Dear Reader

WHAT struck me outside Buckingham Palace yesterday was the number of people from overseas laying flowers and bowing their heads in respect for the Queen.

Black, Asian, Middle Eastern; Arabs and Jews; Christians, Muslims, Hindus; Americans, Australians, Japanese. One couple told me they were due to fly back to Canada today but felt compelled to stay longer.

Queen of the World sounds trite, but that doesn’t make it any less valid. She was more widely travelled than any leader of any era, visiting places such as New Zealand (pictured). Travel for many of us means holidays, a chance to let off steam. For the Queen, it was about meeting people on behalf of the nation, spreading goodwill and, in many cases, blazing a trail. She was a globetrotting sovereign.

In 1961, she became the first British monarch to visit India since her grandfather, George V, 50 years earlier and, despite the controversies of the Partition of India, more than a million people turned out to greet her in New Delhi.

Likewise, she was welcomed warmly on a state visit to Germany in 1965 — the first to that country by a member of the Royal Family since before World War I.

What also moved me was how many young people were walking slowly down Constitution Hill towards the Palace:

teenagers, mothers with babies, twenty and thirty-somethings on their way to work. No one had told them to be there.

During her long life, the Queen had the chance to see the world’s greatest sights. She peered up at great mountains and stood on the banks of great rivers.

Yesterday, a river of affection and gratitude was flowing through the country — and will continue to do so in the coming days. Most of us will never see the like of it again.