A LOVING message from the Queen to her mother brought a human touch to the greatest ceremonial procession for 50 years today.

A card on top of the Queen Mother's coffin read simply "In loving memory, Lilibet".

Amid all the pomp and splendour, it was a reminder of the Queen's personal sense of loss after her mother's "wonderful life".

The Queen, dressed in black, was waiting in the medieval splendour of Westminster Hall when her mother's coffin arrived to lie in state until her funeral on Tuesday.

As Big Ben struck noon, the coffin drew up outside the hall.

Eight bare-headed pall bearers from the Irish Guards lifted it from the gun-carriage and carried it slowly to the 7ft-high catafalque covered in Braemar-purple pleated velvet, gold braid and garnet felt.

Watching was a sombre gathering of courtiers and senior politicians including prime minister Tony Blair, Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith and former prime minister Lady Thatcher.

After a short ceremony, the Queen drove back to Buckingham Palace accompanied by a wave of sympathetic applause from crowds in Whitehall, standing up to 20-deep in places.

Earlier the procession wound its way through London with three generations of the Royal Family following it on foot.

The Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles and Princes William and Harry were among 14 senior royals who accompanied the coffin from St James's Palace to Westminster Hall.

The teenagers , bare-headed and dressed in morning suits, in contrast to other family members in their military uniforms, were taking part in the second royal funeral procession of their short lives.

In 1997 they were boys following the coffin of their mother, Diana, Princess of Wales. Shortly before 11.30am the Queen Mother's coffin, draped in her personal standard and surmounted by her diamond-encrusted crown, was carried from the Queen's Chapel at St James's Palace and placed on a horse-drawn gun carriage.

The Royal Family were immediately behind the coffin, followed by members of the Queen Mother's personal staff, including her loyal page William Tallon, known affectionately as "Backstairs Billy".

The royal mourners stood in perfect silence for several minutes awaiting the signal to move off on the stroke of 11.30am.

A military band played as the half-mile long procession made its way down The Mall, the crown atop the coffin sparkling in the spring sunshine.

To the strains of Beethoven's Funeral March, and as the first of 28 rounds of a 28-gun royal salute was fired - one for every minute of the procession - the Queen Mother's stately cortege began its journey to lie in state at Westminster Hall.

The Queen travelled to Westminster Hall with her niece, Lady Sarah Chatto, one of the Queen Mother's six grandchildren and who has been devastated by the double loss of her mother Princess Margaret and now her grandmother in just seven weeks.

From across the UK and around the world, people had gathered to witness the pomp and pageantry.

*Members of the Royal Family follow the Queen Mother's coffin to the Palace of Westminster.