Crowds started gathering at Buckingham Palace, London, hours before the announcement came out: The Queen was dead. Then, at 6.30PM, the Union Jack flag on top of the palace was lowered to half-mast, and people’s phones began pinging and vibrating with news alerts. The longest-reigning monarch in British history had passed away at the age of 96, some 500 miles away in Balmoral.As night fell, people climbed the Queen Victoria memorial – a monument built to commemorate another queen - and left flowers and candles outside the gates of the palace. Now the UK has a king for the first time in 70 years, brands are scrambling to post the most tonally appropriate message and world leaders are posting emotional missives about the one time they met Elizabeth II.
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But long after the last ill-judged Hamilton tweet has been deleted and the QAnon frenzy dies down, the hundreds of people outside Buckingham Palace on Friday evening – the London royal residence and de facto administrative headquarters for the monarchy – will still always remember where they were when the news broke. VICE photographer Yushy was there to capture the moment and speak to some of the mourners.
Rachel Carter, 32, Essex
Oli Skinner, 24, London
Qahir, 24, London
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