It’s 30 January, so I hope we’re all standing to attention and saluting as we mark the anniversary of the funeral of Sir Winston Spencer Churchill, a day the wily old bastard marked with his last joke: getting one over on the French even though he wouldn’t actually be there to see it happen.
The event had been 12 years in the planning, because the country had started preparing when his stroke in 1953 nearly killed him. As Lord Mountbatten observed, though:
Winston kept living and the pallbearers kept dying.
The Duke of Norfolk, hereditary Earl Marshal of England, was in charge of Big Ceremonial Stuff, and Churchill’s involvement was not great — he understandably didn’t want to dwell on the idea all that much. But he chose the hymns…
…and decided he wanted to be laid to rest alongside his ancestors in St Martin’s Churchyard in Bladon, Oxfordshire…
…which would mean a Great Western Railway journey for his coffin — and a GWR train would naturally leave from Paddington. Churchill had a request, though. In fact, he was insistent. His final journey must start at Waterloo — south of the river, its tracks heading south east; entirely the wrong direction. Why?
So he could force General de Gaulle, President of France, to walk under an arch celebrating the defeat of Napoleon. Obviously.
Winston Churchill: wartime leader, legendary drunk, and taker of the piss even in death. It’s no wonder the English revere him.
