Death Of The Queen: Minute By Minute –  Hw

Seeing the photograph of the Queen that was taken just before the Prime Minister came into the room, she was she looking frail, but she was in good spirits and on good form.   She looks so thin. She looks so tiny. Her sort of face [  and her smile was so prominent because she was somehow so diminished.

She   was elderly and frail, but her eyes were twinkling and she had this wonderful beaming smile on her face   as though she was enjoying this.   People began to look and go, “Oh gosh, there really has been a decline since we  ] last saw her.” But the story [  moves on.

She was already very frail and this was exceptionally demanding. Suddenly the news came that the Privy Council,   which would be a regular meeting of the Queen and the Privy Councilors to talk about the business of government that  particularly related to the monarch, that wouldn’t be held at all. She’d also canceled a Privy Council meeting, which was most   unlike her.

And because the Queen had been so healthy for so many years, >> >> in recent months the Queen has taken on fewer commitments. The Queen’s engagement have been cut right back. She went to the Chelsea Flower Show, she opened the Elizabeth Line. >> [applause] >> And it was obvious she was very frail. You saw a situation where every time the Queen attended an event, a member of her family was with her.

I think the Queen probably always hated letting people down. >> [cheering] >> But one thing she was determined to do, of course, was make sure she was on show for her Platinum Jubilee celebrations, but it took a lot out of her. The palace alluded to mobility problems, which were obvious, and back problems.

There’s been speculation about, you know, was it more serious than that? >> >> There’s lots of signs that there is something wrong and an underlying condition, but she was very eager, I think, to keep that private. So her next target, really, was to get to her beloved Scotland. Uh Balmoral means so much to her. It always has.

And she was determined to get up there. And she wanted to try and do the kind of things that she had always done, which was go out, attend picnics in the heather, and so forth. Balmoral in Aberdeenshire, the 50,000-acre estate is the Queen’s summer residence and thought to be her favorite place. A royal residence since 1852, it was bought for Queen Victoria by Prince Albert.

That decision to to spend that summer in Balmoral was very, very telling. Balmoral was her happy place. She called it, you know, a sort of piece of paradise in in the Highlands of Scotland. >> They spent every summer there and it was very much a place of family, of relaxation, and retreat.

I think it was there that she really wasn’t a queen. >> Typically, she was wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, and [snorts and music] she adored it. And one of the things that she particularly liked at Balmoral, she knew that she would be in the same bed for 2 or 3 months. She loved all the pursuits.

You had the fishing, the deer stalking, >> >> riding in her Land Rover. >> >> In the summer of 2022, the Queen’s family are concerned for her health and never far from her side. The family knew that she was approaching the end and there was an arrangement that her children in rotation would be there over that summer.

Princess Royal and Tim Laurence had been in residence for a week or so. By early September, so too are Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. But on the night of the 7th, they’re 160 miles away. Charles and Camilla, who’ve been staying on the Balmoral estate at Birkhall, have gone down to Dumfries House in Ayrshire for for a fundraising dinner.

That same night of the 7th of September, >> >> the rest of the Queen’s family are in England. Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, are visiting from America. William and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, are at Adelaide Cottage in Windsor. They’d moved home from London to Windsor.

Their children were starting a new chapter in their lives. They were all going to go to a new local school. Welcome George. Welcome to Lambrook. Play Louis, welcome. And welcome Charlotte. Lovely to have you with with us. Good morning. Liz Truss has been the Prime Minister for less than 48 hours, but her energy plan is expected to have a big impact.

A meeting of the Privy Council has been postponed and the Queen has been advised to rest by doctors. Now for sport headlines, it was a night to forget for both Rangers and Liverpool. So we knew it was going to be a big political day, but there was some kind of straws in the wind that all is not particularly well at Balmoral.

>> There was a briefing taking place at Windsor Castle, which was about this so-called London Bridge, the procedure for the Queen’s death. And that briefing suddenly ended. >> We are hearing from the palace that the Queen’s health is deteriorating. Now, at this stage, the people I was speaking to were very clear to say, you know, all of this is off the record.

Early on the 8th of September at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, the Queen’s medical team are called to her bedside. The news is deeply concerning. There was a phone call put through from Balmoral Castle that the Queen’s condition had worsened and the Prince should hurry to his mother’s bedside. I think the point is that it was already a very serious news story.

When it happens, it will be entirely different. It will not be as we planned it. Thursday, the 8th of September, started just like any normal day. I had a meeting with my team. We picked the news stories we were going to cover on the show. >> I’m pretty sure that day I actually had a day off.

There were no big royal story planned. I think I was out shopping. I was doing my normal thing. I was hosting a big meeting with staff in my in my job at City University. Barely 48 hours into her premiership, Prime Minister Liz Truss faces a challenging day. The cost of crisis has rumbled on through the summer and now as we approach autumn, action is finally being taken.

