They poured through the exit onto Westminster Bridge, an unbroken artery of mourners from around the country. The sun shone brightly. The bridge was closed for traffic and served as an Insta’ platform for the Houses of Parliament, the flags at half mast, the murky Thames: Britannia as photo opp’.
At the corner of Whitehall, a young soldier passing underneath the plaque for John Peake Knight, who invented the first traffic lights in the world and gave them a go at this very junction in 1868, noticed the aroma of fried scampi from a nearby cafe. “Could do with that,” he told his mates, while beside him a tour guide pointed across at rooms in Westminster and talked casually of Ann Boleyn as though he’d just now met her in Starbucks, and of the tennis ball found in the rafters “a few years ago” (it was in 1920) and identified as the kind of ball used in the 1500s — and Henry VIII was fond of tennis.
That was the mood around the ancient hall where the queen lay in state: the centuries jumbled and swirling. After a week when heralds in uniforms and canon fire, 400-year old artefacts and gun carriages have become common place, the centuries become jumbled.
It is estimated that about 350,000 people will have passed through the Westminster Hall when the doors close at 6.30am on Monday. As many again will have attempted to queue.
Caroline Kelly and her sister, Tina Smith, travelled together from outside London and stood in the slow, snaking line for 12 hours, right through the night. The Thames was quiet: it was a little cold. Now they stood in the hot, crowded lunchtime scenes on the bridge, exhausted as they recollected their thoughts.
“It was okay at first. We started near Bermondsey,” said Caroline,
“It took us on a tour of London,” her sister said.
“There were a couple of points where we waited ages just to cross this small road. It was midnight then.”
“And we ground to a halt because they were cleaning the Hall for an hour.”
The queue, which is expected to intensify and lengthen over the weekend, has drawn comparisons to the mid-century era to which the queen’s death has pulled the consciousness the country. The British have a tradition of paying mass respect: 320,000 viewed Churchill in State’s casket in 1965 and when Edward VII died, in 1910, some half a million people filed through Westminster Hall. But there is nobody around to remember that. This, for the vast majority of mourners, feels like a once-in-a-lifetime moment.
“In there, really, really moving,” said Kelly said of the experience in the 1,000-year old Hall.
“We had a changeover of personnel. You’ve seen it, but then the precision with which everything happens. It is almost like you pay your respects and a wave of emotion comes over you after you have done that. Because you realise: that’s it. She is not going to be there anymore.”
Angela and Steven Smith took the train from Southampton and arrived at 10.30pm, joined the line and waited for 13 hours. Beside them stood Jackie Cheng and Angel Wu, both from Hong Kong, living now in north London.
“The last two hours were the hardest,” said Angela Smith.
“I think the question is would I do it again: yes,” said her husband.
“All the pain, the discomfort was worth it. I am Roman Catholic. But she was my queen, just not my religious queen. I was quite moved.”
Jackie Cheng’s interest in the monarch dates to her formative years in Hong Kong.
“We have our structures and administration developed under her reign. So we do have great respect for her. I know that in Hong Kong people waited five and six hours to sign a book of condolence in the UK embassy.”
The four mourners stood talking for a time in the sunshine while behind them, the steady stream of mourners poured out. They included David Beckham, who joined the regular line at two in the morning, waiting his turn for 12 hours, buying donuts for those around him and avoiding the queue-shaming directed at fellow celebrities and MPs. It is only a matter of time before the knighthood follows the OBE.
Before 7.30pm there was a sharpening of security as the new monarch, King Charles and his siblings, Anne, Andrew and Edward were due to stand in vigil for 15 minutes around the casket. The crowds would continue to pour through as day turned to night. But there was only one royal to whom they wished to pay respects when their brief moment in the Hall finally came round.
“It’s a tiny coffin,” Tina Smith said before she left for home.
“It seems so big on the television.”
