Thousands wait in cold to pay respects to Queen Elizabeth II

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By JILL LAWLESS, DANICA KIRKA and MIKE CORDER

LONDON (AP) — Thousands of people spent London’s coldest night in months huddled in line to view the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II, and authorities warned Saturday that arriving mourners face a 16-hour wait.

Police arrested a man after what the force described as a “disturbance” Friday night in Parliament’s Westminster Hall, where the queen’s coffin is lying in state, draped in her Royal Standard and capped with a diamond-studded crown.

Parliamentary authorities said someone got out of the queue and tried to approach the coffin on its platform. The Metropolitan Police force said a man was detained for a suspected public-order offense.

The tide of people wanting to say goodbye to the queen has grown steadily since the public was first admitted to the hall on Wednesday. On Friday, authorities temporary halted letting more visitors join the end of the line, which snakes around Southwark Park some 5 miles (8 kilometers) from Parliament.



Members of the public line up near Tower Bridge as they wait to view Queen Elizabeth II's lying in state ahead of her funeral on Monday, in London, Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022. (James Manning/PA via AP)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/queen-elizabeth-ii-king-charles-iii-entertainment-world-news-81a1365e895f16ab5a5d4afd296f5857?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_2

[Marthe48]

1. Almost like voting in red states

n/t

[SheltieLover]

2. My 1st thought!

[jimfields33]

3. That's odd. I didn't think red state voters had to wait long to vote

Just blue cities on purpose.

[Aristus]

4. GOP candidates don't win on greater numbers.

They win on reduced turnout. And since there are blue voters even in red states…

[Elessar Zappa]

7. Yeah,

it’s the blue cities in red states where the lines are long.

[hamsterjill]

5. I don't think I'd be tough enough to wait 16 hours.

With all due respect to Her Majesty.

[CountAllVotes]

11. I don't care

I simply don't care.

It's been God Save the Queen my entire life.

Well, she's been saved alright, living a life of luxury!

[hamsterjill]

13. I think the Brits feel differently.

More power to them if that’s their choice.

I had admiration for the woman, but that’s fine if not everyone agrees.

[The King of Prussia]

23. The "Brits" don't think in any one particular way

I know a few people who are sad about it, more who really couldn't give a toss, and some - like me - who really didn't like her. I don't know anyone who wants to walk past a box that her corpse may, or may not, be in. Just because the BBC and the rest of the right wing media say we're all in mourning, doesn't mean we are.

[hamsterjill]

24. Well thank you for that perspective.

The are quite a few people in line however unless of course one thinks the coverage is being staged. I’m not there to see for myself.

[The King of Prussia]

26. You're welcome

[fescuerescue]

6. I wonder how they are managing food and bathroom needs

16 hours is a very long time to be without those.

And I don't think you can take anything in with you due to security concerns etc.

[pandr32]

10. People are likely holding the place of those who need to step away.

The kind of people who would want to 'pay their respects' even though the line is long aren't similar to 'Karens' and other exceptionalists and MAGATs here in the US who routinely cause scenes.

[hamsterjill]

14. Someone who is British told me they get tickets.

Something that allows them to move about. Get some food and go to the “loo”. I’ve seen no confirmation of this, but it would seem like the humanitarian way to handle things.

[Ray Bruns]

8. I know I am just an American but couldn't they have watched it on TV?

[Abigail_Adams]

17. I don't think

it's quite the same thing, especially not to the Brits in this case.

[twodogsbarking]

9. If that pleases them then I am not the one to say that they are out of their minds.

[CountAllVotes]

12. +1

N/T

[Warpy]

15. I don't think it's about her

After all, they're filing slowly past a box, a pile of flowers, and a crown. The crown might be heavy bling (it weighs a little more than a kilogram), but that's all it is. Closed coffin is good, though, no one looks his or her best in death.

What they're paying respects to is an era, one that lasted over 70 years, and few of them are old enough to remember her dad and his era. It's another way of marking time. I think a lot of people felt the same about FDR when he died, his era died with him.

[Bayard]

27. Well said

Someone was saying last week that they should just plant the old lady and be done with it. The tour is for her people that loved her, and want to pay last respects. This was their queen for most of their lives, or, all they've ever known.

