No royal to see Margaret cremation

No members of the royal family will be present when Princess Margaret is cremated on Friday, Buckingham Palace said today.

The unlikely venue for the brief "committal service" - a break with royal tradition - will be Slough Crematorium. Only representatives from the Princess's household and from the Lord Chamberlain's department at Buckingham Palace will attend.

The Queen and Prince Charles will lead senior royals in mourning at the earlier funeral service at nearby St George's Chapel in Windsor from 3pm. The Queen Mother is expected to join them if doctors declare her well enough to make the journey from Sandringham.

Princess Margaret's ashes will be laid next to the remains of her beloved father, King George VI, in St George's Chapel. The Princess's decision to be cremated is believed to have been influenced by the fact that there is no more room for normal burial in the chapel's royal vault.

The only senior royal to have been cremated was Princess Louise, one of Queen Victoria's daughters, at Golders Green crematorium in 1928. Princess Margaret will be one of six cremations at Slough on Friday. The other five people are all from the town and died in the week leading up to the Princess's death at the age of 71, on Saturday.

Slough crematorium was built in 1963. The only other person of prominence to have been committed there was comedian Ernie Wise in 1999. Registrar Roger Parkin said: "We are not a famous crematorium by any means. But as far as we are concerned it will be a normal working day. Friday is actually quite quiet. We've only got five others on the books at the moment. They are all local people who we booked in last week."

Mr Parkin said that a final prayer for Princess Margaret will be said as her coffin disappears. The crematorium seats only 80 people, although it is unclear how many will attend.

Mr Parkin added: "I hope the other five families on Friday don't get disrupted by this, or I would feel very sorry for them."

He said the crematorium - which he described it as "a typical 1960s building" - was able to be flexible and prided itself on being "very user-friendly".

The Queen said a private prayer as she visited her beloved sister's coffin at Kensington Palace yesterday. The coffin was later transferred to St James's Palace, where it will rest in the Queen's Chapel until Thursday.

The fact that senior royal courtiers and members of Margaret's household will attend the cremation means that the Queen is technically represented. But her absence and that of members of the royal family is bound to raise eyebrows among royal watchers. One senior aide said: "If the Princess was buried at

Frogmore, members of the royal family would be expected to attend."

However, he added: " The Queen rarely attends funerals and often sends either members of her family or high-ranking courtiers.

"In this case the religious ceremony is at St George's Chapel and that is being seen as the funeral service."

The Queen received the High Commissioner for South Africa, De Lindiwe Mabuza, at Buckingham Palace today in her first official engagement since the death of her sister.