Monarch’s police protection invited to chapel

ALL of the late Queen’s police protection officers have been invited to her committal service at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.

The service will take place at 4pm on Monday, after Queen Elizabeth’s state funeral at Westminster Abbey and before a private family burial at 7pm.

Dick Griffin, the late Queen’s personal protection officer from 1999 to 2013, said: “The lady who runs the private office contacted all of the Queen’s former police officers and invited us… asked if we’d be available to go. And the answer to that is obviously yes.”

Mr Griffin has reminisced about his time with the monarch, saying she was so nervous about watching Zara Phillips, her granddaughter, compete in the 2012 Olympic Games that instead, she took him on a picnic at Balmoral.

But the late Queen could not bear the suspense, and asked him to contact his team for the results. When they heard the news, “the Queen just grabbed me and we were dancing around in circles on this hill in Scotland”, he told Sky News. “That’s a memory that will stay with me for evermore.”

The committal service will be an intimate event attended only by those who knew the late Queen. The Royal family will be joined by members of the royal household, estate workers and the elderly military knights of Windsor.

Shortly before 7pm on Monday, close family members will hold a private interment ceremony at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, an annexe to the main chapel, where the late Queen’s parents were buried along with Princess Margaret’s ashes.