Dealing with rising energy bills is top of the agenda for the new Prime Minister and a solution won’t come cheap. The Queen has been in residence at Balmoral since the end of July and in high spirits. I discovered a little bit about the very last weekend and she’d had a a house party of her Bowes-Lyon cousins. The Bowes-Lyons, of course, were the Queen Mother’s family and she’s always been extremely close to them.

The Moderator of the Church of Scotland was a house guest suddenly and they had very lively discussions. There had been some concessions, if you like, to with the tradition of having a piper play at supper and she told the ladies and the gentlemen that they didn’t need to dress >> >> particularly for dinner. I thought that was quite significant.

She wanted to to do as much as she can as normal, but even she realized it was it was going to be too exhausting to go through all those multiple changes of costume that she used used to do. She was determined to carry on to the end in this beloved place surrounded by the familiar landscape and by by her family.

But on the morning of the 8th of September, the Queen’s inner circle raise concerns for her well-being. I think that when her maid went in to open the curtains to see if she had a comfortable night, there was something about the Queen’s demeanor that wasn’t right. But there was enough concern for a helicopter was sent to collect the Prince of Wales to fly him up to Balmoral.

The former President Bush’s daughter, Jenna, is about to interview the Duchess of Cornwall and suddenly that’s called off. And then they look out of the window and the helicopter is seen with with the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall leaving. >> In Westminster, the cabinet secretary Simon Case informs Liz Truss that the Queen is seriously ill.

The lines of communication in good times and in bad obviously are very important. From what we know about behind the scenes of course is that Simon Case who was the uh uh the private secretary to to the cabinet he would have been in touch with Sir Edward Young, the Queen’s private secretary.

That is the sort of the chain of command if you like when something like this happens. They run how the head of state relates to the head of government and and and so on. So they would have been in minutes-by-minute contact on that day. Put yourself in the position of of Liz Truss. She’s been Prime Minister for 2 days and she gets a briefing from her cabinet secretary to say that Her Majesty the Queen is gravely ill.

I dread to think what that feeling is like because she’s then got to go about her normal business. She goes into the House of Commons for a really important debate knowing full well that something huge is probably about to happen. A plan has been in place for the death of the Queen since the 1960s code named London Bridge.

The British monarchy is very practical and it always keeps the funerals for significant members of that family ready and because there is a plan, it is regularly looked at and revised. I think I’ve been aware of plans around the Queen’s death since I first started working in broadcasting. On occasions like this you get I think uh a fascinating insight into royal protocol and the way things are so carefully planned.

Each member was named after a certain bridge. So the Queen Mother for example was the Tay Bridge. Prince of Wales at the time was Menai Bridge. And when it came to Her Majesty the Queen that was London Bridge. The Queen’s death, London Bridge, was always going to be an immense event partly because of how long she’d been on the throne.

London Bridge, you know, began planning decades ago. >> And the Queen will have overseen all of that. London Bridge is the living breathing plan that have iterated over the decades as technology has changed and as the personnel involved have changed and also as the Queen and her family’s wishes changed over the years as well.

Alongside London Bridge is a plan dealing with the Queen’s possible death in Scotland code named Operation Unicorn. The Queen had arrived any weeks before and with her being a little more frail the possibility of her dying in Scotland was deemed to be high enough to make sure that everything was tuned perfectly.

And in the build-up to the Queen’s final visit to Balmoral the Garrison Sergeant Major went >> >> to work with the gamekeepers who the Queen had asked would carry her if she died at Balmoral and they formed her first bearer party. These are men who she knew very well. >> >> At Westminster it’s business as usual.

This will help us build a stronger, more resilient, a more secure United Kingdom. I commend this motion to the house. >> [cheering] >> I now come to leader of the opposition, Keir Starmer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker and can I thank the Prime Minister for advance sight of her opening speech. Politics had been in a total frenzy, you know, and all attention was on the Commons. It was a full house.

Yesterday the Prime Minister tried desperately to blame Labour. Keir Starmer was responding to the statement by the government. >> The first hint really came in Parliament that day, didn’t it? When the news went down both the front benches and Nadhim Zahawi is whispering into the the ear of the Prime Minister.

Spot on. But then there was a note that was passed down from Angela Rayner to Rachel Reeves who was sitting next to Keir Starmer who was standing up responding. You could see on the Labour front benches and they’d obviously read it. Do we stop him? What we learned at subsequently was out of shot was Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the Commons wildly gesticulating at um Angela Rayner to try to get her to get Starmer to wind up because the note said Starmer had to leave the chamber to be briefed >> >> on the Queen’s condition.

As the lunchtime news bulletins go to air Buckingham Palace makes its first announcement on the Queen’s condition. Following further evaluation this morning the Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision. The Queen remains comfortable and at Balmoral.

