JAMIE STONE: A sense of connection to Her Majesty that will stay with me
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The night before I travelled the long journey from the north Highlands to London to pay my respects to Her Majesty, I suddenly awoke at precisely 3.30am. Why? I don’t know.
After a sip of water I reached for my iPhone and clicked on BBC News. And then, a quarter of a second later, I did the same to “Watch live: Queen Elizabeth II’s lying-in-state”. In an instant I was, like millions of others, transfixed by what I could see happening down there in Westminster Hall.
But in the fog of just awakening, I hadn’t quite taken in that this was in real time – until I glanced up at the mighty stained glass window and momentarily pondered the velvety blackness beyond.
Of course. This was the middle of the night. And all these people, all these people, had waited long, long hours in the darkness to slowly make their way to do the same as I was to do later that day.
Some wore ties. Some wore medals. As commentators have said, some bowed, some blew kisses, some crossed themselves - and in each and every case it was a sincere expression of grief and respect. And then there were those in working clothes, with a full day’s work ahead. What an act of giving to our beloved Queen, that they should decide to do this. It was a deeply moving sight.
A few hours later my flight neared Heathrow.
As it so often does, the British Airways plane approached the airport from the Tower Bridge direction, and then flew parallel to the Thames with the London Eye and the Houses of Parliament gradually swimming into view below. I glanced downwards. Great God! – all those people.
Along the south side of the river, across Lambeth Bridge, and then back and forth, so very many times, in Victoria Park Gardens. How long had they been queuing further to the east? Before I could see them? We know the answer.
Later, on the final steps of my own personal pilgrimage, I slowly walked to the top of the steps leading from St Stephen’s Hall to Westminster Hall itself. There was a silence, but not complete silence, as we approached the catafalque and Her Majesty.
The rustle of quiet footsteps, yes, but also an utterly enveloping silence of the mind. This was our monarch, but now gone from us. Can you frame sadness? Can you distil awe? Can you define the intangible? How many hundreds of thousands of us must have shared an inner emotion that hitherto none of us had ever encountered?
And then a strange thing happened.
After I had bowed to our Queen, I walked towards the north doors of Westminster Hall and glanced ahead through the doors. Out there was bright sunlight. Gone was the velvety blackness of the night before. Day after night. And then joy of joys, a wind blowing directly through the doors. Where had the wind come from? The north.
That wind will have blown all the way from far north of Scotland to where so many of us were stood together in the nation’s capital.
From Caithness and Sutherland to London. The entire length of the United Kingdom. The elements themselves were paying homage to our Queen. I cannot possibly explain why I found this thought so comforting, but I did.
God bless the Queen.
God save the King.
