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Winston Churchill’s Final Journey The heroic and charismatic statesman’s last journey was replete with echoes of his extraordinary life.
1965
Queen Elizabeth II 1952-
Music: George Frideric Handel

© TheTurfBurner, Geograph. Licence: CC-BY-SA 2.0. Source

About this picture …

‘Battle of Britain’ class locomotive No. 34051 today, on display in the National Railway Museum in York. This was the locomotive that hauled Churchill’s funeral train in 1965; at present it is not operational.

Winston Churchill’s Final Journey
Winston Churchill’s tenacity, eloquence and principled refusal, regardless of the cost, to embrace seductive European promises of ‘progress’ and ‘harmony’ carried Blitz-torn Britain and persuaded a hesitant America to join the Allies.

SIR Winston Churchill, appointed Prime Minister in 1940 to lead Britain’s successful war effort against the Nazis, died on January 24, 1965, aged 90.

He was to be buried in Bladon, a village near Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire where Churchill was born in 1874.

On January 30th, a funeral train of six carriages set out from Waterloo station in London - apparently Churchill’s own calculated reference to the famous battle in 1815 - behind ‘Battle of Britain’ class steam locomotive No. 34051, which in 1947 had been named in Churchill’s honour; No. 34064 ‘Fighter Command’ was the appropriate backup.

Hundreds of thousands of grateful British subjects — possibly as many as a million, old, young, and even babies in their prams — lined the route muffled in thick coats and woolly hats on a bleak and overcast day, as driver Alf Hurley and 22-year-old fireman Jim Lester carried Britain’s heroic and charismatic statesman to his final place of rest.*

See Fireman recalls day he had a role in Churchill’s final journey (Yorkshire Post).

Related Video

A brief extract from the TV broadcast of the train departing Waterloo for its journey in 1965, with commentary.

Suggested Music

Joshua

Chorus ‘See the Conquering Hero Comes’

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Performed by the Hanoverian Court Orchestra and the Maulbronn Chamber Choir, conducted by Juergen Budday.

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Transcript / Notes

Youths

See, the conqu’ring hero comes!
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums.
Sports prepare, the laurel bring,
Songs of thriumph to him sing.

Virgins

See the godlike youth advance!
Breathe the flutes, and lead the dance;
Myrtle wreaths, and roses twine,
To deck the hero’s brow divine.

Full Chorus

See, the conqu’ring hero comes!
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums.
Sports prepare, the laurel bring,
Songs of triumph to him sing.
See... da capo

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