[BITList] Question Time stirs fears Wootton Bassett will become apolitical battleground - Times Online

[John Feltham]

G'day Hugh,

On 07/12/2009, at 11:48 PM, HUGH wrote:

<< The constant TV pictures of flag-draped coffins being ceremonially taken
from planes and paraded through the packed streets of Wootton Bassett >>

You are mistaken, the coffins are not being 'paraded' through the streets of Wooton Bassett.

They are on their way from RAF Lyneham, where they fly in from Afghanistan, to a place mearer London where the autopsies are carried out, as they are required to do.

At first the local people of WB just stood and watched them go by, some as you say doffed their hats.

The some of the local Vets said that that was not good enough and started standing to attention as the hearses drove passed.

Soon the local British Legion paraded.

These were just actions of the local people. Nothing to do with politics.

What would you want to do it you lived there?

I know that I would be out there if I lived there.

As an aside, every time that you see WB and the hearses they are going past the ancient black and white Tudor timber Library building. The same building that I went past on my way to work and returned from work, when I was based at RAF Lyneham back in the early 60s'.

These people of WB and the parents of the soldiers are paying their respects to their boys, as every Brit should do. They didn't ask to be killed. 

Would you still doff your hat or cap if you're wearing one when a hearse goes by you.

In 2006 one of our granddaughters died in Perth, Western Australia, aged 6 years. As we left the house and came to drive round the first corner a man walking his dog appeared. He was wearing a baseball cap. He removed his cap and stood at attention as we drove past. He obviously did not know who was in the hearse but it impressed everyone in the cars following the hearse.

If the population doesn't support this war then they should do what is necessary to do, in all democratic countries.

But the KIA deserve our respect.

> As things stand the funerals are being used to stoke up popular
> support for the "war".  

As I understood it the reverse was being shown?

> A question occurs to me - have the families of these soldiers got
> any say at all on how their funerals are organised?
 
As far as I am aware, a lot of the parents are now standing among the people of Wootton Bassett.


ooroo

Whatever you do will be insignificant,
but it is very important that you do it.

Mahatma Gandhi.




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