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Dermot Murnaghan says he faltered breaking news of Queen’s death a week after his mother’s: ‘It came flooding back to me’-Ruth Lawes-Entertainment – Metro
‘It was quite a moment,’ Murnaghan said.
Murnaghan reporting the Queen’s death from The Mall (Picture: AFP)
Sky News presenter Dermot Murnaghan has said memories of his late mother came ‘flooding’ back to him while he was reporting the Queen’s death.
The 64-year-old travelled to The Mall to front the channel’s rolling coverage of Her Majesty as soon as it was announced she was in poor health on Thursday, September 8.
Buckingham Palace later confirmed the Queen had died peacefully surrounded by her family at Balmoral, with the former BBC News host among the first to break the news of her death.
Speaking to Metro.co.uk about how he prepared to deliver the announcement to the nation, Murnaghan revealed: ‘You don’t need any words [to explain] how sad it is how terrible it is, how shocking it’s going to be.
‘The queen is dead: those few words they’re where the enormity lies and it’s my job to get that across as respectfully but as clearly as possible.’
Murnaghan also opened about the ‘personal’ impact of giving updates on the Queen so soon after his own mother’s death, explaining his voice slightly broke when reading the Palace’s statement.
He continued: ‘There is a personal side, of course, I’m not an automaton. It was just a week before that, Thursday the first of September, when sadly my mother died.
Murnaghan said he thought of his late mother while reporting the Queen’s death (Picture: Daniel LEAL / AFP)
‘I was at her funeral delivering a eulogy about a life well lived of an old woman much loved by her family. And that came flooding back to me, it’s coming back to me now.
‘There I was exactly a week later telling the nation that another much loved older woman had passed away.
The Queen died peacefully at the age of 96 (Picture: Getty Images)
‘I pride myself my professionalism and I did catch for a moment. I did catch. It just came. It came back to me. I didn’t tell people that was why but it was quite a moment.’
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The Queen’s state funeral will take place on Monday September 19, with the service beginning at 11am in Westminster Abbey.
It is expected to be watched on TV by billions of people globally and by thousands of members of the public who will be lining The Mall.
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