On a day of pomp and ceremony, glimpses of humanity were the most moving

Her pony Emma, her mane washed and brushed beautifully over one eye, stood by the side of the road, calmly unmoved by the thunderous noise made by the marching feet of several regiments of soldiers (unlike the restless horses of the mounted cavalry, tossing their heads at the canons).

The black hearse arrived into Windsor, decorated with flowers which had been hurled by mourners lining the road during the slow journey from London.

The same hypnotic, trance-inducing march played along Whitehall was picked up again by new musicians, flawlessly choreographed, but there was an instantly different aesthetic from the London procession.

A peculiarly unfunereal atmosphere had been mounting in the 24 hours before the service: the pubs were unusually crowded, and souvenir shops were doing brisk business selling postcards with black and white images of the late Queen and rapidly manufactured mugs decorated with slightly off-centre pictures of her face and the dates 1926-2022.

A man with his dog and belongings was left undisturbed to sleep on the pavement outside the Duchess of Cambridge pub, as people filed past wearing bowler hats adorned with union jacks.

As they made their way into the chapel, mourners will have caught a burst of the heady smell of thousands of wilting bunches of flowers, carefully arranged in rows, cellophane removed, to create the impression of a fading flower bed.

The Queen was due to be buried next to her husband, Prince Philip, and near the remains of her father, George VI, the Queen Mother and her sister, Princess Margaret.