Phil and Holly have become the unnecessary villains

I am forever telling my children to look for the positives. When I’m greeted in the morning by a mournful “I don’t wanna go to school”, I suggest to my daughter that she focuses on the lesson she knows she’ll like. When my son wails at the prospect of going shopping on a Saturday, I remind him that the nice lady at the butcher’s shop will probably give him a lolly.

Sometimes, my advice to look on the bright side wins through in unexpected ways. On Thursday my son remarked how great it was to have had a short week: “That’s the good thing about the Queen dying,” he concluded. “The other positive,” he continued, now on a roll, “is that Charles is finally king after all those decades of waiting!”

Finding the upsides of a monarch’s death isn’t perhaps what I have in mind when exhorting the kids to be optimists, but my son’s words did get me thinking about how the past couple of weeks may be remembered. After all, it has without question been a remarkable moment in our national story, and a period of very mixed emotions.

On the one hand, the outpouring of shared sadness for our departed sovereign has been undeniable. On the other, it has at times felt peculiar to have had the news agenda so utterly dominated by an event that feels so apart from the realities of most people’s day-to-day lives.

But following my own guidance, I can find plenty of positives. The pomp and the pageantry, daft though it may be, was a terrific spectacle – not to mention a staggering feat of organisation. Meanwhile, the funeral and committal services were remarkable in creating a sense of dignified reflection despite their grand scale. And the Archbishop of Canterbury’s sermon on the power of leadership through service was a masterclass.

I have also felt great admiration for the BBC’s Huw Edwards, who managed to broadcast for 10 days solid without a wink of sleep, and yet didn’t fluff a line. I hope he’s now having a very long nap.

Some of the very ordinary displays of affection for the Queen will linger in the memory too. Any number of people plainly felt a sense of connection and a sense of loss, and the willingness of so many to recount their personal tales, or to wait in line to pay their respects was a reminder that most of us are not islands, nor do we wish to be.

And The Queue. What a thing it was! I confess I did not for one moment consider joining it, but I hold anyone who did in the highest esteem – partly because I think it was a rather lovely thing to do, and partly because they evidently have an astonishing amount of patience, which is a severely undervalued virtue. David Beckham’s appearance among the masses was a particular highlight, not least because he seemingly shuffled along patiently for about nine hours before any journalist spotted him.

Of course, Beckham’s appearance in The Queue seemed to contrast with the actions of some who visited the Queen lying in state without being required to wait for hours. MPs and their guests got a free pass, but it was poor Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield who really got it in the neck for apparently skipping to the front of the line.

Much of the criticism of the This Morning hosts felt like a deliberate concoction, fuelled by the snobbish attitude from some quarters that the programme doesn’t do journalism and so Schofield and Willoughby ought not to have been granted the same access to Westminster Hall as other broadcasters and reporters. I’m with Holly and Phil on this one.

For those determined to continue making a meal of it, or desperate to find some other nit-picking criticism, I would encourage them – like my children – to focus on the positives.