The rest is silence

First, I'm going to apologise for posting more photos from the television. Not really my thing at all. But instead of being in the heart of London, or Windsor, I'm here, in silent Dunoon, and it seems daft to ignore the events that have consumed today. I've tried to select photos that show some of the things that struck me, though in fact the most memorable of them are not visual but the words and music that kept us glued to the telly for the whole morning and then later on catchup.

So: the gun carriage, and the wonderful discipline of the naval ratings drawing it - women, I was happy to see, as well as men. (You have to look hard to see which they are - the tightly fastened long hair gives them away) The vastness of Westminster Abbey, which always amazes. The sight of the progress passing Buckingham Palace; the placing of the symbols of power being laid on the altar in St George's Chapel Windsor. And, perhaps most of all, the pipes. The sound and sight of massed pipes at the beginning of the procession to the Abbey; the lone piper at the end of the Abbey service; the lone piper in the side aisle of St George's chapel at the end of that service. The military bands, the slow marches - they were wonderful, but in that setting and in the present circumstances the pipes were magnificent.

Being aficionados of liturgy and church music, we were particularly taken with the choirs. Lady F asked me last week what I'd thought of the music in St Giles; now I'd simply say "This was my kind of music, my kind of perfection, my kind of unanimity of sound." And didn't Lady Scotland read beautifully? 

And not, in fact, being a royalist, I'd nevertheless say that I wouldn't have missed any of this, and that the King has my absolute sympathy. He's only slightly younger than I am, and he's just taking on this daunting job. He's had a hell of a week. He must be exhausted. And I'm reassured by his Christian faith because of what it means. He's fortunate to have it. And he seems so much more decent than so many of our current leaders that I cannot wish for a republic, and so much to be preferred to the cheerful cynicism that seems to permit so much snide beastliness online. 

Oh - and I wouldn't have his job for anything.