A very modern pilgrimage: in the queue with Waitrose bags, pizza and tired legs

Following the death of George VI in 1952, the Guardian's reports of his lying in state, witnessed by nearly 300,000 people over three days, were lively with detail. Other newspapers carried similar details. What marked out the Guardian was its wryness, its refusal to get carried away. It was a Manchester paper, after all.

- Ian Jack

On the night before the king's funeral, the London correspondent toured the streets to gauge the kind of people who were prepared to wait for hours in the cold to have the best view. "Everybody was stoutly clad but everybody was cold," the reporter wrote, and the question naturally arose, as it has several times in the 70 years since, more pressingly since the whole affair can be watched at length without leaving home: why? Why freeze in the cold for a fleeting sight of a gun carriage; why queue for 16 hours to walk past a catafalque in 60 seconds?