In the Queue

I joined the queue at the Globe theatre, just after a cold and clouded sunrise. ITV breakfast news were interviewing a couple from Tyneside who had taken the day off work and spent the previous night on their son’s floor in East London to make an early start. As we progressed along the south bank of the Thames they were a magnet for other TV crews, polishing their anecdotes for Italian and German broadcasters.

Kuan bought me a coffee from Pret a Manger at the Southbank Centre. She turned out to be a veteran of lying-in-state queues. She had been on holiday in Thailand when King Bhumibol died in 2016, and waited for seven hours in thick humidity, checking her watch anxiously to be sure she would make her flight home. The mourning period there had lasted a hundred days, she said, and it was common for people to visit the Grand Palace to see the coffin several times.

The official queue tracker on YouTube shows the length of the line (in miles and hours), the nearest landmark and a what3words address for where to join the end of it. I checked in on the video a couple of times on my way into London and never saw fewer than three thousand viewers. With all the people watching other people queue, Channel 4 could have made a special episode of Gogglebox.

The atmosphere by the Thames was somewhere between theme park and exceptionally polite festival: bright pink wristbands, packed lunches, nervous calibration of water intake and portaloo visits. Most people were dressed for an average day out in the city – jeans, trainers, lightweight backpacks – but every few metres the line was punctuated with knots of men and women in smart black, sometimes tweed, sometimes medals. Matt from Kent, a Royal Engineer according to his blazer, was using his day off to pay his respects. He claimed to have earned his chestful ‘by being old’, but later gave me the rundown: Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan.

A rainbow of hi-viz vests shepherded us along the route. Orange were security (Serco, naturally, and a couple of other usual suspects); blue were volunteers, some from the Civil Service. ‘I’m from the Cabinet Office,’ said the young man directing us through wristband collection. ‘I literally only joined on Monday?’

The media had set up a temporary encampment on the verge by Lambeth Bridge, with the river and Parliament in the background. Rogue offshoots rounded up representative groups of the public alongside the Covid Memorial Wall to get their reactions to the queue (or maybe to the death of the queen – it was a little hard to tell).

Over on the north bank the line wound into a tight zigzag in Victoria Tower Gardens. The government’s official advice discourages you from bringing children, but I saw at least one nursing baby having their nappy changed at the end of a turn in the queue. Vests by this point were mostly yellow: more security, and a Faith Team, some with dog collars and fish brooches, ‘just checking in to see how everyone’s doing?’ A vicar from East Grinstead told me it was a multi-faith initiative, though most of them seemed to be Christian.

Also in yellow were the Scouts, collecting rubbish, rounding up any food and drink that was still sealed to take to local food banks (none allowed in Westminster Hall) and reminding us at regular intervals to ‘stay hydrated!’ Alfie was posted at the last stop before the security tents. He’d been one of the very last to complete the Queen’s Scout Award (they’ll be King’s Scouts from now on) and was surprisingly cheerful for someone facing several days on duty after two hours’ sleep. He had at least slept in a bed – other Scouts were in dorms and on floors – and had a bottle of confiscated Prosecco to look forward to at the end of his shift. The Scouts won’t get to shuffle through Westminster Hall in return for their service, though a select few may be allowed to view the interment at Windsor.

Louise, from Transport for London’s legal team, is going to be a ‘travel ambassador’ at the Millennium Pier during the funeral on Monday. When I said that everything seemed incredibly well organised, she pointed out that TfL, along with everyone else, has been tweaking and tweaking this plan for years.

Over the threshold of Westminster Hall, neighbourly chat gave way abruptly to silence. The guard over the catafalque was changed as I got to the top of the steps; ushers nudged visitors further forward to a better view. The floor was littered with beige new-carpet fluff, scuffed up by thousands of feet. People bowed their heads or dropped awkward half-curtseys as they passed the coffin – such an enormous box for such an average-sized woman.