Parliament responds immediately. Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, then stood up and made that announcement. >> I know I speak on behalf of the entire house when I say that we send our best best wishes to Her Majesty the Queen and that she and the royal family are in our thoughts and prayers at this moment.

So that was a really big moment because then suddenly all the politicians, the world of politics now that stopped and all eyes were on Balmoral. And it was that statement that had set the alarm bells ringing. We know that there could be more below the surface and so you know we have people who make calls, who know people, who do know things.

Who were saying is this serious? The reply came back quite clearly that it was. From that moment in my world of news and current affairs everything changed profoundly. We obviously abandoned all our plans for the program that we were going to do and instead planned a program around this very serious impending news. And then there began to be a series of tweets from the Prime Minister, the leader of the opposition to Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland.

All people saying thoughts with the Queen and the royal family. In the House of Commons Liz Truss said the whole country will be deeply concerned and the Archbishop of Canterbury says the prayers of the nation are with the Queen. I walked into the newsroom at about 12:30 just after the statement had dropped about her medical condition and I saw one of our royal producers standing surrounded by a bunch of other journalists and she looked ashen-faced.

And as I walked up she said concerned, that’s a terrible word in palace speak. Obviously after that statement we royal correspondents were all asking them for more information and it was just radio silence which is another sign, another alarm bell ringing there. I was at home when this rather strange announcement came from the palace.

Being the old hack that I am um my office is just beside Westminster so not too very far from Buckingham Palace. So I self-deployed to Green Park wearing a black suit, a white shirt and a dark tie with a black tie in my back pocket. And I think at that point I knew that this was going to be the day that we needed to put our plans into action.

And they said how quickly can you get to Buckingham Palace? And I said well 12, 13 seconds. It becomes a human story at that point. Are you going to get there at the end or not? When we heard that the family were flying up to Balmoral it was very clear what the significance of this was. >> >> The Queen is placed under medical supervision after her doctors became concerned for her health.

I think the point is that it was already a very serious news story by the time that we got that statement. So there really wasn’t any question about whether we’d start deploying people, we obviously would. >> I had a bag packed in my office and had had for quite a few months just in case the Queen died.

Behind the scenes obviously there was a lot of concern and there was a feeling that it was probably going to be better to be safe than sorry. And I remember going back to my office and phoning ITN and saying should I come in? And they were like are you nearby? Yeah, I think you should probably come in. I got the call then from my office um when I was actually walking through Green Park on the way to my office but past Buckingham Palace.

And they said how quickly can you get to Buckingham Palace? And I said well 12, 13 seconds. From the moment that the palace put out that statement everybody realized that this was incredibly serious. BBC One fades out its regular daytime schedule. Bargain Hunt is a hugely popular daytime show.

So, it just showed the magnitude and importance of this that they pulled out so abruptly and went straight to rolling news. And then we learned that Prince William is on his way to Balmoral, but we know that he hasn’t left yet. So, nobody at this point is quite sure who’s traveling with whom or exactly when. Buckingham Palace says the 96-year-old remains comfortable.

Prince Charles and Camilla, who were staying on the estate, have traveled to be with the Queen. And the Duke of Cambridge is also on his way. Prince Charles and Camilla were in Scotland already. They made it to Balmoral. Princess Anne was there. But for the rest of the family to get there was going to be a race against time.

The news was obviously grim. As Charles often does at moments of intense personal sadness and grief, he took himself off for a walk across the moors and through the forest around Birkhall. His royal bodyguards didn’t go with him. They knew where he was because at some stage there was a phone call put through from Balmoral Castle to Birkhall that the Queen’s condition had worsened.

And the prince should hurry to his mother’s bedside. So, they found him and they drove him the short distance back to the castle. >> >> Meanwhile, government officials prepare to deploy London Bridge, the plan for the monarch’s death. I was always conscious that one day, and it could be very suddenly, it would come into operation.

Jim Babington has spent 15 years writing guidelines to align local authorities with London Bridge. So, consequently, yeah, I ended up carrying my papers with me wherever I was going. Almost if there was a weekend away, if it was a holiday, my little green messenger bag would come with the file in it, with the laptop in it, ready to go.

In terms of preparations for a royal death, a senior a senior royal, well, I personally have been rehearsing for such eventualities for for 30 years. >> I don’t know how many rehearsals I’ve been a part of since 1988, but when we were doing them for TV, obviously we weren’t broadcasting them, but if I was outside Buckingham Palace, we would only talk about Mrs. Robinson.

We wouldn’t talk about the Queen. And you would have to I stand there with rehearsal written on my notepad. So, just in case anybody back at base saw it and didn’t know what was going on, they >> >> knew it was just a rehearsal. And I would always say at the end of those rehearsals, you do them in a studio with, you know, auto cue, computers, wire services, I would always say, “When it happens, cuz it is when, not if, when it happens, >> >> it will be entirely different to this.

