A 91-YEAR-OLD who served as a verger at the burial of Sir Winston Churchill has recounted the historic day 50 years on.

Frank Hall was verger at St Martin’s Church in Bladon, where Sir Winston asked to be buried, and lived in the church cottage with his wife Jean, now 85.

Mr Hall had met the former Prime Minister while serving in Germany in 1945 and it left a lasting impession on him.

Twenty years later Mr Hall stood at Sir Winston’s graveside as the solemn ceremony on January 30, 1965 unfolded.

The Stonesfield pensioner has unearthed his treasured scrap books packed with photographs of the occasion that have been gathering dust in his home for 50 years.

Mr Hall said: “It was something special because it was Winston Churchill.

“It was just an ordinary service and his family looked like ordinary people at a funeral, even though they weren’t ordinary.

Then afterwards when we opened the churchyard there must have been thousands of people.”

He continued: “People kept coming until midnight. When they left the churchyard they got down to the main road and there were no lights.

“They couldn’t find their cars and the fire brigade came down and put lights all around the graves. It went on for weeks and weeks and it’s still going on today really.”

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Mr Hall joined the second battalion of the Ox and Bucks Light Infantry in 1942, attached to the 6th Airborne Division.

He crossed the Channel six days after the D-Day landings on to Sword beach and was involved in the big push across the Ardennes and the Rhine.

He recalls the day in the middle of the campaign when Sir Winston arrived suddenly in a Jeep to inspect his unit.

He said: “He came up with Monty [Sir Bernard Law Montgomery, commander of the British forces] and I said to my mate: ‘If I was in his position I wouldn’t be up here, I’d be safe back at home’.”

After being demobilised in 1947 Mr Hall worked for a sand and gravel company in Stanton Harcourt until he retired in 1988. He has two children, five grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

He has donated the scrapbook to a new exhibition at Blenheim Palace, Sir Winston’s birthplace, which marks the 50th anniversary of his death.

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