IT was only after she started receiving emails containing the timetables of one of the biggest processions in British history, that Sandra Colston realised the phone call inviting her to the Queen’s state funeral was no hoax.
The musical director, who was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list earlier this year, had originally thought someone was pulling her leg when they phoned her to extend an invitation to the first state funeral the UK has seen since Churchill’s in 1965.
It took an official email and letter through the post with the monarch’s official coat of arms before the 47-year-old, who runs the Funky Voices Choir in Colchester, could book her trains to London to attend a funeral which was watched by billions of people around the globe.
Miss Colston said: “I got a phone call last Saturday [September 10], completely out of the blue, and I didn’t know who it was – they said they were from the palace and I thought it was a hoax.
“I carried on listening; they were saying I was invited to the state funeral and needed to be at this place at this time, but it was just a phone call.
“I then received the official email invitation and a Royal Mail special delivery which arrived this weekend with all the final timings – that’s when I thought ‘This is definitely not a hoax’.
“It was super well-organised, as you would expect, with information telling you what you should and shouldn’t wear – but you still worry in case you get it wrong.”
Arriving at Westminster Abbey on Monday morning, Miss Colston must have felt she had a level of security similar to that enjoyed by US President Joe Biden in the presidential state car.
“The guards, the police, the soldiers, and the people helping you get through to the abbey so none of the media could see you – you couldn’t be bothered by anybody.”
Security may have been high, but so too, surprisingly, were spirits amongst the attendees, many of whom were somewhat daunted by the biggest funeral they would ever witness.
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“We end up helping each other out with a bit of moral support – there were so many ushers who were really warm and just thanked us for coming and it just such a warm, family vibe.
“I was amazed by the atmosphere; it was emotional at times because of the music, which was ringing around the whole abbey and sweeping us all up – it almost felt celebratory.
“It felt like we were waving her goodbye and giving a big thank you rather than a sad, mourning kind of feel.
"Obviously, for the family it would have been completely different, but for us, with the Queen just being so brilliant, it was so heart-warming and special.”
With the coffin bearers slowly filing past, many of the attendees at Westminster Abbey – including Miss Colston – only caught a brief glimpse of the cortège.
Much of the emotional weight of the service therefore emanated from the hymns and choral music which have been played at state funerals in Britain since the 1800s.
The choral work, understandably, resonated particularly strongly with Miss Colston.
“It was gorgeous, technically speaking – I was blown away by the choir.
“They filed out in front of us, and the small boys were so confident walking out, even though some of them must have been about eight-years-old.
“I could see [from the programme] which music they were going to present and I knew some of the pieces, but when it was actually performed, it was leaps and bounds higher than what I thought it was going to be – I had never heard so many harmonies in one syllable.”
Filing out of Westminster Abbey, Miss Colston was greeted by a wall of reporters, and gave an interview to Canada TV who asked for her insight into a service which only a fraction of mourners could experience in person.
But Miss Colston explained that, as interested as the world seems to be in what the atmosphere was like inside Westminster Abbey, she is equally intrigued by how the funeral appeared to the billions around the world who tuned in to watch a funeral of unparalleled gravity.
“I want to watch it back because I want to see the angle that the rest of the world got – I think people are really interested in what I saw as a guest, but I’m just as interested in what people saw watching it on TV.”
When Miss Colston does tune into the coverage of the procession on catch-up TV later this week, she will surely marvel at a funeral which was perfectly in step with national sentiment – a funeral which will be remembered vividly as a seminal moment marked indelibly into the national consciousness.
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