An old soldier has been honoured by hundreds of mourners at his funeral after fears his passing would be forgotten.
Harold Jellicoe Percival died aged 99 without close friends or relatives at hand at a nursing home, where staff worried no one would be at his funeral.
But after a public appeal for the Second World War veteran, roads were blocked with traffic and the crematorium unable to hold the numbers of mourners at his funeral, poignantly beginning at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
As millions marked Armistice Day across the world, members of the public, old soldiers and serving servicemen and women, stood in silence for the arrival of Mr Percival’s funeral cortege at the crematorium in Lytham St Annes, Lancashire, in keeping with the Ode of Remembrance, “We will remember them”.
“It’s just staggering,” his nephew, Andre Collyer-Worsell, said after attending the service. “It just shows how great the British public are.
“He was not a hero, he was just someone who did his duty in World War Two, just as his brother and sister did and his father before him in World War One.
“We were expecting a few people, a few local veterans but suddenly it snowballed.
“It’s the sort of send-off you would want to give any loved one. It’s very emotional.”
Comedian Jason Manford was one of those who had issued appeals over the weekend asking if people could turn up to give Mr Percival a fitting send-off.