By ALAN FREEMAN


Thursday, April 4, 2002 – Print Edition, Page A12

LONDON -- When Major Mike Trayner, a member of Canada's armed forces reserve, asked his employer last weekend for time off to attend the funeral of the Queen Mother as one of four representatives of The Toronto Scottish Regiment, his boss was puzzled at first.

"He couldn't believe it could take 10 days for a funeral. He said, 'Are you sure it's not five?' " Major Trayner, an information-technology specialist for a packaging firm, said as he polished his boots at a Royal Air Force base outside London where the dozen Canadians who will participate in the coming days' events are billeted.

With the clock slowly ticking toward next Tuesday's funeral at Westminster Abbey, it's becoming difficult to sustain public interest in what is touted as the most important funeral Britain has seen since Sir Winston Churchill died in 1965.

The desperation could clearly be seen yesterday on the front pages of the normally monarchy-mad tabloids. The Daily Mail, which came close to pushing the story completely off its front page, offered loyal readers free Queen Mother rose bushes; The Daily Express countered with a free video.

The Sun did drop the Queen Mother from its front page; readers had to turn well past topless 21-year-old Zoe on Page 3 before they were told that "thousands watch in silence" as the Queen Mother's coffin was taken from Windsor to St. James's Palace on Tuesday. The accompanying photos showed sparse crowds peering at the hearse as it passed.

The Mirror, clearly guilt-ridden over the lukewarm public reaction of Britons to the 10-day mourning period, featured a large picture showing a handful of people waiting to sign the book of condolences for the Queen Mother at St. James's Palace with the banner headline, "Sorry Ma'am . . . that so many of us are showing you so little respect."

"To many people, the Queen Mother meant very little," the newspaper's accompanying editorial said, pleading for more public interest. "To others, she was a symbol of a past best forgotten. But the truth is, we should all stop and think again. What did the Queen Mother do to earn such disrespect?"

Jessica Elgood, head of the political research unit at MORI, a leading British pollster, said, "My feeling is that there is a huge generational gap".

While older Britons recall her role in boosting spirits during the Blitz in 1940, "people under 50 don't remember that active involvement she had as queen."

While only about 20 per cent of Britons favour replacing the monarchy with a republican form of government, Ms. Elgood noted that only 27 per cent of respondents to a recent poll believed Britain would still be a monarchy in 100 years'.

The Queen Mother's coffin will remain at a chapel at St. James's Palace until tomorrow, when it will be transferred in a ceremonial procession to medieval Westminster Hall, adjacent to Big Ben, where it will lie in state until the funeral.

The newspapers have noted that "hundreds of thousands" of people are expected to pay their respects to the Queen Mother although the numbers signing books of condolence so far total only in the thousands. (The highly royalist Daily Telegraph noted, perhaps hopefully, that the lines stretched for three miles when King George VI died in 1952.)

The Royal Family's public-relations advisers have sensed the need to retain public interest. Yesterday, Prince Edward and his wife Sophie made a televised walkabout, looking at flowers left by members of the public at Windsor Castle, while Prince Andrew did the same thing outside Clarence House in London.

Officials have argued that the mourning period has actually been cut back from earlier plans and that it's the only way to handle the private and public grieving required for such an important figure.

In Parliament yesterday, MPs and members of the House of Lords returned from their Easter break for a special session dedicated to the Queen Mother. Despite praise from MPs on all sides of the House, several Labour backbenchers also expressed dissatisfaction that the government wasn't having them stay on for an emergency debate of the crisis in the Middle East.