It will not be as we planned it.” How right I was. Well, look, I think all we can say, and Buckingham Palace, you know, how often have we repeated this, never give us a running commentary on the Queen’s health. But I think what we can say today is they wouldn’t have issued this statement, they wouldn’t have told news outlets to report this had it not been very serious.

When I got home and turned on the BBC, the BBC news set seemed already to have gone to its emergency setting, and the newsreader was already wearing black. There was a growing sense as as the media picked this story up, as broadcasters switched into black tie, I think there was a sense of what was happening. At Frogmore Cottage in Windsor, Prince Harry receives a call from his father.

Harry, we know, according to his memoir, had tried to make contact with William, and William hadn’t responded. A Dassault Falcon 900 jet, one of two reserved for royal use, is scheduled to depart from RAF Northolt in 20 minutes. The destination, Aberdeen Airport, 45 miles from the Balmoral estate.

It was significant >> >> that William was going alone. Kate was not going, and the explanation for that was >> >> their children had just started a new school, almost the first or second day, she needed to be there for them. And also the inference was that this was going to be a very tight family circle.

The distances involved, with the Queen being in Scotland and other members of the royal family around the country, must have put huge pressures on those individuals. >> When we heard that the family were flying up to Balmoral, to my mind, it was very clear what the significance of this was.

We had a serious health scare for the country’s monarch. Flight number KRF23R, the private royal family jet to Aberdeen, is held on the runway and misses its planned takeoff time. A royal flight was scheduled to leave, we were told, at 1:30, but it actually left later. Were they hanging on the ground for other members of the family to arrive? Harry and Meghan announce they will fly together to Scotland.

It is unclear if they will join the jet waiting at RAF Northolt. The great mystery still is Prince Harry, why he wasn’t on that flight, and why he had to make his own arrangements. There was a a lot of so-called Kremlinology, i.e., who’s there and who’s not. [clears throat] And what does that tell us? Dermot Murnaghan is the first journalist to arrive at Buckingham Palace.

So, I just went there, and at Canada Gate, where the crews normally set up, there was no one there. Nothing was really going on, but I just out of precaution, I just went and leant like that on the balustrade, and it’s like a Californian gold rush, staked out prime position there. I got the call again saying, “Stay where you are. The camera crew are coming.

” And my crew got there, and off we went. A very good afternoon. This is Sky News live from Buckingham Palace, which says that Her Majesty the Queen is under medical supervision after her doctors became concerned about her health. >> It was just me, a camera, a producer, and tourists milling around.

And, you know, as they heard us talking about it, we were gathering a kind of respectful audience, and I could hear people kind of saying to each other, “It’s about the Queen.” The royal flight finally takes off from RAF Northolt in West London. It has been delayed by 69 minutes. There is space for 14 passengers, but not all the seats are filled.

Unknown to the wider world, Princes William, Andrew, and Edward are on board with Edward’s wife, Sophie. >> >> They are due to arrive at Aberdeen Airport at 3:50 p.m. But the big thing that just sticks in my mind of that is the fact that they were going. There were plenty of occasions in the past few years when Her Majesty was said to be ill, and they didn’t move.

It becomes a human story at that point about are you going to get there to see your mother, mother-in-law, grandmother at the end or not? >> >> I didn’t know definitively, but as far as I was concerned, it was all stations go, and that we should be ready for an announcement at some point in the coming hours.

And I think that must have been just sick-making, really, that sense of I wish we could get there quicker. And in that sense, they may be royals, you know, but they’re just like everybody else. As the royal family race to the Queen’s bedside, where is Prince Harry? There seems to be no offer to get him on this royal flight.

So, Harry has to make his own arrangements, and he books a private jet. And the world waits for more news. And then there was going to be an announcement at 6:00, but nothing. And then people have thought, “Well, actually, are they waiting until Harry arrives?” Following further evaluation this morning, the Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision.

The Queen remains comfortable and at Balmoral. By mid-afternoon, all we really know is that Prince Charles and the Princess Royal, Princess Anne, are ready at Balmoral, we assume, at their mother’s side. We don’t really know who else is traveling or exactly when. It’s only later that day that we find out that Harry didn’t fly with the rest of his family.

A second call is made by Charles to his son, at which he suggests suggests, maybe that’s not strong enough, tells Harry that his wife is not to come, just him alone. Again, we have to refer to Harry’s book, there’s been no official confirmation of this. Harry, we think, protests about this, and Charles says, “Well, Kate’s not going.

We don’t want to make it too much of a of a big fuss.” I suspect, you know, hurdles were were put in his way. I think there were discussions about Meghan Markle and you know, whether she should be involved. There are no imminent commercial flights to Aberdeen. There seems to be no offer to get him on this royal flight that’s going out from RAF Northolt.

