The queen is dead, long live the king! I don’t think that’s said anywhere else in the world. And I am old enough to remember when it was said the other way round.

Charles is not much younger than I am and if he had died before leaving us an heir, his sister, the Princess Royal, only a year younger, would have become queen. But did you notice how, out of respect for her brother, she contrived to walk alongside, but half a step, behind him?

I’ve watched them, all my life. I wrote about Charles’s university days and attended his investiture as Prince of Wales. I went hunting with Princess Anne in the north country and was accused of pre-empting her first marriage to her fellow Olympian, Captain Mark Phillips, by declaring “It’s love!” on the front page of the Daily Mirror… even though knowing that he was known in Catterick Barracks as ‘Foggy’, on account of his being thick and wet.

Years later, when a chief constable introduced me, “I assume you don’t know Mr Revel Barker…”, she told him: “That’s an astonishing assumption to make. Mr Barker and I go back more years than either of us would care to remember.” With her emphasis on the last bit, meaning “don’t remind me!” Well, that’s more than enough name-dropping to explain why, although I couldn’t claim to know them, I care about them. But then, I’m a monarchist.

And I worried about them at the funeral.

It was a long, drawn-out affair, showing Britain at its best. Maybe pageantry is the only thing that we still do (have always done) best in the world.

Ask yourself: for what other occasion would all the world’s invited leaders gather in one place?

And where else – how else? – could you see the most powerful man in the world, Joe Biden, being told: “Hold back a bit, Mr President: George Cross holders (meaning Malta) take precedence over entering and seating?”

But my point, you were probably wondering, is that I thought it went on for about two hours too long. It’s not that there was anything else I would rather be watching on TV; this was difficult to beat.

For what other occasion would all the world’s invited leaders gather in one place?- Revel Barker

But what got to me was the amount of walking, or marching, and the amount of standing still for two septuagenarians I have known (or at least watched) all my life. Without what is known as a ‘comfort break’. If you were watching the ceremony from beginning to end, how many times did you get up for another cup of tea or coffee? How many times did you go to get rid of it?

The funeral was at 11am. There was all the preparation before that, and the dressing, the ADC checking that you’d got your uniform (full gear, not the lightweight outfit) hanging correctly. And the gloves, for your sweaty hands. But no Granny to remind you to “go, before you go out”.

Then there’s getting to the place. Nature changes the human constitution around the age of 60. You start making a note of where the nearest lavatory is situated. And, around the age of 70 you are already thinking, at 11am, about lunch.

Did you notice, as I did, that – in a seven-or-eight-hour event – there was no lunch break? I hope that somebody had thought about putting a few sandwiches in the car that took them (including the 75-year-old Queen Consort) to Windsor. But that doesn’t solve the other problem.

Charles and Anne both looked well knackered by the time they reached the queen’s final resting place. Which was not to be their own place to rest... yet. Another drawn-out ceremony.

And then, good grief! When the cameras, and we, went away there was still the private family funeral to follow. The grief was showing on their faces, that’s a fact. But, at least, there are what we call “facilities” in St George’s Chapel.

Relief, at last, for all.

Revel Barker is a former Fleet Street reporter and a long-term resident of Gozo.