Its their business.

[catbyte]

16. I admire their fortitude. She seemed like a nice lady and didn't ask to be born to

her station in life. She was magnificent in WWII and I don't hold her responsible for the sins of her ancestors any more than I blame President Biden for the sins the American government committed against mine.

Side story: I went to the Soviet Union in 1976 and visited Lenin's tomb while in Moscow. I waited in line for about 15 minutes and it was about 15 minutes too long, lol. Plus, seeing him lying there looking like an escapee from Madam Tussaud's kinda creeped me out, but the lighting was tasteful. Red Square and the Kremlin were cool except when I was almost run over by a fleet of cars carrying Brezhnev to his office and got yelled at by a security guard. Good times.

[Retrograde]

18. It's not every day you get to see a dead queen

or even a box said to contain one. I wouldn't stand in line for it, but I'm not British. Mr. Retrograde has been fascinated by the queues, though, ever since he noticed that the crowd did not resemble a random collection of Londoners. He's been tuning in periodically to see if he could spot any non-white mourners: so far there have been a few Black people and a handful of Sikhs.

Planning for this funeral has been in the works for years. People in the queue have wristbands and tickets to hold their places in line, and toilets and water are available along the route. I still wouldn't want to stand for 24+ hours, though.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. A survey thinks it's fairly representative of Britain as a whole

Along with a team of four students from Essex University and the University of Edinburgh, Professor Johns travelled to the capital to survey those in the queue.
...
Professor Johns said: “One is about how representative of Britain is this queue, and the answer to that was surprisingly representative whether you’re talking in social terms, in age or gender or ethnicity.

“The second thing we’re trying to find out how accurate is the term mourners, which seems to be the standard term for these people, but we were asking quite a few things about both the people’s motivations for going and how they’re feeling while they’re there.

“Gratitude rather than grief seems to be the best summary of what we’re finding and it’s a huge contrast from for example the case of Princess Diana.”

https://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/22064595.essex-university-survey-reveals-people-queuing-see-queen/

Though he does go on to note that Brexit remainers are more common in the queue than the national average, which he says may be because they are more concentrated around London, which implies there are more people from close than further away (as you'd expect) - but the ethnicity figures are complicated by the areas next to London, who can still get there pretty easily, having high white populations.

[Retrograde]

25. Thanks for the update

sounds like a much more rigorous survey than just looking at television coverage at random times.

[Polybius]

19. How cold was cold?

The link is incorrect.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. Link works OK for me

"Overnight, volunteers distributed blankets and cups of tea to people in line as temperatures fell to 6 degrees Celsius (43 degrees Fahrenheit)."

[muriel_volestrangler]

20. 2 surprises in the queue: the man who organized it until 3 years ago, and David Beckham

The Scottish-born Australian TV reporter, who is the network’s US correspondent but is currently in Britain covering the Queen’s death, was doing a live cross from the lengthy queue in London when she plucked a random man from the crowd for an interview.

He turned out to be Lieutenant-General David Leakey, 70, a former Black Rod of the UK parliament, one of the most senior positions in the House of Lords responsible for maintaining order and granting access to officials.
...
Mr Leakey continued: “So, Black Rod is the Queen’s representative in Parliament, and one of Black Rod’s roles is to organise the whole of the event that’s going on in the lying in state in Westminster Hall. I did that for seven years, and if the Queen died whilst I was doing it, I’d be over there organising and presiding over the whole thing.
...
Elsewhere in the sprawling queue to see Her Majesty’s coffin on Friday, local time, was football legend David Beckham, who was pictured wiping a tear as he kept a low profile in a cap.

https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/current-affairs/abc-journalist-unknowingly-strikes-gold-doing-vox-pops-at-queens-coffin-queue/news-story/da9e73546256fd778194bad32e4eae88

[The King of Prussia]

28. Number crunching

Last edited Thu Sep 22, 2022, 10:09 AM - Edit history (1)

304,000 - mourners who passed George VI's coffin (numbers described as "lower than they had been for George V" )
250,000 - mourners who passed Elizabeth II's coffin.