Evesham man queued for just six hours in London to pay respects to Her Majesty The Queen

Dave Howard made the trip down to London in the early hours of Thursday morning to pay his respects.

Alongside his wife, Debbie Howard, the couple joined the queue at 3.15am.

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Mr Howard said:"We got to London at 2.30am and were in the queue by 3.15am. We were very fortunate as we only queued for a total of six hours.

"We reached Her Majesty's coffin by approximately 9.14am. The whole experience was really special."

Mr Howard said that from the moment they arrived in London, people were in good spirits in the queue, with some people even singing.

He said:"People were signing and everyone around us was really nice. The first four hours actually went very fast because we were chatting.

"It was not until we reached the Abbey itself where the queue starts to snake and zigzag that we started to feel the time.

"When we went into the Abbey itself we were asked to turn our phones off but we were filmed paying our respects on BBC News which was very special."

Queues in London. (Image: Dave Howard)

READ MORE: Lying in state queue 24 hours long as overnight temperatures look set to fall

People are expected to queue for 24 hours from Friday evening to see the Queen lying in state and the Government has warned “overnight temperatures will be cold”.

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s (DCMS) online tracker says the expected wait time is more than 24 hours, warning of chilly temperatures as people queue from Southwark Park in south-east London to pay their respects to the Queen’s coffin in Westminster Hall, about five miles away.

Undeterred, a steady stream of people joined the queue on Friday evening, many wearing coats and jumpers.

The queue was earlier paused for 40 minutes when it reached capacity, and when it reopened mourners were urged by the DCMS not to join the line until at least 4pm.