As it happened: York welcomes the King

Preparations are almost complete at York Minster as we await the arrival of the King.

And the statue he will unveil of his late mother, Queen Elizabeth II, is now covered with a purple silk cloth.

It will be this that King Charles will pull aside to finally reveal the statue, designed and carved by Minster stonemason Richard Bossons, to the world.

Previously it was hidden by a rather rougher material:

Meet the first woman in the queue to see the King at Micklegate Bar.

She is Justine Spencer, and she got up at 5am to see Charles III and Camilla, Queen Consort, enter the city through the royal gateway.

Justine is a familiar figure to YorkMix readers, as the woman who looked after Gerald, the York Minster cat.

She told YorkMix: “We all got very early up out of bed and the whole family are down here to King hopefully because it’s an amazing opportunity to see him so close. I can’t wait. I’m really hoping that we get to see him today.

“We arrived at about six. So we all got up about five o’clock in the morning, which is not too bad considering if it was London, we’d have had to camp out.

“It’s really nice he’s come to York. I’m really pleased that he’s got the climate issues as a priority. I really like what he’s doing there.

“There will be a massive crowd. I’m just glad that we got here early and we have a slight chance to see him. So fingers crossed!”

The city is getting ready.

Here’s Micklegate this morning, with barriers in place for the crowds expected when the King and Camilla, Queen Consort, arrive in the late morning today.