JAN MOIR: Solemn as a Bible, it was the BBC which caught the moment best

September on Royal Deeside brought rain without cease. It fell on the pine forests, it drenched the grey turrets of Balmoral, it soaked into the anoraks of the journalists and cameramen who had scrambled in a panic outside the castle gates. No one had expected this.

‘And no one is laying flowers yet,’ said Peter Smith for ITV, although at that point in the afternoon, no one knew what was happening. Yet a creeping sense of mortal destiny soon smoked across the extended coverage on all channels, infusing BBC1, Sky and ITV with a palpable sense of dread.

‘The mood is sombre,’ said BBC royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell, adding that there was ‘a general sense of profound concern’ and that the Queen had ‘significantly significant health issues’.

For ITV, Rachel Younger volunteered that ‘a nation was holding its breath for the woman who quite simply has always been there’. Beth Rigby for Sky was in black in Downing Street.

‘We get a sense of something very worrying happening,’ she said, looking worried. Even ITV’s Robert Peston put in an appearance to drawl languidly about ‘the seriousness, the gravity, the role the Queen has played in all our lives’.

Yet it was the BBC which caught the moment best. At 6pm the mood on screen was as solemn as a Bible. There were no snazzy Big Ben bongs, no music, none of the usual titles to announce the evening news programme.

Auntie was slipping into full fig funeral mode, even though the Queen’s death had yet to be officially announced. Newsreader Huw Edwards was already in his black tie looking tearful, while Witchell — ever the stickler for detail and protocol — was still in his blue tie.

Yes, he had a few ideas about what was going on. A photograph of the Earl and Countess of Wessex in the back of a car heading to Balmoral flashed on to the screen. Sophie Wessex, always close to the Queen, looked particularly distraught.

‘I would say that in the absence of hard facts, the images are now telling the story. The Wessexes in the back of that vehicle. I thought they looked very sombre,’ said Witchell.

‘Every individual must look at that photograph and draw their own conclusions. Let’s leave it at that.’

Newsreader Huw Edwards was already in his black tie looking tearful

He was very keen that no one should speculate about who and who was not arriving at the Queen’s Scottish deathbed.

‘This isn’t a moment for Meghan to be there with the other close family. Why has she stayed behind?

‘Undoubtedly, people will speculate about that, but this is not the moment,’ he sniffed, before going on to do a little lush speculating of his own. ‘She might not be terribly warmly welcomed,’ he said.

Then the screen went blank across all BBC channels. The terrible moment had finally arrived. ‘The BBC is interrupting its normal programmes to bring an important announcement. Buckingham Palace has announced the death of Her Majesty the Queen,’ said Huw Edwards, as sad as a tombstone.

He was speaking very, very slowly, but with exactly the layer of gravelly Welsh gravitas the occasion demanded. And then, in the most simple and perfectly judged moment after he relayed the sad details, the National Anthem was played as an official portrait of the young Queen filled the screen.

King Charles III released this poignant statement reacting to the death of his ‘beloved mother’ as he took to the throne

It was deeply moving. I suspect I was not alone in having to choke back tears. Edwards then talked of HM’s steadfast sense of duty, and a ‘reign that was unlike any other in the long history of our country’. Nicholas changed into his black tie. The Queen was officially dead, long live the King.

In stark contrast to this simple but magisterial coverage, Sky was floating a purple banner across the bottom of their coverage, with The Queen Dies picked out in gold letters, like some game-show announcement. There were lots of meaningful pauses, but their treatment was less sure-footed than the BBC’s.

Sky royal correspondent Rhiannon Mills said that over the next few days we would see the ‘pendulum sing between pageantry and mourning’.

She also pointed out that ‘as soon as the Queen took her last breath, we have a new king’.

Maybe so, but wasn’t it too soon for all that? I just wanted to hear more about the Queen and her life, not life after the Queen.

‘In case anyone has just joined us, the Queen died peacefully at Balmoral this afternoon,’ chirped Mary Nightingale on ITV, which was just a bit too casual for comfort. Their royal reporter Chris Ship ran through the new titles now conferred upon the royals, explaining that the Duke of Cambridge becomes the Duke of Cornwall as Charles becomes King Charles. Later, he read out a statement from the new King, perfectly illustrating the strange new royal world we now inhabit.

‘This is a statement from His Majesty the Queen,’ he began. ‘My apologies, I mean His Majesty the Queen. Oh, you can see the difficulty here. What I mean is His Majesty The Queen.’

Ship has been a royal correspondent for five years. He is not the only one who is going to have trouble adapting to the new regime.

Of course, not everything was in the best possible taste during the long hours of rolling coverage.

‘Did she have a stroke?’ wondered one royal author called Douglas on the BBC. Another correspondent was keen to know if the Queen would have ‘privacy’ at Balmoral, which seemed an odd question — but perhaps no one had explained the concept of a castle to her before.

For many long hours throughout the day, the cameras were focused on the dripping trees and the handsome gates to the Balmoral estate. It seems apt that the last images we saw of the Queen were taken here, in front of her roaring log fire, every inch the Scottish grandmother in her kilt and cosy cardigan.

T his was her final appearance in public, but no one knew that she was only days away from death. She had to meet her new Prime Minister, it was constitutionally important, so she did it.

There she was, leaning on her walking stick, offering an empurpled hand to Liz Truss, still doing her doing her duty at the age of 96.

There is no one today who can compare to our Queen — no one. What a life she had, what a difference she made, how well she lived, right to the very end.

‘We will not see her like again,’ said Nicholas Witchell.

And he was right.

Peston tied up in knots with colour changes

ITV’s political editor Robert Peston kept changing ties yesterday while reporting on growing concerns about the Queen before her death was announced.

The 62-year-old started out with a black tie, which was apparently deemed too sombre by his team, as he broadcast in Downing Street. He then changed to a colourful striped tie before switching back to black and a navy blue one with white spots. When the Queen’s death was announced he wore a black tie for a third time.

One viewer tweeted: ‘Robert Peston had a black tie on earlier. Now changed to blue and white… Is it a fashion show?’