LONDON — While soccer may be the United Kingdom’s national sport, it’s sometimes said that it could just as well be “queuing” — such is the Britons’ willingness to wait in line for long periods without complaining.
That would make this week’s lines of thousands of people waiting to pay tribute to Queen Elizabeth II the equivalent of a national Olympics. Given the opportunity to say goodbye as she lay in state before her funeral on Monday, they came in the thousands, united in the need to bear witness to the country’s longest-reigning monarch and express their admiration for a woman many saw as the nation’s grandmother.
