Thousands queue overnight to pay respects to Queen

Tens of thousands of people are expecting to join queues today to pay their respects to the Queen, with the number potentially going into hundreds of thousands.

Many already waited overnight to be able to file into St Giles’ Cathedral in Edinburgh and walk by the coffin of Queen Elizabeth II.

They stood in line for up to six hours in the middle of the night to be able to come inside, after the Queen’s coffin was transferred to the church in Edinburgh yesterday.

Gavin Hamilton, from Edinburgh, said he was informed upon arrival it would likely be 13 hours before he would have the chance to pay respects to the Queen.

‘It took about five and a quarter hours waiting in line to see her,’ he said, adding that he made into the cathedral just before 3am.

‘There were people in the queue with me who had travelled from Aberdeen, over 100 miles away, to do this. There were thousands of people in line at 12.30am at the start of the queue.

‘The people were still (lining up) after 2.50 am when I got into the cathedral.’

People were able to file past the late monarch’s coffin from around 6pm yesterday, with long lines soon stretching across the Royal Mile.

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Edinburgh City Council warned people to bring food and drinks and ‘prepare for long queues and long periods of standing’.

The procession was paused around 8pm as the Queen’s children stood guard around the coffin for the Vigil of the Princes.

Princess Anne, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward joined the new monarch King Charles III to flank their mother’s coffin, each positioning themselves at a corner of the casket as part of an ancient royal tradition.

Lord Ian Duncan, the Deputy Speaker in the House of Lords, said this morning that crowds along the Royal Mile were now ‘ten-deep’, while the streets surrounding the historic precinct were equally crammed with people.

‘The sheer quantity of individuals moving into Edinburgh today (indicates) that there will be many tens – possibly even hundreds – of thousands of people who will wish to pay their respects to the late Queen,’ Lord Duncan told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National programme this morning.

‘That is an extraordinary outpouring of respect, grief, celebration of an extraordinary woman.

‘By goodness, they were ten-deep. They had to stop people trying to get there because it would have become dangerous.Queen’s children unite around coffin for Vigil of the Princes

‘The streets around (the Royal Mile) were crammed and now, as people wait to walk past the coffin itself, the expectation of the numbers and the sheer quantity of humanity in Edinburgh today is extraordinary.’

The Queen’s coffin is expected to be flown from Edinburgh Airport to RAF Northolt at 6pm today, accompanied by her only daughter Princess Anne.

It will then travel by hearse to Buckingham Palace in London, where people will line the streets to watch it pass.

Some have already starting queueing to pay their respects at Westminster Hall, though lying in state in London will not begin until 5pm tomorrow.

Vanessa Nathakumaran, 56, from Harrow, arrived at 12pm yesterday at Lambeth Bridge where she expected the queue would begin – though it hadn’t been officially set up yet.

‘I really really want to be part of it’, she said. ‘I don’t want to miss it in case… they said they are probably going to control the crowds if [the queue] gets too long.’

Mourners will not be allowed to camp and will be given numbered wristbands to indicate their place in the queue so they are able to leave and come back, security staff have said. Full details will be released at 10pm today.

Mourner Mitch Stevenson, who queued for just under five hours in Edinburgh with his sister, said they were ‘overwhelmed with the power and emotion of the occasion’ after making it into St Giles’ cathedral just after 1am.

The siblings had initially been advised they would likely need to wait 11 hours to see the Queen’s coffin but were not deterred.

‘It was a very important occasion for us – we lost our mum earlier this year and she would have loved to have been able to go, so we went for her memory also,’ Mr Stevenson said.

‘We were told (we would need to wait) about 11 hours. We accepted this but later found out it was not the case,’ he added. ‘Some people, including myself, felt it was perhaps a little bit of scaremongering to get the crowd numbers down a bit.’