The Queens last journey through her beloved Scotland

 

Subject: The Queens last journey through her beloved Scotland.

The overhead shots of the simple funeral cortège threading its way through the Scotish countryside carrying the body of the late queen, small groups of people standing together to see for the last time one of their neighbours on her way to London is being played out on our television screens. As the cars sweep by  they the neighbours will turn and return into their homes to reminisce on previous sightings, proud to know that's the lady who had lived in the big house, just up the road and the special place they had in her heart.

As the fields and trees give way to the outskirts of small towns and the people swell and recede , as the town gives way once more to to open countryside with the individual person guarding his entrance gate. From the bothy to clachen,  people stand, soberly by the side of the road, I wonder if there isn't a the loan piper or two amongst them sending her off with swirl or a dirge from his pipes.

I am quite a softy and fill up on the occasion of acknowledgment and remembrance which a crowd can bring. It's the gathering of the clan in this case but it can be the singing in the rugby stadium in Wales, it's the ordinary man and women who make me pause and realise that it's not all bad. It's not the massed bands or the pageantry as much as the simple tolerance and respect which ones 'ain folk' can bring to an occasion. That deep sense of remorse when someone loved passes away.

I remember when my father died and the funeral procession arrived near the church. The men, his workmates dressed in their working clothes (they had to go back to work) removed their caps as a symbol of respect. I choked at that point and never really recovered my composure until after the service was over.