EVEN the staunchest supporter of republicanism must have felt a twinge of sympathy for the Royal Family over the past week.

For any family, losing two close members within two months is hard to take and the House of Windsor is a family. Granted, not an ordinary one but they could say, to paraphrase Shakespeare's Shylock: "Hath not a royal eyes ... senses, affections ... If you prick us, do we not bleed?"

Their mourning is no less genuine than our own would be, and ours isn't at risk of being analysed, criticised and misinterpreted.

With a death in the immediate family, the days between the actual death and the funeral are a kind of limbo. Arrangements must be made, certain people seen, but everyday routine is suspended and impossible to take up again until "it's all over". Ordinary families can, if we're lucky and have supportive friends around us, just go into that limbo, deal with what needs to be done and somehow get through.

No chance of that for the royals. They retreated to Windsor last weekend after the Queen Mother died, and had a private service, but they have a ten-day limbo until Tuesday, a long-drawn-out and wearyingly busy interim with no prospect of a quiet, private service at the end of it. They must maintain their demeanour as best they can, knowing that, whether they individually show emotion or contain it, they will do wrong in the eyes of some commentator.

The service won't be the 20 or 30 minutes of the average funeral but at least an hour - and the family are also involved in the slow, very public procession to the lying in state in Westminster Hall today.

No chance, either, of the ham tea and reminiscences in the church hall afterwards. Admit it, we've all been to some very cheerful post-funeral parties where the family has been touched and delighted by the tributes paid and by how many people they have brought together to, in many cases, renew long-mislaid acquaintance.

It's the tributes which really get to you. Sir and I hadn't a parent between us by the time we were 40 and one of the most comforting aspects of each bereavement was the letters, cards and personal contacts. Through the tears tributes often provoke, comes pride, warmth and a delight that so many people have such things in their personal memory bank.

Tributes are the one commodity the Royal Family won't be short of. They began within minutes of the announcement of the Queen Mother's death and all had an underlying theme: her capacity for loving life, and people, throughout her 101 years.

Few of us can remember when she wasn't there. I'm told I was held up to wave as she and the King drove past our house to present medals at the nearby aerodrome during the war; I'll take that one on trust.

What I can remember is the grown-ups' outspoken admiration in the Forties of the dedicated way she, and the husband who could reasonably have expected to remain Duke of York, had taken up the roles they'd been pitchforked into by the abdication. The Duke of Windsor was simply not spoken of.

A privileged life isn't necessarily an easy one but, if the Queen Mum had an unofficial motto it was "noblesse oblige" - or "privilege entails responsibility", as the dictionary has it. And, in her bubbly, floaty, feathery style, she "obliged" throughout her long, long life.

Rest in peace