So, Harry has to make his own arrangements, and he books a private jet out of Luton Airport. For citizens across the UK, the reality dawns that the country hasn’t faced a crisis like the death of a monarch in 70 years. Only those in their late 70s and older would remember what happened >> >> and how to act. The death of the king, that was a shock in 1952.

Now we know that very sadly he died from cancer. At the time though, that wasn’t even referred to. People haven’t been told what was really going on. Not only did the public not know about the cancer, most of his family didn’t either. He hadn’t been on the throne very long. He come to the throne because his brother had abandoned it in 1936.

He had been a reluctant king if you like and quite possibly being king had cut short his life and certainly that was the view of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. He had been pictured at the airport the previous week before his death waving off his daughter Elizabeth and her husband to >> >> step into his shoes and go on tour for him.

They knew her father was ill but they had an expectation that he had 10 more years and that they had 10 years before the responsibilities of monarchy were going to descend on her young shoulders. But that was the image. I mean it’s quite now of course quite a poignant one him waving off his daughter >> >> Elizabeth, princess at that point was in Kenya when the news broke of her father’s death and >> >> reports describe how Prince Philip broke the news to her.

She was going to have to abandon everything she had set her young heart and dreams on raising Charles and Anne as they’re the only two children they had at that time. Being an officer’s wife, that was all going to come crashing down and come to an end. All of us here know that we are present at a making of history. I’ve always felt that for her as queen the one thing that mattered to her more than anything was that as far as her father King George the VI was concerned that she would have done a good job.

I am convinced that her father would have been desperately proud of what she’d done. At Balmoral Castle in Scotland the Queen’s health takes a drastic turn. I think we all know lots of elderly people hang on for a significant anniversary or date or Christmas or New Year and then let go. And the Queen had that date of appointing a new Prime Minister in her diary for 2 months and I’m convinced that she hung on for that date because it was so quick after she had done her duty her final duty.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the II dies. >> >> Prince Charles and Princess Anne are at their mother’s bedside. Princes William, Andrew and Edward and his wife Sophie are in the air 51,000 ft above northern England. Prince Harry is at Frogmore Cottage, Windsor. We now know that Her Majesty died at 10:03 in the afternoon.

We’re simply being told >> >> Her Majesty is receiving medical attention and this goes on for some hours and it’s extraordinary the way in which this huge news was handled. >> One key comes to four. I was told to be ready for a significant announcement from about 3:00 and and that’s all that would be said to me over the airwaves because you know they’re not entirely secure but we knew but obviously we were never going to go down that route announcing Her Majesty’s passing until we had the

official announcement. Good afternoon. We are interrupting programs to bring you the latest on the health of the Queen. A statement released earlier today said that doctors had become concerned for her health and that she had been placed under medical supervision. So you’re broadcasting very solemnly >> >> and yet as far as everybody knew Her Majesty the Queen was still alive.

It was very very strange. It was very eerie. The rest of the public were simply waiting waiting to find out. We had the the television on. We were all kind of glued to what was happening at this point and and there was no sort of rolling news. But yes, it is I think alarming and concerning that they have decided to tell us today that they are particularly concerned about her medical condition.

As you will probably not be surprised to hear we don’t know what that involves. There was a real feeling of this kind of a subdued tone. That is fairly common for members of the royal family not to tell us more details than they have to. The royal flight arrives at Aberdeen. Even the BBC presenting team are uncertain which members of the family are on board.

Prime Minister Liz Truss is informed that London Bridge is down. The Queen has died. At Downing Street her team set to work writing her tribute speech. They sit on the floor as Boris Johnson’s furniture is yet to be replaced. There was a delay in announcing the death of the Queen and that’s because there’s a sort of cascade list of people who need to know and who takes priority.

The palace prepared a very clear communications plan. The first person who the private secretary would inform would be the late Queen’s Prime Minister and the process of informing the Prime Ministers and the Governors General of other realms was It’s not just one Prime Minister who needs to know, it’s 15 Prime Ministers.

The Queen was Queen of 15 countries. They are the Commonwealth realms. Some are in some of those countries it was the middle of the night but those Prime Ministers had to be informed so that accounts for some of the delay. The guidance we’d given had always said don’t look at any speculation on social media because there have been many occasions over the years when people have phoned me up to say do you know the Queen’s dying or do you know the Duke of Edinburgh’s dying which always ended up being false alarms. So it was very much wait for the

official announcement and then we interact. You have to wait for that official confirmation from the palace and until you get that you say nothing even though you know you are potentially seconds away from perhaps the biggest story you will ever cover in your entire life. Good evening. We come on air tonight with uncertainty and concern and that’s why the program might feel a little different this evening.

