Queen’s funeral: Community volunteers get ‘surprise’ invitations
- Published
From charity founders to choir leaders, volunteers who have supported their communities will be joining presidents and princesses at the Queen's funeral.
About 200 people who were recognised in the Queen's birthday honours this year have received an invitation to the ceremony at Westminster Abbey on Monday.
They will be joining heads of state and royal families from around the world.
BBC News spoke to four of those who got a "surprise" call on Saturday.
Emma Lewis said the service would be a "moment in history"
Emma Lewis, care-leaver charity founder
Emma Lewis still can't quite believe she's been chosen to attend the Queen's funeral. "I was sitting in the car park of Morrisons when I received the call from the Cabinet Office. It was quite surreal," she says.
The 41-year-old from Swansea grew up in the care system after being neglected and sexually abused as a child. She recalls having to beg for scraps of food at her local chip shop.
But she says her life was turned around after she left care by the kindness of her community - who invited her for Sunday dinners, offered her a job in a pub and helped her find a low-cost flat.
She set up a charity, the Roots Foundation Wales, to offer something similar to young people in care today: providing support with independent living skills, therapy to help cope with traumatic experiences and the chance to build positive memories for children who may have very few of them.
In 2019, she was able to take three of the young people with her to meet the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall - as they were then - at Swansea's celebrations for 50 years of city status.
"It's memories of a lifetime," she says. "I believe that those opportunities should be accessible to them."
She says from her own traumatic background she knows it can be hard to feel like you belong in high places.
"I knew it was a moment in history that I really couldn't turn down," she says of the funeral invitation. "We often go through life thinking that we're not worthy."
Emma says she doesn't consider herself a royalist, but respects the Queen as someone who gave 70 years of her life in service and "didn't suffer fools gladly".
Hsien Chew says he was "incredibly surprised and honoured"
Hsien Chew, LGBT+ choir leader
Hsien Chew, from London, was awarded MBE in the Queen's Platinum Jubilee Honours for his role in Proud Voices - a network of LGBT+ choirs across the UK and Ireland.
The community groups use the power of song to bring people together and provide a safe space to explore identity, he said.
"I really recognise the power that music has in bringing people together," the 49-year-old said. "In many ways, I think the Queen played that similar role of bringing communities together."
Mr Chew grew up in Singapore and Australia, both Commonwealth countries, and said the Queen had been "that thread that has run through my life".
He said he was "incredibly surprised and honoured" to be attending such a "momentous moment".
On Monday, he would be reflecting on how the Queen had "helped to smooth the transition from what was once a very conservative and traditional society, to one that is much more cosmopolitan, modern and outward looking," he said.
"It's given me the opportunities that, had I been born 30 years earlier, I would not have had."
Pranav Bhanot at first thought the invitation was a "hoax"
Pranav Bhanot, Covid volunteer
Pranav Bhanot almost missed his invitation. He received a call from a withheld number on Saturday as he put his two-year-old son down for a nap.
"I'm sometimes reluctant to answer private-number calls," he said. Mr Bhanot said he was in "disbelief" when he did eventually pick up the phone. "I thought it may have been a hoax at one point," he added.
The solicitor, from Chigwell in Essex, co-ordinated local support networks during the pandemic, delivering more than 12,000 meals to isolated people. The volunteers also gave free legal advice to about 4,000 people, helping chase refunds and compensation for things like cancelled holidays and weddings.
The 34-year-old, who is also a Conservative councillor with Epping Forest District Council, was awarded MBE for services to the community during the pandemic.
While he is "grateful" to be attending, he expects it to be a "bitter-sweet" occasion.
"On one hand it will be very upsetting, but I think I'll also be reflecting on a lot of her selfless service," he said.
The decision to include people "who weren't necessarily heads of states" was a fitting reflection of the Queen's character, he said. "She was someone who very easily built rapport with people from different backgrounds, different classes, different socio-economic backgrounds."
"I felt totally honoured, privileged. But why me?" says Barbara
Barbara Crellin, volunteer emergency responder
As a volunteer emergency responder, Barbara Crellin is used to dealing with unexpected situations. But the invitation to attend the Queen's funeral still took her by surprise.
"I was totally in shock initially," she says. "I felt totally honoured, privileged. But why me?"
Barbara, 71, has spent the past 10 years responding to 999 calls for the ambulance service as part of Rutland First Responders, a volunteer group trained to give life-saving treatment to their community before anyone else can.
"You don't know what you're actually going into. We're just trained to deal with various emergencies, and we do our best that we can do," says Barbara, who is now chair of the group.
She and her fellow volunteers often arrive first onto the scene of heart attacks, strokes, seizures or diabetic emergencies.
"There are three people wandering around that were in cardiac arrest that I've attended," she says, describing getting someone breathing again as the most rewarding part of the role.
Sometimes the emergency has a tragic outcome. "You might go to pieces afterwards. But on the scene, you've got to be calm and collected, to get on and do the job that you're there to do."
But at Monday's funeral, she expects to be emotional. "I can hardly think what it's going to be like. I can cry watching the television," Barbara says.
She recalls waving at the Queen as she travelled down the road where Barbara - then aged four - lived in Sellafield, Cumbria. "The Queen seems very personal to all of us," she says.
