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Muffled bells, Nimrod and I Vow To Thee My Country... How Maggie is saying goodbye

Margaret Thatcher’s funeral service will be dominated by movingly patriotic selections of music and verse, chosen by the former Prime Minister herself.
The service, conducted by the Bishop of London, the Right Rev Richard Chartres – a long-standing friend of Lady Thatcher – will reflect her public love of her country and her private literary tastes.
Lady Thatcher’s coat of arms is on the front page of the Order of Service, as granted following her elevation to the peerage in 1992. Underneath are the words ‘Cherish Freedom’, her motto.
On the second page is the poem Little Gidding, by T. S. Eliot, written at the height of the Blitz in 1941. The poet was a particular favourite of Lady Thatcher.

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter’s afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

A single half-muffled bell will toll as the cortege arrives. The half-muffled sound is used for a mournful effect: traditionally, bells are only fully muffled on the death of the sovereign, incumbent vicar or bishop. The St Paul’s Cathedral Guild of Ringers will ring using a technique known as ‘Stedman Cinques’ for 30 minutes.

Lady Thatcher’s coffin will be borne by a bearer party made up of personnel from Army, Navy and RAF units that served in the Falklands.
 

More...

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  • She lost Cecil... so how did that fat fornicating fool Prescott survive? In true Chingford Polecat style, a delicious monstering of political lightweights who brought Thatcher down
  • Which of these PMs sacked the most miners? (Clue: It wasn't Lady Thatcher)... The amazing facts that make a mockery of the rabble who want to wreck her funeral
The west steps of the cathedral will be lined by pensioners of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, which Lady Thatcher frequently attended during her final years. Guests will file in to the strains of late-Victorian British composers. Lady Thatcher expressly requested that the service should be ‘framed’ by traditional British music and it will include:
Meditation on John Keble’s Rogationtide Hymn, by John Ireland; Psalm-Prelude (Set 2, No 1), Herbert Howells; Allegro maestoso and Andante espressivo from Sonata in G major, Edward Elgar; Adagio in E major from Three Pieces for Organ, Frank Bridge; Fantasia and Toccata, Charles Villiers Stanford; Master Tallis’s Testament from Six Pieces for Organ, Herbert Howells; Toccata and Fugue ‘The Wanderer’, Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry; Rhosymedre from Three Preludes founded on Welsh Hymn Tunes, Ralph Vaughan Williams; Elegy, Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry.
Baroness Thatcher's coffin will be placed on a bier under St Paul's Cathedral's dome
Solemn: Baroness Thatcher's coffin will be placed on a bier under St Paul's Cathedral's dome
The Arrival
10am-10.15am: Heads of State, representatives and the diplomatic corps; visiting representatives of world faiths; Lord Speaker Baroness D’Souza, Mr Speaker John Bercow, the Prime Minister.
10.35am-10.45am: London Mayor Boris Johnson and sheriffs The Hon Jeffrey Evans and Nigel Pullman; members of Lady Thatcher’s family; The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh.

All will stand as the clock strikes 11am and the coffin is carried into the cathedral to a bier under the dome.
Lady Thatcher’s grandchildren, Michael and Amanda, will carry cushions bearing the insignia of the Order of the Garter and the Order of Merit, which will be laid on the dome altar. The Order of the Garter, founded by Edward III in 1348, is the most senior and the oldest British Order of Chivalry; the Order of Merit – the personal gift of the Queen – is limited to 24 living recipients at one time.

The Bidding
The Bidding, given by the Dean of St Paul’s, the Very Rev David Ison:

David Cameron poses with Margaret Thatcher
Honoured: Lady Thatcher's funeral will reflect her own choices of music and verse
We come to this Cathedral today to remember before God Margaret Hilda Thatcher, to give thanks for her life and work, and to commend her into God’s hands.
We recall with great gratitude her leadership of this nation, her courage, her steadfastness, and her resolve to accomplish what she believed to be right for the common good. 
We remember the values by which she lived, the ideals she embraced, her dignity, her diligence, her courtesy, and her personal concern for the wellbeing of individuals.
And as we remember, so we rejoice in the lifelong companionship she enjoyed with Denis, and we pray for her family and friends and for all who mourn her passing.
We continue to pray for this nation, giving thanks for its traditions of freedom, for the rule of law and for parliamentary democracy; remembering the part we have played in peace and conflict over many centuries and in all parts of the world; praying for all today who suffer and sorrow in sickness, poverty, oppression or despair, that in harmony and truth we may seek to be channels of Christ’s faith, hope and compassion to all the world; joining our prayers together as we say:

The Lord’s Prayer

Hymn: He Who Would Valiant Be – John Bunyan and Percy Dearmer
l A favourite from her childhood that chimed with her political philosophy.

First reading
by granddaughter Amanda Thatcher
from Ephesians 6. 10-18

Second reading
by Prime Minister David Cameron
from John 14. 1-6

Anthem
Psalm 84, set to the music of Johannes Brahms. Lady Thatcher chose it to be played at Sir Denis’s funeral.

The Address
given by the Bishop of London

Hymn: Love Divine, All Loves Excelling – Charles Wesley
l Chosen to reflect the influence of her Methodist upbringing.

Prayers

Hymn: I Vow To Thee, My Country – Cecil Spring-Rice
l Lady Thatcher regarded it as ‘one of the great patriotic verses’.

The Commendation
led by The Bishop of London

The Blessing
given by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby

The Recessional
The coffin, accompanied by the family, is carried out of the cathedral. The organist will play Nimrod from Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar and Prelude and Fugue in C Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.

Lady Thatcher was avidly interested in poetry. One of her favourite poems, Ode: Intimations Of Immortality, by William Wordsworth, is printed on the final page.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparell’d in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore; –
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
The rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the rose;
The moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare;
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath pass’d away a glory from the earth.
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death.

thatcher funeral facts

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