It was announced at lunchtime today that Her Majesty the Queen is under medical supervision at Balmoral Castle. This is after doctors became concerned for her health. By a social media a Sussex insider confirms that Meghan is not traveling with Harry. >> >> Princes William, Andrew, Edward and his wife Sophie arrive at Balmoral. They know they are too late.

>> >> You want to be there to say goodbye if you really can. >> >> You know my own experience for people who miss the death of a of a loved one it’s something which can prey on your mind for a very long time. For my own mother I was just a 30 minutes too late and I know from first hand experience just how absolutely awful it is to get there knowing that you were just that little bit too late.

Huge sympathy for them that they missed her passing. Prince Harry’s private rented jet takes off from Luton Airport. He still doesn’t know his grandmother has died. There was a lot of attention that day on how various members of the royal family got to Balmoral and who was there at what time. Public and media await further updates.

And there was going to be announcement at 6:00 but nothing and then people thought well actually are they waiting until Harry arrives? Well surely they wouldn’t release any statement that the Queen had died before Harry had arrived. The editor that day came through on talk bank in my ear and and told me that he’d had confirmation that the Queen had actually died.

But the palace weren’t ready to release the statement yet but it was coming. But that’s the moment when >> >> the rubber hits the road. You are going to have to say those words which the audience know are coming but are still dreading. >> >> We’re just looking at the gates of Balmoral once again.

These are a live pictures. We heard that news a little bit earlier on today that doctors are concerned about her health. I was told the significant announcement is going to come up on auto cue. Just read it. I think we’re going to pictures of Her Majesty the Queen so I knew that was an opportunity as well to to change my tie.

Put a black tie. So, I had a lot in my mind and they just said, “Right, go with it. Go with the statement.” And then, it was just before half past six that the news spread out where I was waiting that announcement was going to be made. And I’m afraid to say in the last few moments, the following statement has been released.

The Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. The [snorts] King and the Queen consort will remain at Balmoral this evening and will return to London tomorrow. And it’s a very solemn, somber moment. We’ve all been rehearsing for it. We knew it would come, but when it actually comes, I think you can see it’s a big moment and a very sad moment.

I remember the range of emotions in the newsroom. And I was, you know, these are seasoned journalists. There was gulps of, “Oh my god.” There was and then silence for a second and then I remember a few people started crying. I burst into tears and I was not expecting that reaction.

I felt in that moment just the enormity of what her passing would signify and I think I just felt this, like what’s going to come next. I remember being sat in the studio, red light on the camera, and you were on air at the time and I saw a notification on my phone that said there was a statement from the palace. And I knew that was the moment.

And then, the editor that day said, “The news has been confirmed. You can announce it now.” I know that people are joining us all the time and I know that this news is particularly significant, the sad news of the death of Her Majesty the Queen, confirmed by Buckingham Palace in the last few moments.

The Queen has died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon. My feeling is always that I’m a human. You know, this is hard for me to say it as it is for you to listen to it. So, be normal about it. But, how do I tell you in the kindest way possible? How do you tell a family member that someone that you both love has died? Because that’s how significant the Queen was in all of our lives.

I knew to be to be ready. So, I looked at it and I thought, “This is very important. You’ve been doing this for nearly 40 years. You know, don’t mess it up.” So, look into the camera and read out loud. How hard can that be? Well, as it turned out, the rain or something had got into the autocue. It froze. We have some very important news.

Buckingham Palace has just announced that Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has died. She was 96 years old. Queen died So, in my head, I paused and and I’ve seen it on the tape. I just paused and but as you naturally would at and I thought in my head, it’s either the place or the time. Fill in the blanks.

Queen died just a few moments ago, the announcement at Balmoral. She was the longest reigning monarch in British history. There was a bit of a crowd around us of of tourists and onlookers and um there was an audible gasp when I made the announcement. >> Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has died. And it just kind of hit me all the more that this was, you know, an emotional event as much as it was historical and political.

You know, people were feeling it, you know, there in in their guts. Exactly a week before, 1st of September, we’d just said goodbye to to my mother. It’d been her funeral and I read the eulogy there and I just felt I just, you know, for a moment I just thought, “Oh my goodness me. You know, this is kind of, you know, the the mother of the nation.

Um how must everyone be feeling?” But then you, you know, then your professionalism kicks in. So, you read the statement. We play the national anthem. And you read it again. It doesn’t need any more analysis, you know, a very much loved and and and very old woman has has has passed away. While the news sinks in, officials are busy putting their plans into action.

I remember hearing the news and pausing for a moment thinking, “Oh help, you know, I’m I’m not quite sure I’m I’m ready for this yet.” Despite all those years of planning. News of the Queen’s death has just been announced. All government and civic buildings have 10 minutes to lower their flags to half-mast.

