Britain says goodbye to The Queen Mum

You can shed tears that she is gone or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her and only that she's gone or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back or you can do what she'd want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother goes to her final resting place on Tuesday after a week of solemn pageantry and an unprecedented public show of mourning and support for Her Royal Family. The depth of public feeling for the lady Prince Charles once described as "an indomitable old warhorse" surprised Palace and perhaps the public themselves. It certainly shook those vociferously republican members of the press and Parliament who had expected and hoped for little public interest in her passing, deriding the pomp and pageantry of the week's events as meaningless nostalgia and royalist claptrap left over from a forgotten age.

Against all expectations the British public showed that they cared for the grand old lady of 101, remembered her appointment with greatness and her crucial role in rallying the nation against Nazi aggression. They have spoken with their feet, coming out in their thousands to line the procession route on Friday, pass through Westminster Hall and finally to be at Westminster for the funeral procession.

In death The Queen Mother has cemented a new bond between Queen and country. The Queen and Her family have reacted to the people's warmth and affection by tearing up the text books on correct protocol and coming out to mingle with mourners, share personal reminiscences with them and say Thank You to the people of Britain and Commonwealth for their support. First came Prince Andrewwith his daughters on Sunday. Monday saw Princess Anne and the Countess of Wessex mingling with the London crowd.

Britain showed their respect for their Queen Mum and support for the Queen in a manner that is quintessentially British. The queued. The queued for up to seven hours through night and day to pass through the portal into the Great Hall at Westminster where the Queen Mother's coffin lay. Watched by a smiling and relaxed London constabulary, the queue flowed like a tributary of the nearby Thames, snaking around the Palace of Westminster, doubling back upon itself and reaching a length of four miles. People came by road and rail from the furthest corners of England Scotland and Wales, from all walks of life and every age. For some of the older mourners the six hour queue and four mile walk must have been a severely challenging physical ordeal. The night watches have been bitterly cold with an icy wind blowing off the Thames and the St. John's Ambulance volunteers have been wonderful, pouring literally thousands of gallons of free hot tea for the frozen visitors as the queue moved slowly forward. By day however we have been blessed with spring weather that has been as sunny as the Queen Mother's memorable smile, and for some there was the Duke of York and his daughters the Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie there on Sunday and the Princess Royal and Sophie Countess of Wessex to personally thank them for coming. On the eve of the funeral people were still joining the 5 hour queue stretching from London's Waterloo Bridge to pass through Westminster Hall.

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