Queen's funeral: Four people on how they will spend the day

The eyes of the nation and the world will be on Westminster Abbey in London for Queen Elizabeth II's state funeral on Monday. Here is how some people intend to watch it - and what the occasion means to them.

'My grandmother suggested I be called Queenie'

Margaret June Hutchings has a unique connection to the Queen. She was born the day of the Queen's coronation - 2 June, 1953 - just hours after her mother had joined the cheering crowds lining the streets of London.

"My father said he was very proud. He bet all his mates that I was going to be born on coronation day. Every baby that was born featured in the Brixton Times and we all received a set of coins.

"My sister is Elizabeth Ann. When it came to me, my grandmother suggested that I should be called Queenie. Thank the Lord my mother didn't agree to that. They called me June - because I was born in June - and Margaret [after the Queen's sister]."

Now living in Exeter with her husband, the 69-year-old has been overcome with emotion since the Queen's death.

"It feels like the end of an era," she said. "It's brought people together and they feel like they can grieve together, celebrate her life together."

June as a baby with her older siblings

On Monday she will join the crowds to watch the funeral on a big screen in Exeter's Northernhay Gardens - one of hundreds of public viewing events set up across the UK - and says she will take a moment to reflect on the woman whose life she has followed so closely.

"I would like to thank her for everything that she has done for this country. It makes me feel very proud to be British. She dedicated all her life to being Queen - I just think we're very lucky to have had a Queen like her."

'I'll be running a food bank'

Food banks and schools are closed on Monday, but Jade Patterson is determined that people who depend on them in the Lancashire town of Darwen won't go without - she has organised a pop-up food bank in a local pub, the Alexandra Hotel, for Monday afternoon.

"I thought it was really, really important to have that option there for the bank holiday," she said. "Sometimes the only meal a child might eat on any given day might be the school meal."

While the pub will be screening the funeral, the 34-year-old will be arranging tinned food, fresh produce and baby food on trestle tables. They'll be placed on a stage where on other days, local bands might play or customers might try their hands at karaoke. Donated clothes and blankets will be folded into a piles, and there will be a stack of cookbooks.

"If we run out [of supplies], I'll go and get some more," she said.

Jade will be too busy to watch the proceedings but she doesn't mind. She's not a royalist, she explained, though she respects the Queen as "a super strong woman" who took on her duties "to the best of her ability".

"She was a powerhouse and she didn't really have a choice," she said. "She did a really good job."

Flowers for a 'Gordonstoun grandmother'

Some 700 pupils at King Charles III's former school in Scotland will also be watching the funeral.

The King spent five years boarding at Gordonstoun, near the town of Elgin - his father, the late Duke of Edinburgh, also attended, as did the Queen's grandchildren, Zara Tindall and Peter Phillips.

After the service, pupils and teachers will lay flowers for the Queen, and later in the evening, the school's pipe band will play as part of a special ceremony in the chapel.

Lisa Kerr, principal at Gordonstoun School, with her student Valentin

Principal Lisa Kerr said it will be important for the school to remember the Queen's "extraordinary life of service".

Pupil Valentin Graf von Schoenburg-Glachau, 17, from Germany, agreed it would be a very special moment. "It's very moving how everyone in the UK is in this period of mourning," he explained. "It's a great loss."

Lisa is proud of the connection the school has with the Queen.

"She came here so many times, not just as the Queen," she said, "but as a Gordonstoun mum and a Gordonstoun grandmother."

Tea and reflection in Belgium

British-born English teacher Sam Hollebeke lives in Belgium, where she is known as the "English Lady". When she heard the Queen had died, she felt homesick for London, but work commitments meant it was not possible for her to return.

In her neighbourhood outside Bruges, there are no special plans for the funeral and Sam will teach in the morning. But in the afternoon, her students have agreed to postpone their lesson and she will sit with her best friend and watch the ceremony on television.

"We will come together, have tea and support each other," she said.

And after the tea is poured and the funeral begins, Sam thinks strong feelings will come to the surface.

"My grandfather died around the time Prince Philip did and my grandmother also died recently. I think both found it difficult to go on without their partners," she said.

"To me the Queen was above all a strong woman. She was a beacon of light for many people, and always a positive figure. I was always taken by how she kept her family together and the country together."

What next? A day-by-day guide from now to the funeral

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