Funeral for WWI veteran Harry Patch
Updated on 06 August 2009
Harry Patch, the world's last surviving soldier to have fought in the first world war - and who himself hated war - has been laid to rest.
Mr Patch, who died at the age of 111 last month, served in the trenches between June and September 1917 and fought during the battle of Passchendaele, in Ypres, which claimed the lives of more than 70,000 soldiers.
His coffin was taken from his former residential home Fletcher House in Wells, Somerset, to Wells cathedral. Mr Patch was staunchly anti-war, and the service in his honour was based on the theme of peace and reconciliation at his specific request.
Gordon Corrigan and Christina Patterson discuss the legacy left by Harry Patch.
At the age of 18, Harry Patch was conscripted into the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, becoming number two in a Lewis gun team. The coffin bearer party will comprise six soldiers from The Rifles, the modern day equivalent to the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry.
Harriet Harman attended the service in place of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, along with the Dutchess of Cornwall, Veterans Minister Kevan Jones and Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt.
Mr Patch became Britain's oldest man a week before he died when Henry Allingham, another veteran of the war, died aged 113.
The Five Acts of Harry Patch
In February this year, then Poet Laureate Andrew Motion was commissioned to write a poem in Mr Patch's honour, entitled The Five Acts of Harry Patch.
On the day Mr Patch died, Andrew Motion spoke of meeting the oldest British survivor of the trenches and read an extract from the poem.
