Brits moved by matriarch's death

2002-04-06 13:59

London - A queue two kilometres-long stretched along the banks of the Thames at sunrise on Saturday as thousands of people waited to pay their individual respects to the Queen Mother and file past her coffin lying in state in Westminster Hall.

Braving the early morning chill, the queue built up during the two hours the medieval hall in the Palace of Westminister was closed to the public in the early morning.

Authorities had originally planned to close it at 18:00 on Friday, but changed their minds because of the number of people who were still waiting.

The hall was eventually closed for two hours, between 06:00 and 08.00, after some 30 000 people had filed past the coffin, draped in the Queen Mother's own royal standard and guarded by four members of the Household Cavalry in full ceremonial uniform.

The Queen Mother died on March 30 aged 101.

Among those in the queue was Liz Fisher, 42, a nanny from Chiswick in west London.

"I came here to pay my respects yesterday but the queue was too long," she said. "I knew that if I came back today I would be able to get in."

Roy Chamberlain, 49, a catering manager, from West Ham in east London said he had arrived in the early hours but had been turned away.

"I missed the 05:55 deadline and they told me to wait for another two hours," he said.

'Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity'

"In that time I have just been talking to people to pass the time. I felt I had to come. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

The unexpectedly large crowds - police estimated 400 000 at one point - lining the streets during the funeral procession, which saw the Queen Mother's coffin carried to Westminster Hall, and the queue of people waiting to pay their respects provoked some soul-searching by British newspapers on Saturday.

"Everything about the day confounded the cynics and republicans who have been suggesting that the passing of a woman of 101 had failed to touch the nation," wrote the right-wing Daily Mail Saturday, which like most newspapers devoted pages to reports and pictures of the day.

The Mirror, a left-leaning tabloid, called the show of pomp "entirely fitting", adding: "There may be all sorts of things we no longer do well, but no one can better the British at an occasion like this."

The Queen Mother's coffin is due to lie in state until a day before her funeral on April 9. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA