Sky News' Anna Botting on gruelling shift covering Queen's death

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Anna Botting was the first journalist to report from Kensington Palace when Princess Diana died and hosted the coverage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding - today, she had the task of presenting from Westminster Abbey for the Queen’s funeral.

Botting has worked at Sky for 27 years and was the first journalist to report from Kensington Palace when Princess Diana died over 25 years ago It’s so extraordinary. The scale of the funeral will be beyond what we’ve seen in this country. You watch the footage of people throwing flowers at Princess Di’s funeral… but there’s a quietness to the grief here in this country.

At Sky News, we’ve allowed for a lot of silence. With the walkabouts, we’ve had the camera on King Charles and people in the crowd holding his hand saying, ‘You’ll be good, don’t worry. I’m sorry about your mother.’ It was after that I got asked to do the funeral – I think because I have an emotional response to news. You need empathy to do this because people at home watching will be crying.I did. It was when the plane was taking off from Scotland, and AlastairSo he started me off. And then I spoke to Louise Tait, the Queen’s press secretary, who was in floods of tears.

But you get the real detail, like the thistles in the flowers have come from the garden in Balmoral and about the medals worn by her family. But we’ve been planning for years with the palace.When I started at Sky 27 years ago, it was all about the Queen Mother. Ever since then, it’s been in the back of your mind that Prince Philip or the Queen could go.

If you watch him at Hillsborough Castle and at the Accession Council, the pen is his moment when he’s tipping over the edge due to stress and exhaustion. You have to feel for him at those moments. Just get him a ballpoint!But we also know the Prince Philip quote, ‘Just get on with it’ – they know to do that. The way they walked up the Royal Mile and The Mall in step. And Princess Anne, who did the journey with the Queen from Balmoral.

Prince Philip’s was during Covid, so it was the royal family all behind Windsor. So there is no comparison.

 

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