A GOSPEL Oak vicar has spoken of the “shockwaves” that permeated through a thanksgiving service for the Queen’s life on Friday, less than 24 hours after the announcement that she had died.

Father David Houlding was attending the service at St Paul’s Cathedral as a canon, where along with 2,000 in the congregation and about 1,000 people outside, he heard King Charles’s first address to the nation and saw the first public broadcast singing of God Save The King since the announcement on Thursday evening.

The 68-year-old, who is vicar at All Hallows Church in Gospel Oak, said: “It was extraordinary how many people were there. It was only within a few hours of her death. They had just flocked to St Paul’s Cathedral. I had quite a lot of difficulty getting in because security were being very strict about who they were letting in.

“The first shockwave was when we heard was the King speaking, it was just a huge shock, to hear his voice made you realise the Queen was dead. There was complete silence in the cathedral and suddenly the King’s voice came over on the loudspeaker, it was a real sense of shock and sadness.

“It was very powerful and made a very emotional start to the service. There was this sense that we were all here for real – it has really happened. We weren’t expecting to hear the new King so soon. There was a slight trembling in his voice towards the end. Because we couldn’t see him, we could hear the emotion. It came across through the loudspeakers.”

He added: “Then there was the singing of the anthem at the end. I can’t even begin to describe what it was like. It was the second shockwave of the service. It was a hugely emotional thing, but you had people like the Speaker of the Commons singing lustily.”

As well as being vicar at All Hallows, Fr Houlding is a prebendary canon at St Paul’s.

He said that the age profile at the service was a lot younger than a typical church service, as organisers had made an effort to get people who had worked with charities and causes the Queen had been interested in.

He said he had met the Queen twice, when a senior member of the general Synod in 2005 and 2010, and she attended the inaugural opening of the assembly.

At the time Fr Houlding was deputy chairman of the house of clergy. On two occasions the chairman had resigned and he had to cover, and sat next to the Queen. He also presented a loyal address alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury at the Diamond Jubilee.

Reflecting on the Synod opening, he said: “It was ‘good morning’, I said ‘it’s so good of you to be here’, and she just said ‘thank you’. It wasn’t a conversation. She was quite formal but she was quite relaxed.”

There was a larger than normal turnout at All Hallows on Sunday, after Accession bells had rung out the day before. A display has also been created, and a book of condolence is open for people to sign. Worshippers gathered outside after the weekly service and shared their stories of the Queen.

“I was surprised at how many people had met her, 10-15 people. But people were all sharing stories. “When we did our prayers, I read out one of these beautiful Elizabethan prayers, and I immediately I said ‘Our sovereign lady’ and I had to correct myself to ‘Our sovereign lord’. I got it wrong even the first time I read the prayer.”

The church in Shirlock Road will have its weekly service on Sunday where Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem will be sung from 10am.