On Monday, Queen Elizabeth II was finally buried in Windsor Castle after a weeklong tour from Scotland to London. It marked the end of a ten-day period of national mourning in which 250,000 people lined up to see the Queen lying in state in Westminster Abbey, creating a kind of Ultimate Boss of British queueing; brands scrambling to post the most #respectful tweet and Center Parcs rowing back on the decision to imprison holiday goers in their lodges in order to observe the funeral.
If you, like millions of people around the world, watched the televised funeral, you probably clocked the ridiculous pageantry, the spider on the coffin and the Very Tall Man (he’s the Queen’s former assistant private secretary, Matthew Magee). All very solemn, all very stately – the regalia of a thousand-year monarchy in full swing and adorned with the disputed jewels of its former colonies.
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What the cameras didn’t show is the public circus around it. Hundreds of thousands of people came to London to try to catch a glimpse of the funeral procession, waving selfie sticks and smartphone chargers and armed with limp brown bread sandwiches and fold-up camping chairs. If the state funeral offered one vision of Britain, the view from the ground presented another – one dressed up for the occasion in plastic-y Union Jack flags and themed OppoSuits, necking neat vodka because it’s “what she would have wanted and that”.
VICE photographer Chris Bethell was there to capture the scene.
