An update to the plan for the Queen's death has emerged for churches across the country. Operation London Bridge is the protocol that will be activated when the monarch passes away.
It's been reported that leatherworks will make more muffles for church bells that will sound when the news of the head of state's death is announced, reports BirminghamLive. Central Council of Church Bell Ringers spokeswoman Vicki Chapman told the Mail on Sunday : “We have spent a lot of time talking to the Royal Household and Lambeth Palace about the day the Monarch passes, which we hope will not be any time soon.
“Adding muffles makes bells sound mournful, more like a hum –so they will sound like thud, thud, thud rather than dong, dong, dong. It is about paying due reverence to the service of the Monarch and commemorating her life.”
Philip Pratt, of Big Wilf's Bell Muffles near Bristol, added: “A lot of enquiries are coming in and we are taking on more and more orders. Muffles are a specialist product and only a very few leather manufacturers in the UK make them.”
It comes after the monarch addressed her Covid battle for the first time. She said: “It does leave one very tired and exhausted doesn’t it, this horrible pandemic. It is not a nice result.”
She added to hospital staff: “It obviously was a very frightening experience to have Covid very badly, wasn’t it? And of course not being allowed to see your relatives was very hard, wasn’t it?”
Operation London Bridge covers planning for the announcement of the Queen's death, the period of official mourning, and the details of her state funeral. Some decisions have been made by the Queen herself, although some can only be made by her successor, Prince Charles, after her death.
As of 2017, the phrase "London Bridge is down" is expected to be used to communicate the death of the Queen to the Prime Minister and key personnel, setting the plan into motion. The plans were first created in the 1960s and are updated throughout the year, involving various government departments, the Church of England, Metropolitan Police Service, the British Armed Forces, the media, the Royal Parks, London boroughs, the Greater London Authority and Transport for London.
