Why I am travelling down to London to pay my respects to the Queen - Jayne Dowle

If hundreds of thousands of people are prepared to camp out on the Embankment and queue for 35 hours to take their place in an ever-lengthening line to file past the coffin of the Queen, lying in state in Westminster Hall, what is central London going to be like on Monday morning?

“Are you mad?”, my son asked me. “Why on earth are you and Lizzie [his 16-year-old sister] bothering to trail all the way down to London to the funeral when you could sit at home and watch it on the telly?”. He does have a point.

His late father said more or less the same words to me 25 years ago, when the funeral of the Princess of Wales took place and we actually lived in London.

I walked alone up the Mall one evening and will never forget the overpowering scent of flowers and candles laid in tribute, and the eerie sound of Mozart’s Requiem booming out of loudspeakers mounted on lamp-posts engraved with the Royal crest.

Yet, for the funeral itself, I bowed to pragmatism and sat on the sofa instead. I watched the young Princes William and Harry walk so solemnly behind their mother’s coffin, and wondered just what Her Majesty must have been thinking when Elton John climbed behind the piano to sing Candle in the Wind/Goodbye England’s Rose, and wished I was somewhere else.

There – or at least in the vicinity – to bear witness first-hand. I’ve tried to avoid making that mistake again. Five years later, heavily pregnant with my son, I stood on the Mall to watch the Queen go past in a Golden Coach for her Golden Jubilee and waved at Sir Cliff Richard on his Routemaster bus.

In 2012, for the Diamond Jubilee, I took both my children to see Her Majesty progress down the Thames on the Royal Barge, a tiny figure in the rain.

And just a few months ago, in June this year, I went with all my family to stand on the Mall to celebrate Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee. She was too frail to make the journey herself, but we waved at her all the same when she took to the balcony of Buckingham Palace, surrounded by a carefully hand-picked family coterie.

That’s when I discovered the handy book-in-advance parking spot at Stanmore, and the quick 30-minute journey to Westminster by Tube.

We’ll be packing the sandwiches and bottles of water again and wearing our comfiest shoes; Lizzie is deciding which funereal black items she will choose for her ‘mourning’ outfit.

I know that some of my friends think I’m mad, or that in middle age I’m turning into some kind of demented ‘Royalist’ who would actually be prepared to take a tent, wear a see-through cagoule and brush my teeth in the street. I have the greatest respect for people who feel so strongly that they are prepared to go that far.

In fact, I did mention the possibility of setting off on Sunday afternoon and pulling an all-nighter but Lizzie put her foot down.

I think she’s afraid a television reporter might decide to speak to us and broadcast her mother’s eccentricities to the world.

So given that I’m facing some opposition at home, and some of my friends consider it crackers, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what is that motivates my desire - and that of the hundreds of thousands who will join us - to go.

I accept first and foremost that the funeral of a monarch who has reigned for 70 years will be an absolute moment in history that will most likely never happen again.

It’s a cliché, I know, but I would like to be able to tell my grandchildren about it. I also know that as a journalist, I am motivated by a desire to be “in the room” as history happens, and to be able to speak and write about it afterwards with authenticity.

However, as I watch the sheer diversity of the crowds gathering to queue to pay their respects at Westminster, I’m also struck by the hunger to experience what is happening in real life.

I’m wondering whether this comes not only from mourning for all we have known, but if it has been heightened since we lived sequestered in our own homes during the Covid lockdowns.

No social media message or meme can replace what it feels like in a crowd, to be part of a communal surge. No-one will join in a spontaneous round of the National Anthem watching events unfold on Zoom, or strike up a conversation with people who’ve travelled from another country, or be blown away by the sheer noise of cannon fire and hooves.