Has anyone been to the Lying In State and wished they hadn't bothered?

[Reallybadidea]

Just being nosey really. I'm not the most patient of people and can't imagine queuing for hours for anything. Has anyone been and found it a bit of a letdown once they got to the end (beginning?) of The Queue?

Myself and my sister were just saying the same about people seeming to not even stop to look at the actual coffin but they seemed to have their eyes focused to the end of the room. Not everyone obviously but plenty did seem to just stroll through. I absolutely cannot imagine queuing for this length of time to see a coffin and Im in Ireland where we are forever going to funerals

Perhaps not in London, but in 2019 78.4% of the population is white.

i think the camera is deceptive as it misses people bowing or curtseying and sees them afterwards
i just saw a man doing an elaborate pray, 3 times or more
i saw a man dressed in full native american outfit raising his arms in pray

i guess there are no rules, apart from no touching and no hanging around

I’d have loved to have gone but there are barely any trains from god forsaken Manchester.

@sunglassesonthetable haha you think people questioning it are 'joy suckers'? Tell me exactly what JOY do you get from queuing for hours and hours and hours x6 without a toilet break or food to see a dead woman's coffin. Don't you think getting joy from that is a little.....perverse?! Unfathomable!

The adverts are also 85% white - not complaining, just pointing this out x

You could have taken the 'poor bus'. Its for poor people.

Every single person in the queue knows how long it will take as they join. There are queues for the queue.

Indeed, as I understand it, there is The Queue, a 'holding area' (the queue for The Queue) and a queue for the holding area (the queue for the queue for The Queue).

People aren’t gawping, they have gone to pay their respects. Pretty much as if you’d go to a funeral, you aren’t gawping at the person being buried.
its amazing the people judging the people in the queue, when they are watching it on tv. Gawping and judging from the comfort of their sofas 🤦🏽‍♀️

Just to be pedantic there are toilets along the way and most people reporting good facilities.

oh, some nasty comments here

there are toilets enroute, and refreshments

Or, with any luck the Queue will eventually stretch back up the M6 to Manchester, so you can easily walk it to join the end.

I agree with this. I am astonished at the numbers of people going. I don't know anyone who did.

I don’t have a desire particularly to go and I’m not much of a royalist, but there is nothing wrong with doing something to feel part of a collective or because you have a sense of the history.
‘Herd mentality’ is a very perjorative way of phrasing it. We are social creatures so it’s no surprise that people are impacting by a societal ‘moment’.

From your posts @Purplefoxes it doesn't sound like you'll be joining the queue but in case you change your mind there are plenty of facilities - loos, drinks, food. No need to worry about that, someone has misinformed you

Its not for me, I simply dont have enough interest or physical ability, however Im astonished that people like you are astonished.

Have you never seen the news all your life, do you never see the news about funerals and wakes in other cultures and countries, its not that unusual and lots of cultures have an open casket type of lying in? Have you never seen state processions in other countries and the hordes of people viewing and queuing for that?

Its not really happened here because she has lived so long, so in my lifetime I havent seen it as she was already queen when I was born. My parents however have seen in (although by way of papers and the 'picture house') because of when the old king died.

haha you think people questioning it are 'joy suckers'? Tell me exactly what JOY do you get from queuing for hours and hours and hours x6 without a toilet break or food to see a dead woman's coffin. Don't you think getting joy from that is a little.....perverse?! Unfathomable!

HaHa I didn't go . And didn't want to. Not particularly Royalist.

But I'm not going to PUT DOWN other people for simply wanting and putting a lot of effort into something they want to do. Like I'm some sort of superior being because I wouldn't do it.

Actually I'm interested.

But the words I'm hearing are
Community, history, being part of something, Spiritual, ritual, once in a lifetime, meaningful.
Pay Respects.

If you don't get it you don't get it. 👍🏻

It's not about "seeing a coffin" Are you very young?

Just for the record there are loads of toilets and Dave Becks might buy you donuts. But hey ho.

Don't pass out on the joy.

Ok be pedantic all you like, great there are toilets I was wrong, but seriously still WHY WHY WHY ON GODS EARTH?! HOW is this a good use of anyone's time and money???! If you really wanted to pay your respects why not do something useful and donate to any one of the queen's favourite charities and benefit the still living whilst also honouring her??! If everyone had donated the price of their train ticket imagine the power of good that could have been rather than this sniveling display of sycophantic coffin watchers!

@bellac11

I’ve looked at getting the ‘poor bus’ when I have to go to that London next month. But my daughter has reliably informed me that I would provably end up killing someone.

@Purplefoxes you do you champ.

I went yesterday. Queued through the afternoon, evening and finally got into Westminster Hall in the early hours of this Morning. The queue is very long and feels boring at times but you do make friends with people around you - swapping life stories and anecdotes and sharing laughs. It was really cold at one point and I hadn't wrapped up warmly enough and spent a couple of hours wishing I had brought a bigger coat (that was my own fault). But ... as we travelled through the London landmarks and heard singing from groups of people along Southbank and saw footage of the Queen projected on the National Theatre, it sparked a smile on many peoples' faces; we moaned together about our achey legs and backs and bemoaned the weight of our backpacks but we all knew what the end goal was. And when we finally got there it really was something quite special, without a word of a lie. A sense of awe with being in the beautiful surroundings, surrounded by the guards and soldiers in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen. I cannot describe it. It was not a waste of time. Instead today I feel euphoric that I went - yes that is partly because this is history being made but also because of the feeling it gave me and others said the same.
I too have looked at people on the live stream, who approach the coffin and barely glance at it and I too am mystified by this; but I made sure that I paused for a moment, nodded my head, made the sign of the cross and did a small curtsy. I feel that I have paid my respects. If the queue was 3 hiours long I would have joined it again today. As it is, I cannot queue for that amount of time again. I certainly do not regret it for a moment though and am glad I went 😊

I was all set to go after work, had my snacks and warm jumper 😂

But when I saw it was a 24 hour wait...sanity returned.

I went home to my warm house and comfy bed and slept like a log.

No regrets!

Well dont sit on the fence, tell us what you actually think!!!!

Doubt it, people now flogging used wristbands on ebay

The woman who went round 7 times as though it was alton towers has had the last laugh