QUEEN’S SILENT TEAR FOR NATION’S FALLEN
Charles takes over Remembrance duty as teary Queen looks on
SHEDDING a tear in the bitter cold, the Queen watched a Remembrance Sunday service as Prince Charles led the nation in honouring Britain’s war dead yesterday.
In a historic transfer of royal duties, the 91-year-old monarch stood beside Prince Philip on a Foreign Office balcony as Charles – in the uniform of Marshal of the RAF – laid the first wreath on behalf of his mother.
She and her consort, with whom she will celebrate 70 years of marriage on November 20, watched the service at the Cenotaph, central London, alongside the Duchess of Cornwall.
On a neighbouring balcony the Duchess of Cambridge joined Sophie, Countess of Wessex, and the Queen’s cousin Princess Alexandra to watch a ceremony that marked the changing of the royal guard.
In the corner of the balcony, Philip, at 96 one of the last survivors of the Second World War to be present at the service, looked frail and uncomfortable. Wearing the uniform of Admiral of the Fleet, he appeared to struggle to stand at times.
Bomb
An equerry laid Philip’s wreath before Charles, who will be 69 tomorrow, returned to lay his tribute of red poppies at the foot of Sir Edwin Lutyens’s monument to the fallen in Whitehall.
The Duke of Cambridge, wearing an RAF squadron leader’s uniform, and Prince Harry, in the uniform of a captain in the Household Cavalry’s Blues and Royals, also laid wreaths.
On a chilly autumn morning, 10,000 veterans, their medals proudly pinned to their chests, and serving military personnel paraded in Whitehall.
Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn both bowed at length after laying their wreaths. Former Prime Ministers David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and Sir John Major also attended the ceremony.
A pipe bomb was discovered close to a war memorial in Omagh, Northern Ireland, before a Remembrance parade took place there yesterday.
The march was diverted and wreathlaying at the County Tyrone town’s cenotaph was postponed after the area was sealed off.
In 1998, a bomb planted by the Real IRA killed 29 in the busy market town.
Northern Ireland Chief Constable George Hamilton described yesterday’s pipe bomb as “sickening and appalling”.
THE Queen apart, no one has given greater service to this country than Prince Philip. At 96 and looking chilled on a bitter day he insisted on being in Whitehall for Remembrance Sunday.
How poignant it was for the Queen to demonstrate the enduring strength of the bond between them by standing at his side and letting Prince Charles lay the wreath at the Cenotaph.
Doing your duty to your country comes in many forms and the young men and women we remembered yesterday made the ultimate sacrifice.
We should never underestimate the unselfish way the Queen and the Prince have given their lives to the nation for the past 65 years.
On a sombre day they provided a ray of sunlight.