Churchill’s cortege

John F. Ridley of Scone has been in touch to say: “The note in last Saturday’s Courier about it being on this day in 1965 that the funeral of Winston Churchill took place, also took me back to that time as I was one of a contingent of Officer Cadets from the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst marching behind the cortege. It had obviously been made clear to the powers that be some weeks beforehand that Winston was reaching the end of his days and so the Sandhurst contingent (no doubt along with many others) had been getting up even earlier than usual and slow marching with ‘reversed arms’ round the grounds of Sandhurst in preparation for the big day. ‘Reversed arms’ was hard work involving holding the rifle (7.62 SLRs in those days) by the end of the butt clasped in one hand with the stock sloping back behind one’s back and being held in place by the other hand twisted behind your back. ‘Change arms’ was an order given every so often to avoid complete loss of grip and muscle cramps.

“This in itself was a bit ‘dodgy’ as we were wearing our dress blue uniforms and white cotton gloves and the fear, and subsequent shame, of dropping your rifle during this drill manoeuvre was never far from your mind. The slow march from Westminster to the funeral barge on the Thames seemed to be endless but all went well.

“There was a rumour that those taking part in that long slow funeral procession would be given a medal somewhat akin to the Coronation Medal given to troops on duty that day in 1953 but nothing ever materialised.

“Anyway – thank you Courier for the memory of younger and fitter days.”