Day of heroes & history
QUEEN’S POPPY DAY DUTY GOES TO HEIR
FOR decades she has led the nation in tribute to our war dead.
But for the first time yesterday, the Queen was a spectator at the Remembrance service at the Cenotaph, watching from a balcony as Prince Charles laid her wreath.
In a poignant and historical handover, the 91-year-old monarch asked her son and heir to take her place laying the first poppy wreath.
She stood with her eyes filled with tears next to Prince Philip, 96 – who looked frail and appeared to lean on a wall during the 25-minute ceremony in Central London.
To most in the crowd, the Queen was a tiny dot dressed in black, just visible peering over the Foreign and Commonwealth office balcony.
She turned to Philip a handful of times, but mostly faced forward with a solemn expression, at one point dabbing at her eye.
The pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was joined by Sophie, Countess of Wessex and Princess Alexandra on a second balcony.
Below them, 10,000 service personnel and veterans from the Army, Navy and RAF, medals pinned proudly to their chests, lined up ready to march through the capital in honour of their colleagues.
But first, the usually bustling streets were plunged into silence as Big Ben sounded the first stroke of 11am – a ceremony repeated throughout the country.
After the Last Post, Prince Charles, who will be 69 this week, stepped forward, dressed in his grey Marshal of the RAF uniform, and placed the Queen’s wreath.
Other wreaths were laid by Prince William, wearing an RAF Squadron Lead- er’s uniform, and a bearded Prince Harry, in the uniform of a Captain in the Household Cavalry’s Blues and other royals.
They were followed by Theresa May, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Lib Dem Vince Cable and other politicians.
Among the servicemen and women at the Cenotaph was Regimental Sergeant Major Kevin Stacey, 40, of the Black Watch 3rd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland based at Fort George, Inverness. He said: “It’s quite fitting that there is some sort of handover in ceremonies with the Queen. She is getting a bit older.” Britain’s most injured soldier, Ben Parkinson MBE, made his first public appearance after major surgery at a ceremony in his hometown of Doncaster, South Yorks. The Lance Bombardier lost both legs and suffered more than 40 injuries, including brain damage, in a bomb attack in 2006 in Helmand, Afghanistan. He was wheeled up to the cenotaph by his stepfather.
A “viable” pipe bomb forced the postponement of wreath-laying at Omagh, Co Tyrone, site of the largest single atrocity of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Chief Con George Hamilton said it was “sickening”, adding: “This small but potentially dangerous device was left to cause the maximum disruption.” The Real IRA killed 29 people in Omagh in 1998.