THE BELLS of St Bartholomew and All Saint’s Church in Wootton Basset tolled at 1.55pm yesterday. Silence descended upon the hundreds gathered on the main street of the Wiltshire town. Old men stood erect and saluted.
Motorcycle outriders led the two hearses carrying the UK’s latest Afghanistan war dead, the coffins draped in the Union Jack. Seconds later, the aching sobs of Nicola Marlton-Thomas, the wife of one of them, pierced the crowd.
Her husband, Cpl Loren Marlton-Thomas, (28), was killed by a roadside bomb in Helmand on Sunday, while 20-year-old Rifleman Andrew Fentiman was shot dead near Sangin on the same day.
The crowds in Wootton Bassett have come out 100 times now to honour the fallen in a ceremony that has made the town, with a population of 13,000, famous. It is a fame that it does not want.
In early 2007, the first corteges to pass through were saluted by just a few British Legion veterans. Local shopkeepers and pedestrians soon stood alongside. In time, the numbers swelled to thousands.
Reflecting the discomfort of many, Rev Thomas Woodhouse, sitting in his church earlier, said: “It is a privilege to honour them, and the sense of privilege and honour remains.”
However, the media attention that has come to the small town near Swindon is not welcome: “Why do the television cameras keep coming? Every week, they come. We can’t stop them.”
However, the citizens of Wootton Bassett will continue to line the streets, if the dead keep coming. “Yes, they will. It is never easy. There is no sense of the heart hardening,” he said.
Family and friends of the soldiers gathered from shortly after 11am in the Cross Keys pub, where landlord Kirsty Lambert once more offered free hospitality, as she has done for all of their predecessors.
Dressed in black and wearing poppies, they attempted cheerfulness, yet gladly accepted locals’ hugs. A young boy, his black tie loosely knotted, rolled a cue-ball upon a pool table, but with little enthusiasm.
Two coaches had come from Rifleman Fentiman’s Cambridgeshire village, bringing friends little older than himself: “People just want to show their respect, to welcome him home,” said one.
“This means so much to the families,” said Wiltshire British Legion chairman Dennis Compton. “We get so many letters afterwards telling us that they are overwhelmed that we cared.” Just after 1.30pm, the RAF Hercules carrying the men’s remains passed overhead heading for RAF Lyneham, three miles away, so low its windows glinted in the November sun.
A hush slowly descended, before reaching a complete silence with the peal of St Bartholomew’s bells. Soon, the hearses arrived. The families placed flowers, wept and hugged each other; pain etched on every face.
A single person clapped, quickly stopping when no one else joined in. Locals dislike the clapping that has marked previous corteges, preferring “quiet reverence, and respect”, as the Legion’s George Richardson put it.
Once the hearses had passed, the flags were once more raised; the salutes ended.
By 2.05pm, the crowd began to break up, and traffic once more flowed. “See you next time. There’ll be a next time,” one veteran told another sadly.
The speedy resumption of normal life is necessary: “It’s important that life goes on. There is more to here than repatriation, as there is more to any other community that comes to the attention of others,” said Rev Woodhouse.
The cortege continued its journey, greeted by respectful locals and halted traffic, on its way to Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, where postmortems are to be held, before the remains are released to their loved ones.
Earlier, a small sign in the Framing and Stamping Corner shop window had given notice of yesterday’s homecoming.
But even before it had taken place, a new one was pasted up telling of the next one, due on Tuesday – the 101st.
Wootton Basset so wishes to return to the days when it offered private tribute, unnoticed by the world: “It all started out so innocently.
“But it has become a complete media circus. I don’t know how we are going to get out of it,” said one local veteran.