Keenly following all events in re: HM the late Queen Elizabeth II and our new Sovereign, HM King Charles III on television, I am struck and deeply saddened and disgusted by the general behaviour of the public. If I go to watch such solemn and sombre events as a funeral procession of a late monarch etc., I take it as an absolute given that in the first place, I dress appropriately - preferably, something dark, a shirt and black tie, and as a woman, something modest and subdued. This should be so even more for an occasion such as - supposedly - paying your respects at the coffin and intruding upon a vigil attended by HM the King. Call me old-fashioned, but for me this is a matter of respect, honour, common decency and just plain good manners, or good breeding if you like.

However, what ires, even outrages me the most are the endless seas of raised arms with 'smartphone' cameras at these processions and other occasions. For goodness sake, have some respect people. Just stand, hands down and crossed in front of you, and head bowed, if you really held our late monarch in any kind of affection and respect, instead of gawping and taking countless - pardon my French - crap photographs that nobody wants to see any more than the innumerable ones of your meals and whatever.

Honour, respect, common decency, and good old plain good manners seem to have become rare enough qualities in our times. But the sort of things we are witnessing in the current sad circumstances are truly beyond the pale in my view. Would anyone perhaps like to see this kind of thing when their beloved parent has died!?

Heartfelt condolences and sympathies to HM King Charles III and HM Queen Consort Camilla and family.

Long Live The King!

It has to be said, alas, that I find the Lying in State of the late HM Queen Elizabeth II and the filing past of 'the great unwashed', the general public, a sad occasion made even sadder by some of the said hoy poloy. It is very saddening and irksome to see some of these people either not dressed appropriately and who, by rights and by the prior announcement that people should dress approriately, should have been refused admission, and others not behaving as previously instructed, that is, to file past the coffin without stopping or bowing etc. so as not to delay the queues. Most inappropriate is the behaviour of a few individuals who stop to take a knee!

Surely, if one intends to attend an event such as this, one can find some kind of way and means to dress at least resonably appropriate. Jeans, shorts, T-shirts, short skirts or dresses, low cleavages - or for that matter, IMO, any cleavages, and bright colours surely cannot by any stretch of the imagination or 'laissez faire' be considered appropriate apparral, however loosely one wishes to interpret such.

Such things only serve to trivialise such a solemn and sombre event and detract from its dignity if not turn it into some sort of spectacle.

'Disgusted,
Tunbridge Wells'