Highland councillors from Caithness make trip to London to pay respects to Queen

Three Highland councillors with Caithness connections have travelled to London to pay their respects to the Queen over the coming days.

Andrew Sinclair, Andrew Jarvie and Struan Mackie are making the journey along with thousands of other mourners.

Councillors Sinclair and Jarvie – who effectively swapped seats at May’s election, with the former now representing Inverness South and the latter Wick and East Caithness – both were in Edinburgh earlier this week.

They arrived in time for the Queen lying in rest in St Giles' Cathedral in the city before heading off to London for the lying in state, which will be followed by the funeral on Monday.

There they will be joined by Thurso and Northwest Caithness councillor and the provost of Thurso, Cllr Mackie, who is expected to travel to London tomorrow to be in the capital for the funeral.

Speaking about why he travelled down, Cllr Jarvie said: “Immediately after the proclamation in Wick, I headed down to Edinburgh to see the cortège arrive at St Giles' and then started making my way down to London for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pay my respects to our nation’s greatest servant.

“There wasn’t a second’s hesitation this was the right thing to do. It is important to me to give just a few days out of my life for someone who gave every day of hers in the service of our country.

“She projected the very best of Britain across the world and represented so many good causes within Britain. Her dignified touch to some of the most challenging situations has really come to define her and is something which I think we all will sorely miss.”

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