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| Sunday, 7 April 2002 |
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Britons queue all night for Queen Mother's coffin LONDON, Saturday(Reuters) Thousands of Britons queued through the night for a glimpse of the Queen Mother's coffin, lying in state under the silent protection of four royal guardsmen. The mile-long line of well-wishers snaked along the banks of London's River Thames on Friday, and police said Westminster Hall, where the coffin remains until the funeral on Tuesday, would stay open until all mourners had filed past. Officials were taken by surprise by the large number of people who wanted to say farewell to the Queen Mother, who was perhaps the most popular member of the royal family. Westminster Hall, the grandiose medieval setting for the royal lying-in-state, would stay open all night to allow long queues of visitors to file slowly past the Queen Mother's coffin to pay their respects, officials said. They had expected to close the hall to the public at 6:00 p.m. (1700 GMT), but said they did not want to disappoint members of the public, who were moving past the coffin at the rate of 4,000 an hour. The queue to view the coffin, uniting pensioners, toddlers and tourists, was estimated to be tens of thousands strong. Up to 400,000 people had earlier packed the route of a funeral procession to take the coffin to Westminster Hall, straining to see the coffin borne slowly on a horse-drawn gun carriage and accompanied by prominent royalty along with 1,700 soldiers, sailors and airmen in ceremonial finery. Her grandson, royal heir Prince Charles, appeared to be taking the Queen Mother's death hard. Eyewitnesses reported he brushed away a tear at one point in Friday's ceremonies. 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 electrician working on a building site overlooking the parade, the likes of which have not been seen since the death of Britain's wartime leader Winston Churchill in 1965. On the coffin, draped in the Queen Mother's own standard, 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. 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. |
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