Long queues for glimpse of coffin

2002-04-05 17:16

Paul Casciato and Jason Hopps

London - Thousands queued for a glimpse of the Queen Mother's coffin on Friday, lying in state after a grandiose funeral procession to match that of British wartime leader Winston Churchill.

The almost two kilometre line of well wishers snaked along the banks of the River Thames on a sunny day, and police said the imposing Westminster Hall, where the coffin remains until the burial on Tuesday, would stay open until all mourners had filed past.

Up to 250 000 people had earlier packed the route of the procession, straining to see the coffin borne slowly on a horse-drawn gun carriage and accompanied by prominent royalty along with hundreds of troops in ceremonial finery.

Draped over the coffin was the Queen Mother's standard. On top of that rested her diamond-encrusted coronation crown.

"It's a shame this has to be for her death, but it's what she deserves. We put the P in pageantry," said Tim Aston, an electrian working on a building site overlooking the parade, whose likes have not been seen since Churchill's death in 1965.

On the coffin lay a white bouquet with the simple inscription "In Loving Memory". It was signed Lilibet, the Queen Mother's pet name for her daughter, Queen Elizabeth. Just five years after following the coffin of their mother Princess Diana, the teenage princes William and Harry bowed their heads in grief, hands straight at their sides.

It was an equally gruelling ordeal for heir-to-the throne Prince Charles, the 101-year-old Queen Mum's favourite grandson, as he mourned a "gloriously unstoppable and magical" woman who became a wartime symbol of British defiance.

Royal family out in force

The royal family, accused of being cold and uncaring after Diana's death, turned out in force for the slow march: 14 members were led by the 80-year-old Prince Philip. Princess Anne, the Queen Mother's 51-year-old granddaughter, broke with royal protocol to join the procession - normally public displays of regal mourning are for men only. She saluted her grandmother as the coffin was taken into Westminster Hall.

Schoolchildren and pensioners turned out in casual summer outfits rather than the sombre black that tradition dictates.

"It seemed she would carry on forever," said 75-year-old British pensioner Jacqueline Rayner, the same age as the queen.

The queue to view the coffin, uniting pensioners, toddlers and tourists, was estimated to be tens of thousands strong.

Beryl Silcock (69) said she was also at the lying in state of King George VI, the Queen Mother's beloved husband who died 50 years ago.

"I was at college at the time. I came today because ... I shall be far too old by the time the queen is dead," she said.

Double blow

It was a day of double grief for Queen Elizabeth, who has in the past seven weeks lost her sister, Princess Margaret, younger by four years, and now her mother.

Both were bastions of support as the House of Windsor juggled scandal and divorce, its popularity punctured as the age of deference passed into history.

The coffin, flanked by 1 600 troops, presenting a sea of red military jackets and tall bearskin hats, passed a statue of the Queen Mum's husband, a stammering figure propelled on to the throne after his brother Edward's shock abdication in 1936.

After the piercing silence of the procession, crowds broke into spontaneous applause as Queen Elizabeth wound her way home.

- Reuters