Imagery is really powerful, isn’t it? And I think for many of us, when you actually see those pictures, even though you know it’s going to happen, but you see those pictures of the flag being lowered and you understand exactly what that means. That’s when it really hits home. That’s when you know she’s gone. And I know that people are joining us all the time and I know that this news is particularly significant.

The reign of Elizabeth II now comes to an end. Her eldest son, Charles, is officially now king. A sense of urgency grips the nation coupled with a desire to know more details that stretches way beyond British borders. I had had so many phone calls and emails. People from around the world, “Can we talk to you? Can we talk to you?” News agencies.

I mean, just so many. I couldn’t process it all. And my phone kept ringing. They wanted information. You know, I mean, not salacious information, but just information. Who’s going where? When’s the funeral? How’s it going to happen? You know, what happened up to that point? Where’s Harry? You know, where’s Meghan? I was probably getting 60, 70 calls a day.

You know, from places that you hadn’t even heard of in the world. A huge number. But, I remember that evening just completely buzzing and feeling disorientated by just the sense of history. The news of the Queen’s death echoes around the world. Her Majesty died at her home in the Scottish Highlands aged 96.

There was something really quite moving about it. This was a moment that was being shared around the world. The Queen was such a dominant factor on the world stage and yet >> >> she did it by just being there. It was clear to everybody from those international tributes that she actually was a great and remarkable person.

Minutes before our own Prime Minister makes a statement, world leaders rush to pay tribute. In the immediate aftermath of the death of the Queen, there’s that moment where various world leaders who she meant a lot to are then paying their tributes. I remember the Canadian Prime Minister was one of the first.

>> >> I’m having trouble believing that my last sit-down with her was my last. To you, she was your Queen. To us, she was the Queen. To us all, she would be with us forever. On occasions like that, the ability to find the right words at the right time which really hit home, but also capture everything about the occasion is so difficult to do.

President Macron was was very impressive >> >> in what he said. Britain and France had a difficult relationship, not least in the years since Brexit. He spoke movingly. And yet, to me, the most powerful of all the messages that came were those we saw from people on the streets, from youngsters who just happened to pass, who were probably grasping for the first time with the death of someone they knew.

Yes, I know she wasn’t related, but she was in most people’s families. >> >> Queen has passed away. >> Oh my god. You’ve got to be joking. Well, it’s sad loss. She’s been amazing. >> We are tourists, so and we didn’t expect to hear the news while we were here in front of the Buckingham Palace. Buckingham Palace has been one of those locations where people just flock to.

People were just coming together and some of them were standing in silence. Some of them were sharing memories and sharing stories. That is an indication of what the Queen had done her entire life. At the very heart of what she wanted to do was bring the nation together. She did it in her life and she also did it in her death.

>> >> One other thing that really, really got to me was within 10, 15 minutes of the announcement of Her Majesty’s passing, a big crowd had gathered by then and they started singing the national anthem. The words came floating across to me, “God save the King.” >> [singing] >> It just sounded so strange.

Yes, you know, she’s gone and that’s when it really hit home. I always thought actually it was going to be a big psychological moment, collective moment that than people >> >> realized. She had been queen. She had been there on the money, on the stamps, on Christmas Day. She had been there all of our lives. And then she’s gone.

TV channels are now broadcasting obituaries, paying respects to the Queen and giving focus to a nation’s grief. These have been prepared months, sometimes years in advance. There is a a tradition, of course, in all media organizations that when a significant public figure is no longer with us, then we push out a lot of material that has been worked on for many months and years and in some cases, particularly in the Queen’s cuz she was such a a great age.

And so, the reign of Elizabeth II comes to a close after 70 years at the age of 96. Since her coronation in 1953, the young woman who became our Queen at just 25 years of age set the standard by which future monarchs will be judged. I found an obituary in our files of the Queen written in 1964. She successfully reinvented the post-imperial era as the Commonwealth.

>> >> So, it gives you an indication of how far back planning had begun. I’d been updating aspects of the Queen’s obituary, I think from the first time she went to hospital since about 2013. So, over the years, every year or so, we’d looked at it again and and it always needs freshening up. The second Elizabethan age saw remarkable change, but she didn’t change, not much.

Prince Harry’s private jet is nearing Aberdeen. Later, he makes an astonishing claim about how he discovered the news of his grandmother’s death. >> >> I often think it must be truly heartbreaking for a Prince Harry, who was very, very close to his grandmother. I feel he’s probably still devastated that he wasn’t there for that moment.

Across the UK, London Bridge, the plan for the Queen’s death is underway. An incredible amount of work has been meticulously planned behind the scenes for many, many years. So, there’s a whole group of people from civil servants to people who work in councils and district authorities, the police, probably even sections of the military.

