Watching

This is something I practically never do. I never write about the same thing that everyone else is writing about. If there’s a massive thunderstorm and the whole world is talking about it, I’ll most likely be here prattling on about my ingrown toenail or why the cat isn’t currently talking to me.

That’s the norm, that’s the general rule-of-thumb.

But this old blog of mine has the loosest agenda in history, and it’s one of the reasons that it’s still chundering on, fourteen long years down the line. In my weekly bit I write about something that’s in my head in the particular week I’m writing. I don’t write them in advance, I don’t save them up. Whatever’s in my head goes on the screen. Unless it some current affair. Like I said already, I try to avoid that because everybody else will be doing it.

But this week... well, what can I tell you? It’s same thing in my head as seems to be in most everybody else’s so I figure I’d best jot something down about it, though heaven knows what that will turn out to be.

Yes, it’s about the queue. Actually, no, wait, it’s not actually about the queue. It’s about the end of the queue, the lying in state, the public file past. All the people, all the hours, all the days.

It’s like in that old song, ‘Uptown Up-Tempo Woman’ (no, I’m not trying to be funny, why would you think that?). The song says, ‘It started out in innocence, the way that most things do.’ And that's just what happened. I saw somewhere that the lying in state, all five days of it, was going to be live streamed on the Red Button on the BBC. A small techie voice in my head wondered if that would be available in Ireland so I went to the Red Button channel to see. We don’t get a Red Button per se over here any more but you can tune the channel in via the ‘add extra channels’ facility, if you know the frequency information (that’s enough tech stuff now, techie voice, just shut up). So, anyway, I went on the Red Button and there it was, a compelling setting to behold. A wondrous ancient room, a coffin draped in finery on a tall pedestal which doubtless has its own special name, and a collective of various guardsmen manning every corner of the sad centrepiece. Poised yet somehow in repose, all at the same time.

And then there was the people. Down the stairs they came, divided towards each side of the space, and then guided slowly, steadily, past the casket to perform their respectful obeisance of choice and then onward and back out of the room. A steady stream of people. Hours and days of them, on and on and on.

And, yeah, I got a bit caught up in it.

So, over the last four days, or whatever it’s been, I’ve watched quite a lot of the people filing-past on the Red Button channel. I’ve got pretty good at predicting who will salute, who will bow and who will stay a second-or-two longer than the norm, to make the moment last. I’ve got know the rhythm of the guards boots as they are called down the steps and up to the podium to replace their comrades. The dry pounding of the metal staff calling them, sending them back, and alerting them to come to attention. I’ve grown accustomed to the coughs, baby-cries, and shuffles as the people move past. I’m not a great royal person and neither am I any great fan of funerals, yet here I am, sprawled on the couch, watching the people go by. The intervals of guard changes run into each other and the time ticks away.

But why?

Why am I here, what on earth am I doing?

I don’t think it’s anything too sinister or anything to be concerned about. I’ve always liked slow TV and I’ve always liked live TV. There’s a ‘window on the world’ feeling to it and, even though the pictures are clearly on a two-minute delay (the guards start their change at two minutes past the hour on my telly) there’s still the clear impression that you are looking in on something that is happening right now.

Mostly, though, it’s the people that draw me. I just like looking at people, I guess. Old, young, rigid, loose, the grieved and the curious. On they come, the stream occasionally pausing but never really stopping. So many people. It’s hard not to look at them.

And I wonder why they have all come and, deep down, like the rest of us, I know, really, why it is. It’s a lot of different things for a lot of different people. It’s to pay respect and to say thanks, it’s to honour their own lost loved ones, it’s to be part of a vast and undeniable public acknowledgement of a lifetime of constancy. But, perhaps most of all, it’s history.

Most of us would like to be remembered but the fact of the matter is, we won’t be. My relatives of a hundred years ago are just elusive shadows now. I may know that Johnny was a pioneer electrician or that Edward went to War, but it is hard for us to leave an indelible mark behind. Love it or loath it, the upcoming funeral and, by extension, this queue will leave some mark on history. I think there is a drive in many of us to touch history, to become even the smallest part of it and, in doing so, become a piece of history itself.

Here's a silly example. Whenever Live Aid comes on the telly, I tell people that I was there. I don’t fool myself that it will go down very far in history but it is a moment that has proven to have some longevity and to have been there seems to put me in the world in some strange and intangible way.

The reasons to queue are many and personal and entirely valid in every case. We do what we do and the current fashion to sit back and berate people for being who they wish to be, just because it’s not being who we wish to be… well, I have to time for it. I might not ever be in the queue but I respect your drive to be there, whoever and whyever you are.

And I see you there, on my telly, with your green/black/blue scarf and your grey/blue/black jacket, doing your thing. And I salute you. And now that my salute is over, I can hear my wife’s footsteps coming slowly up the hall. I rise from my couch. It is time to change the guard.

I think I’ll have some tea.