This is the emotional moment when a Cambridge University music director joined a security guard who had stopped at the London Bridge Tube station to play songs in honour of the Queen.
Anna Lapwood, director of music at Pembroke College, was playing the underground station’s organ when security guard Marcella, a skilled singer, joined her for an unplanned performance.
Ms. Lapwood had ‘spontaneously’ waited at the station before beginning to perform Handel’s Italian-soprano aria Lascia ch’io pianga.
She described the event as “so moving” and noted that quite a crowd had gathered at the end of their duet.
The music director said, “It was such an uplifting moment, very needed at the moment.”
The 42-year-old Rosie Brooks was strolling through the subway station on her way to Borough Market when she heard music emanating from “across the concourse.”
Ms. Brooks, an illustrator, said, ‘So [I] popped my head round to have look, it was such a lovely moment.
‘Am so lucky they were playing just as I passed by.’
The duet took place as hundreds of well-wishers met an emotional King Charles III elsewhere in the city when he arrived at Buckingham Palace.
While he was meeting with delegates from the Commonwealth, his mother’s coffin began its historic final trip from Balmoral to Edinburgh and eventually Westminster Abbey.
Crowds lined the length of The Mall shouted and waved at Britain’s new king as he was taken from Clarence House through the Palace gates in his state Rolls-Royce at around 1pm, escorted by a convoy of four vehicles and four police motorcycles.
Shortly after arriving at Buckingham Palace, the King was accompanied by his wife Camilla, Queen Consort, who was also hailed by mourners.