For them, it’s actually, right, this is not a time for you to grieve or mourn, you have to literally get it together. >> What we saw when the Queen died was all the most unbelievably highly [snorts] ready organizations sprung into action. London Bridge begins with D-Day and then every day after that is D+1, D+2, D+ and the funeral is on D+10 for the the king or the queen.

And then came that question about when is D+1? This is the D. Is tomorrow going to be D+1? So, that was the point at which for the rest of that evening, vast numbers of calls and emails coming in saying, when does the clock start ticking? As it was, it turned out the Privy Council met on the Saturday and therefore our proclamation ceremonies as local authorities happened on the Sunday, which was quite a relief cuz it gave us that little bit of extra breathing space to get plans in place.

So, let’s get a reminder of the statements that we’ve had in the past hour. First, this from the Royal Household. The death of my beloved mother, Her Majesty the Queen, is a moment of greatest sadness for me and all members of my family. We mourn profoundly the passing of a cherished sovereign and a much-loved mother.

Prime Minister Liz Truss makes a statement outside 10 Downing Street. The death of Her Majesty the Queen is a huge shock to the nation and to the world. Queen Elizabeth II was the rock on which modern Britain was built. There’s something quite brutal about succession. The monarch inherits the throne, becomes king immediately on the last breath of the previous monarch.

>> [cheering] >> The new monarch will be known as King Charles III. I had to check myself every single time when I referred to then the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles. He didn’t need a coronation or any of the many processes that took place in the next week. He was king instantly. Almost 5 hours after the Queen died, Prince Harry arrives at Balmoral.

He is greeted by Princess Anne, who invites him to pay his last respects. But I remember that evening I was absolutely exhausted, but absolutely wired. We’ve now got a king. This morning we were in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. People who are Queen’s Counsel will be King’s Counsel. Just all these small things you start to reflect on the layers and layers of layers.

I remember finally it being a wrap and just looking around the studio and I was crying and everybody else. And I think it was a combination of that adrenaline. Just it was just incredibly moving. This is a significant moment in the life of our country. That is the fabric that holds us all together and you know that there’s always a Prime Minister in number 10 and you know that the Queen is always sitting on the throne.

And if you said to anybody before that week that that’s going to change and this is going to change in the space of a few days, people wouldn’t believe you, but it happened and we all had to live through it. So ends the 8th of September 2022. Thousands arrive at Buckingham Palace. The media machine is in overdrive.

The passing of a second Elizabethan age. Let’s reflect on that. A family mourns a dearly loved matriarch and a world comes to terms with the death of the Queen. >> >> Friday, the 9th of September, the official period of mourning begins. >> >> And this is the oldest cliché in the news journalist book, but it was absolutely true during that week, those 10 days was a front row seat at the making of history.

The Queen had a say in every aspect of the 10 days that followed. >> >> In the sunlit still of an Aberdeenshire morning, the Queen left her beloved Balmoral for the last time. There had been some question about what sort of airplane would be used to bring her coffin back. >> >> Then it was suggested that a certain plane wasn’t good enough.

It had been used to transport troops to and from Afghanistan. And the Queen made the observation, well, if it’s good enough for my boys, then it’s certainly good enough for me. As her coffin came through the dark streets of London and with rain pouring, you saw in the distance this sort of glowing vehicle moving.

And it was clearly another piece of choreography from the Queen. >> [cheering] >> You have to be seen to be believed. That’s true in death as it is in life. I mean, the planning of that, it was beautiful. After 5 days lying in state, on Monday, the 19th of September, the Queen’s coffin is brought to Westminster Abbey.

She was the first monarch to have their coronation televised. She was the first monarch to have their funeral televised and it is the biggest funeral, the biggest event any of us will ever see. There was that sense, particularly during the funeral and the gathering of world leaders and dignitaries, just how important Her Majesty was.

Monarchy is all about symbolism. All the way through the processions, the funeral service, the return to Windsor, the service at St. George’s Chapel. >> >> We knew that interred below the very slabs of granite >> >> waiting for the Queen was the late Duke of Edinburgh. And there was a sort of reunion taking place between the two.

I do feel that the death of Her Majesty the Queen has left a hole in a lot of lives, and it’s also a world that feels very different and a little strange without her. I declare before you all that my whole life whether it be long or short shall be devoted to your service and to the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.

I think she was a unique figure in world history. I think it’s unlikely that any monarch will be monarch for 70 years again. For a modern monarch, she managed to maintain the sort of mystique of monarchy, this kind of medieval charisma. We didn’t know a lot about her, but she seemed somehow quite accessible.

Her greatest achievement is that she left the royal family more popular than when she became queen. Which is astonishing, really. >> [cheering] >> Actually, that was her job. And the fact that she did it till the day that she dies, that’s pretty impressive. She had a life all about duty, and it was all about service, and I think that is why she will continue to be missed and loved by millions.

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