For the state funeral mourners, the endurance is part of the ritual

The queue snakes for miles along the South Bank. Thousands of ordinary people are giving up hours of their time to spend a moment with the Queen’s coffin as it lies in state. Few mourners are dressed up. One or two wear suits and black ties. Some carry flowers. There’s the odd veteran with his polished medals on display. Mostly they’re the type of people you’d see outside a Waitrose car park in a market town. No one jumps the queue, which would be easy to accomplish, but that’s not the point. A public display of endurance is part of the ritual.

Victoria Street is closed to traffic. Opposite the entrance to Westminster Abbey a huge platform is being built to give TV cameras a clear view of the cortege when it arrives on Monday. The atmosphere is quiet and tranquil. The cops, who are normally hostile and jumpy in Westminster, are relaxed and friendly to everyone. Few appear to be armed, which is unusual.

The keenest mourners have established a camp already. Yesterday afternoon there were three English women in their fifties and a Canadian who looked about 30.

Part of me expected them to show signs of mental instability but they’re straightforward suburban women who want to create a personal memory and participate in a shared act of bereavement. One wore a lilac jumper and a string of pearls. ‘Have you got a black outfit to change into?’ I asked. ‘No,’ she said, ‘just navy, I haven’t got anything black.’ She and her Canadian companion had met at the platinum jubilee a few months earlier and they’d teamed up again for the funeral. ‘It’s different this time. The jubilee was more of a party.’ They had no qualms about spending the night on the streets of London. ‘The police take such good care of us,’ said the Englishwoman. At the jubilee she’d made friends with a cop who minded her belongings during a loo-break. ‘I’m still in touch with him.’

The authorities have told them not to erect tents, ‘because that’s camping,’ one explained. They make do with foldaway chairs and sleeping bags. The police barrier is adorned with red plastic roses and a pair of Union Jacks (one of which has a scorch mark that looks like the result of a mishap with a candle.) While I was there I saw two TV crews and a radio journalist quizzing them about their vigil. Not far off I found a woman from Kerala who was scouting out the location. She was tempted to join the camp but ‘the cold winds’ had deterred her. ‘I’ll come back on Sunday,’ she said, not sounding entirely convinced by her plan.

The queue is headed by a pair of women from east London.

‘Are you jubilee junkies?’ I asked, ‘do you go to a lot of royal events?’

‘Not really,’ they shrugged.

‘Why this one?’

‘It’s the Queen!’ they pealed in unison. One of them predicted that Charles’s accession, which has gone smoothly so far, will make the monarchy stronger.

‘And the eyes of the world will be on this country for years to come,’ said a passer-by who had stopped to lean on the barrier and join in the conversation. We could have been chatting in a field in Norfolk.

‘Did you meet each other here?’ I asked the mourners.

‘We’re friends,’ said the older woman, ‘but we may not be by Monday.’

They’re equipped with bottled water and plenty of warm clothing. They don’t object to the ban on tents.

‘You’re first in the queue,’ I said to them, ‘so you’re officially the most devoted royalists in the country.’

‘No. In history,’ came the reply.