Early afternoon on a late summer’s day in central London. The beating heart of our nation. Streets filled with a mixture of locals and tourists from every corner of the globe. Couples and friends taking selfies outside historic attractions. It could have been a scene on any day in the capital.
Except it wasn’t. The hustle and bustle of life in the world’s greatest city was being suffocated with a sombre grip. There were moments of silence amid the crowds of thousands. Large groups consumed with moments of reflection.
London shouldn’t be like this, but this was the effect Queen Elizabeth II had on so many lives. Wherever you come from, whatever you do, there was a unity among the scores of people who had turned up to Buckingham Palace on Friday lunchtime to remember the monarch – the only one they will have known in their lifetime – and to welcome the new King with messages of support and comfort for his mother.
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One of the thousands who was outside the Palace laying flowers was Sam. She is currently living in Durham, and should have been at work today. Instead, without her employer knowing (we’ve kept her identity anonymous as a result), she travelled 300-miles to London to pay her respects.
“I just had to be here,” she said.
“There is a sense of loss and grief that is consuming us all, you can see by the thousands of people here today. It shows what a special woman she was.
“She felt like a friend, she felt like a family member. She was like a second mother to us all. We’ve all experienced loss in our lives, but none of us have all felt the same about one person, and someone who has been a constant for so long.”
Sam, who is happy to reveal she works in health, is not your typical ‘royal superfan’. She’s never met the Queen before. She’s never seen her from a distance before. She’s been in London at times of significant national moments – Trooping of the Colour parades and the Diamond Jubilee in 2012 – but the Queen’s death has left her with a feeling of sorrow she has never felt before about someone outside her circle of family and friends.
“I can’t explain it. Some people will think it’s strange and I’ve lost my marbles, but I just say, have a look around you now, what do you see? These aren’t the people you might expect to be here. There are people from all walks of lives, there are children laying flowers, it’s such a special moment that we will never see again in our lifetime.
“Moments like this bring us all together as a country. It makes you realise, whatever your background is, how special we are and what we can do when we all pull together as one national family”.
Sam had two bouquets of flowers to lay at the gates of the Palace. When we spoke, she was about to join a queue as far as the eye could see along the road past Hyde Park. From the other end, thousands of people were walking up and down The Mall, with hundreds of others sat around the Queen Victoria Memorial, absorbing this moment of national history.
It was astonishing sight. The Palace surroundings have been packed with members of the public in the past, for Jubilee concerts or Royal appearances on the balcony, but this was different. Hundreds were coming and going every minute, via streets, parks or tube stations to say they had been and done their bit. There was an urgency amongst the crowds to get there, but a calmness and ease once they had arrived, and a feeling of comfort to be so close to where the Queen had spent so much of her life.
“They’ll probably be a few more tears when I get to the front”, said an emotional Sam as her voice began to crack. “And maybe a few more on the train home. But there is a sense of happiness that I’ve got to come here today. I would never have forgiven myself if I hadn’t done it. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back to my job on Monday.”
Sam will return to normality next week, and eventually life will go on as planned for everyone across the country. But for now, the nation is in mourning, and it is united to remember a Queen who touched the lives of so many people – perhaps in more ways than any of us have ever realised.
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