I WASN’T there. But it felt quite wrong to leave the country, thereby missing the whole of Queen Elizabeth II’s Lying In State and State Funeral (all channels) (News, 23 September). I had an admirable excuse: I was leading one of the Church Times’s pilgrimages to the Oberammergau Passion Play. But, as our group met for the first time at Heathrow, all felt that we were turning away from where we properly belonged — most especially those of us entrusted with the leadership and guidance of parishes and communities.

So it was that I watched as much of the coverage as possible — especially via the BBC News 24-hour service — in various Bavarian hotel bedrooms; for how could I, as a TV critic, not write about these royal obsequies when my first, quite well-remembered experience of watching TV had been to see, all those decades ago, the late Queen’s Coronation?

Watching from a foreign land added some perspective: particular appreciation of all the ceremonies played out in Edinburgh, salutary evidence to English viewers far too oblivious of the fact that this, too, is a royal kingdom with its own ancient traditions and customs, its High Kirk entirely fitting to receive and mourn the monarch. The new King’s visits to each of the UK’s nations were no vainglorious royal progresses, but affirmations of particular identity and history, combining national bereavement with assurance that the charism of service would continue.

Our hosts generously arranged for our group to watch the entire State Funeral on Sky News, whose commentary was particularly appropriate: acknowledging the religion at the heart of the event; dignified, informed, and knowing when to say nothing. But it was the subsequent scenes of the pageantry, following, as BBC1 did, the whole of the progress from Wellington Arch to Windsor, and then the committal, which demonstrated the medium’s particular strengths.

This was showing rather than telling, the directness and simplicity demonstrated by our late monarch matched by the succession of contrasts along the route. First, we saw west London’s wealth and pride, but then our quotidian life: supermarkets, garage forecourts, pubs, suburban houses, and gardens — but always crowds paying their respects.

As Windsor approached, there were an extraordinary few miles as the procession, now swollen by a glorious panoply of cavalry, bands, and pipes, accompanied the Queen along a country road. The production wasn’t perfect: why so many shots of the coffin bedecked with standard, orb, and crown, seen over and over again, and yet missing the grieving line-up of domestic staff, kitchen porters, and all?

The committal at St George’s was perhaps even more moving than the funeral, and the interment rounded off the whole perfectly by, paradoxically, not being shown, beyond TV’s all-seeing eye. Not seeing absolutely everything proved how very, very much we had witnessed — being taken almost there.