Thousands of locals and tourists spent days queuing to pay their final respects to the Queen and some of the stories from the queue, are heartwarming!
United Kingdom (20 September 2022) – The world is still processing the passing of the Late Queen Elizabeth; the stories coming from how people united during this time, are being shared around the internet and we just had to share this one. The queue to see the Queen laying in state is one of the most talked about things over the last week.
There are many incredible stories of kindness and care being shared. Thousands of people spent day and night waiting to pay their respects. On all counts, it was tiresome, exhausting, and in many cases, could have brought out the worst, but in reality, there were some true acts of kindness!
People became friends, and even David Beckham joined the masses, declining to use his celebrity status to skip ahead (and he was given the opportunity). He spent 13 hours waiting in line for his turn just like everyone else. He gave all those people around him, a truly memorable experience.
The Curious Iguana, an anonymous Brit on Twitter, shared a post about how the queue and how typically British it was.
“Right, everyone. I need to be serious for a moment. Because the greatest thing that ever happened is happening right now.
I don’t particularly care either way about the Queen. But the queue? The Queue is a triumph of Britishness. It’s incredible.
Just to be clear: I don’t mean the purpose of the queue. I don’t mean the outpouring of emotion or collective gried or the event at the end and around the queue or the people in the queue. I mean, literally, the queue. The queue itself. It’s like something from Douglas Adams.
It is the motherlode of queues. It is art. It is poetry. It is the queue to end all queues. It opened earlier today and is already 2.2 miles long. They will close it if it gets to FIVE MILES. That’s a queue that would take TWO HOURS TO WALK at a brisk pace.”
“It is a queue that goes right through the entirety of London. It has toilets and water points and websites just for The Queue.
You cannot leave The Queue. You cannot get into The Queue further down. You cannot hold places in The Queue. There are wristbands for The Queue.
Once you join The Queue you can expect to be there for days. But you cannot have a chair and a sleeping bag.
There is no sleeping in The Queue, for The Queue moves constantly and steadily, day and night. You will be shuffling along at 0.1 miles per hour for days.
The BBC has live coverage of The Queue on BBC One, and a Red Button service showing the front bit of The Queue.
NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD JOIN THE QUEUE AND YET STILL THEY COME. “Oh, it’ll only be until 6am on Thursday, we can take soup”.
And the end of the queue is a box. You will walk past the box, slowly, but for no more than a minute. Then you will exit into the London drizzle and make your way home.
Tell me this isn’t the greatest bit of British performance art that has ever happened? I’m giddy with joy. It’s fantastic. We are a deeply, deeply mad people with an absolutely unshakeable need to join a queue. It’s utterly glorious.”
Do you know anyone who stood in the queue, and for how long did they do so?
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