Funereal
Posted: Thu 6 August, 2009 Filed under: Cynicism, News, Thoughts 2 Comments »While I do think it’s sad – although hardly unexpected – to know that “the last Tommy” (the last British soldier from World War One) died at the end of July, I can’t help but find the way his funeral has been taken over today to be pretty objectionable.
Harry Patch’s request was for a small funeral party, for just family and friends. No fuss, no pomp – pretty much what one would expect from someone who led as quiet a life as he appears to have done.
Instead, there’s been tickets issued for the funeral, some 1,000-plus people in Wells Cathedral as well as a public parade, and people outside on Cathedral Green to see the proceedings on video screens. It’s turned into some kind of media carnival, with (on one report I heard just now) reporters doing a broadcast from inside the cathedral while the service was going on. (And regardless of everything else, the disrespect of that action just stuns me)
While I don’t really have a problem with people showing their respects to Harry Patch – although how many of them really knew him at all? – I don’t really get why the media et al feel that it’s OK to trample over his last wishes in this way.
The reporter on BBC Breakfast said that the gig at Wells Cathedral was merely a remembrance service organised by the family for the community and Harry *will* have a small family funeral later today at his local church. Apparently, as the last survivor of WWI, he could have had a State Funeral, but he refused.
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I agree with your point about how many of the thousands of people at Wells cathedral actually knowing Harry Patch. How many of them would have attended the funerals of other WWI veterans in previous years?
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At the end of the day The Media love themselves a good circus.
I was thinking much the same myself when I saw them talking about it on the news this morning.