

As it seems more than likely that I'll never make it to the Last Night of the Proms, I opted for something which promised to be almost as good - a Classical Spectacular at the Royal Albert Hall, which just happened to coincide with the dates we'd chosen for a stay in the capital.

All the ingredients were there: a large orchestra and even larger choir, a military band, a tenor and a baritone, and muskets and cannon for the 1812 Overture finale.

Together they presented a splendid programme of popular classics which moved ever nearer to the eagerly-anticipated Pomp & Circumstance time. My blubbing valves were primed ready for action. But the waterworks failed to erupt. Nor did the lump materialise in the throat.

I sang out heartily enough, and waved my plastic flag with most of the rest of the audience. But I have to confess that instead of being swept along in a wave of jingoistic fervour, I felt slightly ridiculous. There we were, singing along about this mythical Britain which no longer existed and probably never had done.

Meanwhile, beyond the walls of this magnificent building, this time capsule watched over from across the road by the re-gilded statue of Prince Albert himself, was the real London. Only a day earlier, not 100 yards from where we were sitting, a middle-aged Swedish tourist, newly arrived in Britain on holiday with her husband and son, was sitting on a bus with the strap of her shoulder bag worn as it should be for security reasons - diagonally across her body.

As the bus trundled along Kensington Gore in the sunshine at around 15 miles an hour, the young man sitting next to her stood up, grabbed the bag strap, heaved at it and leaped from the bus, dragging the poor woman from her seat and out on to the road. She hit her head on the kerb, never regained consciousness, and died some hours later.

Land of Hope and Glory? Not any more - if, indeed, it ever was. If there were tears to be shed, they were for that poor woman and her distraught husband and son and for suffering humanity in the world at large, not for a song that reaches deep into the fantasy land of false patriotism.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.