A fitting goodbye...

I put the tv on this morning thinking I would have the Queen's funeral on in the background and dip in and out but as soon as I heard the pipes and drums my throat tightened and I was hooked.  The pipes always bring emotions to the surface.

It was a spectacular event and very moving.  No one in the world does pomp and circumstance like the Brits.  

Two things in particular stood out for me.  Firstly the young pallbearers.  What a massive responsibility, literally, on these young men's shoulders, and they carried out their duties perfectly.  My heart was in my mouth as they bore the Queen's coffin up the steps to St George's Chapel at Windsor but I needn't have worried.  They never put a foot wrong.

The second thing was a something the Archbishop of Canterbury said during his sermon in Westminster Abbey...

"People of loving service are rare in any walk of life. Leaders of loving service are still rarer. But in all cases those who serve will be loved and remembered when those who cling to power and privileges are forgotten.”


I don't think it takes Sherlock Holmes to work out to whom he is referring in that last sentence.