On Friday, the residents of Ballater gathered at Glenmuick Church for the remembrance service of a much-loved local woman, who died two years ago at the start of the Covid pandemic.
The small Aberdeenshire village “turned out” for the event, said Reverend David Barr, the church’s minister.
“It’s a very tight-knitted community,” he added.
The following morning, they turned out again to mark the passing of another neighbour – though, on Saturday, their numbers were swelled by visitors from across Scotland, the UK and the world.
‘A beacon of light in the darkest times’
The late Queen’s cortege was an event unlike any other in the history of the village of fewer than 1,500 residents, and it may never experience another like it again.
Because while many in Ballater saw the monarch as a familiar face who could occasionally be spotted enjoying a cup of tea in a local cafe, it was hard to ignore the enormity of the figure who was being commemorated.
Was this the woman who appeared on our television screens at 3pm every Christmas Day? Whose name was given to the world’s most famous clock tower at the Houses of Parliament? Who shook the hand of Martin McGuinness in that staggering 2011 act of reconciliation?
As the hearse passed the crowd of hundreds that had gathered, I rubbed my thumb against the surface of a pound coin in my pocket.
Outside the kirk at the centre of the village, bouquets of flowers had been piled high around a granite rock commemorating the monarch’s diamond jubilee, including one with a message from Michigan and another with an Australian flag attached.
“I am honoured to have lived under your reign,” read one note.
“You were a beacon of light and hope in the darkest of times,” read another.
International visitors mingle with locals
Visitors said they wanted to experience such a momentous event in a place that they knew meant a lot to the Queen, as one of the closest settlements to her home at Balmoral.
“We’d never been here before, although we’re just along the road,” said a woman named Dawn, who had come with her son Cole from Elgin.
“It’s nice to come and see where she enjoyed.”
When the Mercedes-Benz hearse turned onto the village’s Bridge Street on Sunday, the crowds were hushed into a respectful silence.
Aberdeenshire councillors and other local officials lined the road outside the Glenmuick Church, and two standards were lowered as the vehicle slowed to a walking pace and passed by.
The crowd looked at the coffin, draped in its own royal standard, and thought of two different people.
The global icon, a distant and inscrutable symbol of the United Kingdom who was famous for her ability to maintain a stiff upper lip and suppress any display of clear emotion in public.
And a much-loved local woman, who would take her dogs on walks through the nearby hills, and who died at home surrounded by family on Thursday afternoon.
GALLERY: Ballater bids a tearful final farewell to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
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