People from the north-east have made the journey to Edinburgh and queued for up to five hours to visit the Queen.
Thousands of mourners have been queueing across the capital to pay their respects to Her Majesty’s coffin – which has been resting in St Giles Cathedral since Monday.
More than 26,000 people have visited the coffin since.
At around 12.30pm on Tuesday, stewards stopped allowing people to join the queue due to fears they might not make it to the cathedral in time before it closes at 3pm.
People have been anxious to get in and pay their respects before the Queen leaves Scotland one last time.
‘I needed to say goodbye’
Helen Thomson, from Fettercairn, got on a train in Montrose at 6.20am on Tuesday morning and journeyed down in her Girlguiding uniform.
The 72-year-old, who was presented with her MBE honour by the Queen, felt she had to “say goodbye and thank you” to Her Majesty after her 70-year reign.
She came face-to-face with her at Holyroodhouse in 2012 when being honoured for services to Guiding, after spending 55 years in the Brownies.
Mrs Thomson said: “When I was presented with it, it was just so overwhelming. I decided that was something I had to try to enjoy and take in every moment.
“I can’t remember everything the Queen said, I was too busy thinking about doing the curtsey right. But she did say ‘You are with the brownies?’. And I said ‘yes ma’am, and it’s great fun’. She said ‘I’m sure it is.’
“So it’s a wonderful, wonderful memory. I will be thinking of my brownies as I pay my respects today.”
Despite travelling alone to the capital, it did not take her long to make friends.
She said: “I feel proud to have had her as our monarch.
“It just seems to be that people are people are happy to happy to chat to one another.”
Bringing people together
Another resident of the north-east who made the journey to the capital was 48-year-old Gary Hunt, from Aberdeen.
He left the Granite City at 12.30pm on Monday with his partner. They arrived in the Meadows in Edinburgh at 4.30pm and queued until 9.30pm to see the Queen’s coffin.
The pair didn’t get back to Aberdeen until 2am on Tuesday morning.
But Mr Hunt said: “I think against the backdrop of all sorts of horrible stuff happening in the country, in the world, whether it be spiraling inflation, or what’s happening in Ukraine, I think it demonstrated people can be unified and brought together.”
“I think people who didn’t think it’ll get particularly emotional ended up finding themselves becoming quite emotional, because of just being there and being caught up in the moment.”
Mr Hunt also said despite the queue being a long wait, they discussed the late monarch with people as they waited.
He said: “You ended up building up relationships and friendships and a rapport with people in the queue.
“And you did actually build up quite an emotional bond with people of all walks of life and of all generations, which was really interesting.”
One of the people Mr Hunt spoke to was a soldier in the artillery, who had sworn allegiance to the Queen. He was decorated with medals and had interesting stories.
A thread with pictures & video from the HUGE queue of people waiting to see #QueenElizabethII lying in state at St Giles in Edinburgh right now. First, obligatory time lapse walk along. pic.twitter.com/P9nFLwd7n3
— Frank (@Amadeus_IOM) September 12, 2022
And there was plenty of time for people to get chat. The queues were longest on the Monday evening, with some reports on social media saying people had been waiting up to 10 hours.
At 5pm on Tuesday, the Queen’s coffin will leave St Giles’ Cathedral bound for Edinburgh Airport, where it will leave Scotland for the last time.
Mr Hunt said: “It was very calm, very respectful, and the candles were burning.
“You can see the Royal Standard of Scotland floating a little bit in the breeze and there was a Scottish crown on top of the coffin.
“She was half Scottish at the end of the day.”
Conversation