Shortly before 12.30pm on Friday, a policeman announced to the crowd at Buckingham Palace that the gates were full, that all floral tributes should be laid elsewhere. But the queue silently ignored him. They moved on, clutching their roses, their sunflowers, their marigolds — some homegrown, some with the price tags recently peeled off. They were determined to go home empty-handed and full-hearted. These are the days that Britain does well, when the country shakes off its self-doubt and pulls itself to attention. The mood outside the palace was not distraught — there were few tears — but dignified. The crowd was strikingly diverse. People arrived in black ties and in baseball caps, from all social classes, from Britain and from overseas. “I don’t think I was prepared for the quiet,” said Bob, a former stock trader from north London. He had laid roses together with a note: “The head says it’s futile, yet the heart wants to have its say.” In truth, everything that could be said about Queen Elizabeth II has probably been said, but the sentiments still had to be felt and shared. People took selfies and posed for pictures. Was this the done thing? Who knew — the last time a monarch had died few of them were alive and cameraphones were decades away from being invented. The events following the Queen’s passing had been meticulously planned, but the public’s reaction could never be. In 1997, the monarchy underestimated public grief at the death of Diana, Princess of Wales. Last year, the BBC overestimated it following the death of the Duke of Edinburgh when it received more than 100,000 complaints for interrupting its schedules with extended coverage. Many of those paying their respects on Friday had not even predicted their own reaction to the Queen’s death. They had not planned to come to central London, but had ended up there, swept along by their need to mark the moment, to be reassured that others felt as they did. The written messages overwhelmingly expressed not so much sadness as thanks for Elizabeth II’s service. “I was born in 1952, you had been there all my life,” said one note.