JANE FRYER'S verdict on St Paul's thanksgiving service

2022-09-09

Exquisite, soaring, poignant and so perfectly pitched… JANE FRYER’S verdict on the thanksgiving service in honour of the Queen at St Paul’s

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As a muffled tolling of a single bell sounds, the huge doors close, the last murmurs still and King Charles’s address is broadcast over the loudspeaker system, a wonderful calm floods St Paul’s Cathedral.

Where, for once, there are no silly frissons caused by family tensions. No Prince Andrew skulking behind a pillar. No murderous looks passed between the immaculately presented Cambridges and the swanky Sussexes. No royal great-grandchildren trying – and failing – to sit still.

Because this is not a service for the royals. Or civil dignitaries, or heads of state.

This is a service of Prayer and Reflection about the Queen for the public – teachers, taxi drivers, lawyers, care workers, dinner ladies, telesales workers and retirees – to celebrate their monarch. The constant in most of our lives.

Many have come straight from laying flowers outside Buckingham Palace. Others have taken the day off work. Some have called in sick.

All have queued since 11am to get one of the 2,000 free tickets and queued again later, and for hours, in snaking lines, around Wren’s masterpiece, as a piper started playing. ‘She reached us all, she led us, she inspired us, she’s part of us,’ says Fran Butcher from Kettering, Northamptonshire. ‘After all she’s done for us, we couldn’t not come.’

Susanna, 40, a student mentor originally from Naples and elegant in a black veil and dark, fitted suit, says: ‘It’s a loss like a member of my family. I am Italian, but I feel as if one of my relatives has died. I am just a normal person, but I needed to come.’

Of course, there are some familiar faces – including our new Prime Minister Liz Truss, sitting in the front row in a smart black dress – and a spattering of ministers and MPs. But somehow, they feel rather irrelevant. Because this is about the Queen, her subjects, her faith and music.

And oh, the music! Exquisite, soaring. Perfect, from the moment organists Martin Ford and Will Fox start playing.

Then there’s Liz Truss, reading simply and clearly, from Romans 14 – ‘We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves’ – and possibly wondering if anyone has ever had a more extraordinary first week in a new job

And so carefully chosen. Every piece selected to reflect the faith that was one of the Queen’s great constants. ‘All my hope on God is founded. He doth still my trust renew,’ we sing falteringly, eyes beginning to brim with tears, feeling deep sadness, but also pride and respect for a life lived so selflessly.

St Paul’s itself feels different, too. So often it provides the magnificent backdrop for royal weddings and Jubilees – the Platinum, just months ago. Bursting full of overblown pomp and liveried servicemen and, occasionally, even a joke or two.

Today there are no jokes. No trumpets or harps. No frills. And very little colour at all.

Instead, black ties galore, muted outfits, a flash or two of colour from those who had no time to go home to change after queueing for so long, and the odd hi-vis cycling jacket stuffed under chairs on the black and white checkerboard floor.

All listening quietly to St Paul’s Cathedral singing Behold, O God Our Defender.

But she isn’t the only newbie here. Andrew Tremlett, Dean Designate of St Paul’s Cathedral, only moved into the Deanery on Wednesday and had to attend an emergency meeting with the Bishop of London hours earlier so he could be licensed to conduct this service

‘It was the first time in the 33 years since I was ordained that I had to swear allegiance to the King,’ he says. ‘It was very, very poignant.’ But of course, it’s all poignant – poor King Charles talking about his ‘darling Mama’, the 2,000 members of the public who ditched their plans on the spot and queued for hours to be here paying their respects.

The condolence books carried from the altar to the back of the cathedral. An extraordinarily mournful lament by a solitary piper and the end of the great new Elizabethan Age, heralded by Clement Attlee all those years ago.

By the time we reach The Lord’s My Shepherd, emotions are running high. Not that there are any attention-seeking sobs that sometimes wash through moments of collective grief.

These are reflective and respectful tears that slide silently down cheeks of all ages, backgrounds and nationalities, as we sing on.

Until, finally, the national anthem – God Save The King – and the beginning of a new era.

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