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Off-topic: Funeral today of worlds oldest man in Brighton UK

Posted by (Brighton, Sussex, UK) on

Hi All,

Being the interested world travellers you are on this site, I thought that you maybe interested in these BBC News clips of the funeral of (until two weeks ago) the world's oldest man Henry Allingham today in Brighton where I live.

As one of the founder members of the Royal Air Force and having served in the Battle of Jutland his coffin was carried by 3 RAF and 3 Royal Navy personnel and Mr Allingham's medals were carried by two of his 16 great-grandchildren who are both currently serving in the US Navy, one of his daughters being a war bride. There were many people in the service from his family in the US.

I hope these clips work from the US!:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8175751.stm

(Fly past by 5 replica World War I planes that he flew):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8176631.stm

Cheers
Steve.

Posted by
3262 posts

Hi Steve!

The links do work! Thank you for posting them. Both were a wonderful tribute to an amazing man!

Posted by
317 posts

Just saw the clips on the weekend edition of BBC news on PBS. A remarkable man was Henry Allingham.

Posted by
5678 posts

Thank you for posting these. As the granddaughter of a WWI vet originally from Scotland I found this all very moving. My grandfather fought with the Royal Canadian Expeditionary Force as he had already emigrated to the United States. He met my grandmother while back in England during the war. She was a nurse. Whenever I visit Edinburgh I pay a visit to the War Memorial in the Castle and say a prayer for all those boys.

The grandson's comments were wonderful and brought back memories for me of my grandmother, as sadly, I only met my grandfather as a baby.

Don't miss the link to the poem for the last of WWI. It is very good. http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8175000/8175790.stm

Pam

Posted by
63 posts

And a week later here's a link to the funeral service of Harry Patch - the last of the last:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8186578.stm

"One thing that struck me was how young many of the mourners were here - teenagers, who are the same age as Harry when he was sent to the trenches.

I spotted one young man wearing surfing shorts and a black tie. Harry would have smiled and approved."

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