WHEN SAM MENDES was appointed as the director of the next James Bond film, Skyfall, it was said that the Oscar winner would give the 50-year-old franchise an intelligent new depth.
His efforts to bring a contemporary edge to the 23rd Bond film by including scenes apparently inspired by the military funeral repatriations that passed through Royal Wootton Bassett have, however, caused concern.
The scenes, which feature the bodies of eight servicemen killed overseas being repatriated and driven in a funeral cortege past hundreds of mourners lining the streets, worry the Royal British Legion. “The last thing we want is a glitzy film,” says its Royal Wootton Bassett spokesman.
“Attending the repatriations started as a pure and simple tribute. How are the mothers and fathers of the fallen soldiers going to feel when they see this on the big screen? It is cashing in on people’s grief and is just cynical.”
James Gray, the MP whose constituency includes Royal Wootton Bassett, says the scenes must be inspired by the town. “Prior to the Iraq war, soldiers Daniel Craig will reprise his role as James Bond in the film ‘Skyfall’ were buried in the countries where they fell,” he says. “When the repatriations started passing through Wootton Bassett is when great crowds began to attend.”
Roger Smith, a funeral director brought in to take part in the scenes, was shocked by the filmmakers’ ignorance. “The annoying thing was that the directors didn’t seem aware of the protocol for English funerals,” he tells me.
“They wanted to do a Wootton Bassett-type scene, but had no master of ceremonies in front of the cortege to give the right speed. It was a real shame, a missed opportunity.”
The Bournemouth funeral director drove his firm’s Daimler hearse outside the Old Royal Naval College, in Greenwich, where the scenes were filmed.
“There were eight hearses and two limousines,” Smith says. “Daimlers are getting rarer, so they had to scour the country. All 10 of us had to try to keep the gap right as we drove past Judi Dench and about 400 extras.”
Gray says, however: “If this scene in the film reminds people of Wootton Bassett, then that can only be a good thing.”