Hushed but not sad at the Abbey

Kings and queens, ambassadors and admirals, prime ministers and judges waited patiently to say goodbye to one small human being, a great-grandmother and the unchallenged queen of the 20th century. This was the grandest of family funerals, the most intimate of state occasions. It was the friendliest of ceremonials, the most dignified of affectionate farewells.

She made it very clear, from the poem which opened the order of service, that we were not to be gloomy. "You can do what she'd want," instructed that famous poet Anon, "smile, open your eyes, love and go on."

So, in accordance with the Queen Mother's wishes, the atmosphere in the Abbey was hushed but not sad. Great feminine bursts of white lilies and lilac and perfect pink roses scented aisles. At 11am, sunlight shafted through the high windows and illuminated the gold arches of the choir stalls, rows of gold medals, gold braid on military coats and the black velvet, plumes and netting of a thousand funeral hats. As Simon Bell, the Abbey's assistant organist, played Bach's Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, the congregation, knowing that for the next hour they were at the epicentre of this nation, watched on wide screens as the royal cortège drove slowly to Westminster.

Around us the Abbey, that crowded national attic of family history, stacked with stone caskets and tombs, housed the bones of the ancestors of the living members of the family gathered here today. Young generations of Yorks and Gloucesters and Kents in funeral black walked down the aisle, while inside chapels dead kings and queens lay peacefully beneath their marble covers. It was soberingly grand and, if you had a sense of mortality, deeply humbling. All of you, said the Abbey, be you prince or prime minister, will come to this. But through all the history and the splendour the Queen Mother, in her organisation of her funeral, had something personal to say, as she always had, to lighten the atmosphere.

"Yes," she said, through her poetry and readings and in particular, the glorious words of John Bunyan, "yes I am dead, and you too will die, but the afterlife will be simply wonderful."

But first the solemnity. At 11.30am the organ stopped and, borne on the shoulders of eight Irish Guards, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother arrived in the Abbey where she was married and anointed Queen. It was her spiritual homecoming, a moment of great and solemn beauty. Women curtsied as she passed in a last gesture of reverence and the Queen looked, for that moment, terribly alone.

She must have found comfort in the ceremony, words and spiritual uplift which followed. There was something to touch both spirit and heart. The Archbishop of Canterbury celebrated what the crowds in the streets have been demonstrating. The Queen Mother was a woman, who having lost her role as wife in her early fifties, with widowhood, went on to embody maternal virtues for everyone. Like the best mothers she was strong, guiding and comforting. And like the best mothers she also knew when humour, playfulness and a lightness of touch were going to be the most helpful contribution, particularly when those around her were under stress, be that blitzed East Enders, a young queen trying to find her feet, or grandchildren with rocky marriages.

You can tell a lot about a person from their funeral, and, in all the splendour, what shone through this one was that she had another gift she wanted to share with the people gathered to say goodbye - an unfashionably deep, optimistic and comforting religious faith.

The Archbishop's address was followed by the harmonies of Brahms from the most cheerful of requiems. Impossible to listen and feel unhappy. Prayers of celebration, love and consolation culminated in the words of John Donne, that the house of heaven be a place of "no darkness or dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence but one equal music."

In the words of Bunyan, chosen by her, we know the old lady beneath the pall and imperial crown, matriarch of her family and honorary grandmother of the crowds outside, was confident of sailing through the gates of the Beautiful City. No wonder she went through life with her famous smile. For all the sonorous titles read out by the Garter King of Arms, you felt that the Queen Mother saw herself meeting her Maker simply as a faithful Christian.

Above all she wanted us to smile and, as we filed out into the cold London streets, it was the Queen Mother's cheerful faith that made me smile most. I liked the idea that as we shivered in black on the Westminster pavements, she was already in Bunyan's promised land, smiling away among the horses and chariots, trumpeters and the pipers, delighted that it was indeed, as glorious as she had always believed.

Pictures: The royal mourners
Pictures: The ceremony
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Queen leads her family in final tributes
Camilla's presence signals shift in attitudes
Remember This: the Poet Laureate's tribute