Mum travels from Swansea to pay her final respects

A SWANSEA woman was among the thousands who joined the constant procession of mourners continuing to make their way through Westminster Hall to pay their respects at the Queen’s lying in state.

Nurse Melanie Pickman,50, left her home in Swansea at 11am yesterday to join the back of the lying-in-state queue in Bermondsey, south-east London, at just before 3pm.

The mother-of-three said she was not put off by the hours in queues which lay ahead, even if her sons think she is a bit “mad” for doing it.

She said:”i have come from Swansea and my sons think I’m mad because I have come to London to stand in a queue which some people say could be 30 hours long.

“Last night I thought about it and I made the decision to come first thing this morning. I just thought that I needed to come.

“We will never see this again. She served our country for such a long time. We owe it to her to show our respects.

“Look at all these people who have shown up to queue - she has made them happy.

“She may be the Queen- but she is also somebody’s mum, aunty and granny.

“I just think she is part of us as well. We have been lucky to have her.

“I just did not want to regret it next week by not coming today.”

She expected to get back to Swansea in the early hours or to have to stay overnight in a hotel if it was too late. Members of the public who have queued for hours along the Thames are making their way down wide stone steps to file past the Queen’s coffin as it lies draped in the Royal Standard on a wooden frame in the centre of Westminster Hall.