Words and images by Julia McCarthy-Fox, originally from England and now living in Te Awamutu. Julia was a photographer, both amateur and professional at different times, following the royal family throughout the UK and sometimes further. She had met and spoken with Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh on several occasions. We have published her reports and thoughts on a number of notable royal events in the past two years.
Late last Thursday night, I was about to go to bed when a message came through from a friend in the UK.
It said that she was sure I would already have seen what she had attached, but here it was just in case – so I clicked on it, and knew at that moment that I was not going to be going to bed any time soon, and my life was about to change forever.
The message released from Buckingham Palace stating that Her Majesty's doctors were concerned for her health and were observing her but that she was comfortable was a huge shock, coming less than 48 hours after the photos released of the Queen, in his own words, "seeing off" her 14th PM Boris Johnson, before appointing her 15th, Liz Truss.
I think with hindsight that we had all been lulled into a false sense of security by the great age reached by her mother, and we just expected the Queen to be there forever.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Photo / Julia McCarthy-Fox
But I also knew with certainty that this sort of announcement is not made unless the situation is far worse than indicated, and so my heart sank at what I was reading and what it was going to mean. This was it – the beginning of the end of the second-longest reign of all time.
I spent the rest of the night talking online with friends in the UK and constantly scanning for any information that was available before finding a television station online with rolling news on the subject – and it was this that I was watching live when the presenter, already clad in black, was handed a bulletin.
Her Majesty and family on the Buckingham Palace balcony during her Platinum Jubilee. Photo / Julia McCarthy-Fox
Watching the colour start to drain from her face as she swallowed and breathed in deeply before speaking, it was very clear to me that poor Mary Nightingale had just been given the task, at about 5am on September 10 in New Zealand, of announcing the death of Her Majesty The Queen.
As I had watched this story unfold throughout the night I had tried to convince myself that this was not going to be the outcome, and was being calm and collected about it – but then suddenly, in a single phrase, that was it.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Photo / Julia McCarthy-Fox
She was gone – the remarkable, gracious and dedicated Queen who I had spent almost 40 years following and photographing was no more. And it was devastating.
She was my Queen, she knew me, and she was a huge part of my life, and now it was finished.
But as I sat in the dining room in the dark, getting colder and colder in my dressing gown, staring through tears at the laptop screen with its procession of experts saying expert things about my Queen, whom they had probably never even met, I knew that in fact, it wasn't quite the end.
I had a final chapter of my story with Her Majesty to complete, and that was going to involve a trip to London.
Tribute image from London. Photo / Julia McCarthy-Fox
A friend, realising before I did that this would be the case, had transferred the money for a flight into my bank account before the news was even announced, and so on Friday I found myself in the travel agents' building booking a flight to London for Sunday evening.
And as I paid the fare I felt a relief, knowing that I was going to be able to say a proper farewell to my magnificent monarch who I had spent so many years following so devotedly, and I thought, I am lucky to have a wonderful wife who realised immediately that this trip, on my own, was something that I just had to do.
If I hadn't, there would have been something niggling away in my mind forever, telling me that I should have done it.
Tribute image from London. Photo / Julia McCarthy-Fox
And so I found myself, complete with an extremely irritating earworm in the form of the new version of the National Anthem, landing in London on Monday morning, local time, in order to be a part of it all.
I hit the ground running when we briefly visited Windsor on the way from the airport.
My son had collected me, and en route I had had several messages from journalists wanting to speak to me about Her Majesty and my feelings about the sad news - so I filmed an interview there, and it was the first of several.
We then returned to my property, which is for sale but was fortunately still furnished, where there was a film crew literally waiting on the doorstep for another interview.
King Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort, pictured earlier this year at Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee. Photo / Julia McCarthy-Fox.
About four years ago, I was greatly privileged to be invited to take part in tribute programmes for the Queen to be kept for use on this very occasion, and although at the time I had not seen either, I was aware from friends that both have been broadcast already – and I had been astonished in London that day to be stopped by a number of total strangers who had seen one or both of them and congratulated me on them.
I never expected to be contacted by people offering me condolences on the death of our Queen, and yet that is what has happened.
Tribute image from London. Photo / Julia McCarthy-Fox
I have had so many lovely messages asking if I am okay, and I am realising now how interested people are in my royal connections and that they realise how important this is to me.
So, that day was been the first stage of my farewell, as that was when Her Majesty has finally arrived back in London, having died at her beloved Balmoral Estate in Scotland.
I spent all day wandering and looking at floral tributes, funereal flags in the street, and numerous shop window displays reflecting the affection in which our Queen was held.
There was a steady stream of people all day bringing floral tributes, and they were of every age, creed, colour, shape and size imaginable. And by that evening, having flown back to London accompanied by her daughter the Princess Royal, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was back at Buckingham Palace, her base for the entire 70 years of her record-breaking reign.
She arrived there at around 8pm, driven along familiar streets lined with people anxious to see her one last time – and as she approached where I had been standing, close to Buckingham Palace, a tear slid down my cheek as I watched the police outriders, blue lights flashing, come into sight. I knew then that was it – no more pretending that it was all a terrible mistake.
Tribute image from London. Photo / Julia McCarthy-Fox
The hearse drove majestically past in the darkness and steady rain that had been falling for some time, and there had been a ripple of applause through the crowds as we saw for ourselves the coffin, draped in Her Majesty's personal standard and topped with very simple white flowers, the spotlights in the back highlighting the beautiful bright red and gold of the flag and making the raindrops twinkle on the windows.
This was our Queen, and we were there to say farewell in our thousands.
