The Orsova docked at Tilbury where I was met by Bruce Menzies. He’d married Jill, the Milford Baptist minister’s daughter, and they had gone to England two years previously. I was delighted to see Bruce, who hurriedly escorted me through the rain and sleet to his car and drove me to their home in Walton on Thames.
Three days before the ship had docked, we’d received news of the death of ninety-year-old Sir Winston Churchill on 24 January 1965. The funeral was to be held six days later. As Churchill’s health had begun to deteriorate plans for a state funeral had been set in place. The great man lingered on, resulting in constant revisions being made because, as Lord Mountbatten explained, ‘The pallbearers kept dying.’
Apparently, Churchill, who had also been involved in the advance planning, didn’t want French president General de Gaulle invited, as he felt (rightly) that de Gaulle disliked the Anglo-Saxons. To avoid a diplomatic incident, he agreed that the Frenchman should be invited, on one condition – the funeral train taking Churchill’s coffin to Blenheim should not leave from Paddington – the usual station. Instead, it should leave from Waterloo Station, so that de Gaulle would have to walk under the Victory Arch there.
On the 30th of January, the day of the funeral, Jill and Bruce had work commitments and left me in their house, bundled in rugs and with the heating on full blast to watch the commemorative event on
their black and white TV set.
Viewing the funeral was an auspicious start to my English sojourn. The long and solemn procession wound its way through the historic London streets to St Paul’s Cathedral, watched by thousands, many of whom bowed their heads or, if in military uniform, saluted as the coffin passed them.
In the United States, President Lyndon Johnson ordered flags throughout the country to be flown at half-mast during the day of the funeral. This was the first time that the American flag was flown at half-mast for any foreign leader.
Dignitaries from across the world were in attendance, including Ian Smith, the prime minister of the southern African colony of Rhodesia, who had yet to make his famous illegal Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain, thus making himself persona non grata in his mother country. (At the time I hardly noticed his name, little realising that a decade later I would be residing in his country.)
As a newly arrived Kiwi I watched the live broadcast with fascination, and particularly remember the slow progress of the pallbearers, clad in their military greatcoats, carrying the coffin up the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. I had rarely watched TV, as we hadn’t had one in my parents’ home, so watching this live event I felt that I was an active participant in an historic occasion.