I hate queues – I get tired, my feet hurt, my stomach grumbles. So waiting anywhere between an expected five to 12 hours in a queue that could trickle into the late hours of the night was never a great idea.
Yet, there I was, at 4.30pm on Wednesday at London Bridge securing my place among the tens of thousands to see the Queen lying in state at Westminster Hall.
But by the time I joined the queue, I was already exhausted.
I was mistaken in believing the back of the queue (and so presumably the starting place for someone to join) was Southwark Park. So I made my way there at 3pm ready for masses of people to wade through as I fought for a spot.
But instead there was nothing but security guards, who had picked up extra shifts this week, sitting on the pavement – some sleeping, some going off to find food – because there were absolutely no queues.
Alas, I had to go to Westminster Bridge, three miles from Southwark Park to join the queue.
After jumping back on the Jubilee line at Bermondsey and heading for Westminster, imagine my dismay when I was told that I had to walk an uncertain number of miles to join the start of the queue.
“How far? How long?” I and many others asked marshalls. Some shrugged their shoulders, others had more of an idea, telling us the back of the queue was somewhere along the Southbank.
So on we walked, passing those headed in the opposite direction who had already been provided with the golden (yellow) wristband, an honoured marker of the queuers.
I passed Southbank, I passed Festival Pier, I passed Shakespeare’s Globe, Tate Modern with no starting point in sight.
After 40 minutes of walking, we came to a halt just outside of London Bridge. Finally, I was in the queue.
We waited at the starting point for 45 minutes at least, before we started to head quite rapidly back towards the Southbank. The speed at which we were going filled me with false hope. “This will fly by!” I thought. I was soon brought back to reality when we stopped outside the OXO tower for just under an hour, then slowly – painfully slowly – walked towards Waterloo Bridge. It had already been two hours and we had barely made ground.
I took solace in some of my queue companions who had ventured to London from Devon and Thailand.
Tunlatorn Chaiyatep, a 23-year-old from Thailand said his curiosity to see how the Thai and British monarchies differ in their ceremonies brought him to the queue today.
The London-based student said he was surprised to see how long the lines would stretch, having a nasty surprise when he saw he had to walk from Westminster Bridge to London Bridge just to join the queue, and then circle back to Westminster.
“Half of me is telling me to give up and go home. But the other half is saying, ‘Come on, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, keep going.’”
“I will give it seven hours – if we’re still waiting after midnight, I’m going home.”
Others were more determined to see the queue through, no matter the wait.
Mavis Sibanda said she wanted to have a “last memory of the Queen” on such a historic day.
“I’m from Zambia, and so she has always been on my mind. I wanted to be part of what is happening.”
Patricia Wass from Devon said she was willing to wait all night to see the Queen’s coffin.
The 64-year-old said: “My mother is an ardent monarchist and she’s been very upset at the Queen’s passing and I wanted to do this for her as well.”
She had been feeling very emotional since the Queen’s death and was therefore prepared to queue for “as long as it takes. If it’s all night, it’s all night”.
Meanwhile, Tzu-Ching Hung, 22, arrived in London from Taiwan yesterday and wanted to seize the opportunity to witness history while he is in the UK.
“It’s just amazing to see so many people come to pay tribute to the Queen.”
Though the crowd was mostly well-spirited and welcoming, there were some classic queue politics that soon turned nasty.
Harbinder Sandhar, Chigwell, had watched the procession of the royal family walk with the coffin, having waited at Pall Mall from 12pm.
She told me she was shocked at how territorial the crowd at the Mall was, with some women telling her she was standing in her place. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” she said.
Ms Sandhar and I walked together and bonded over our experiences. She told me she went to Princess Diana’s funeral, and shared all she knew about King Charles’s history with the Queen Consort.
And just like that, with a new friend made and an ice cream shared, waiting hours in a queue turned into much less of a dreadful experience. How very British.
