Friday 30 January 2015

Eric

With today marking 50 years since Churchill's funeral, I am reminded of Uncle Eric, who had a part to play in that famous day. Sadly I never got to meet him - he was certainly a remarkable man, as this obituary which appeared in the Independent demonstrated.

Given Eric's connections to both the funeral train and to the National Railway Museum, it is very interesting to see that they have an exhibition which starts today - "Churchill's Final Journey". May well be worth a visit.

(Also interesting to note that they have an article which specifically explains why Churchill wanted the final train journey to depart from Waterloo, which I understand is a story that Uncle Eric had shared before as well. However, I think in Eric's version, the main thrust of the tale was about taking the opportunity to have some fun at De Gaulle's expense, and not so much the subtler point about nations never surrendering to tyrants!)