Video: Winston Churchill's Funeral

On January 30th 1965, thousands of people lined the streets of London to watch the funeral cortege of Winston Churchill pass by. The former Prime Minister had died six days earlier, aged 90.

The colour footage above shows the scenes in the capital; it is narrated by one of the wartime leader's former bodyguards. It's worth watching all the way to the end, and the poignant site of the myriad cranes along the Thames being lowered in his honour.

Churchill appears on the front cover of our February 2013 issue, and he is the subject of the article A Curse and a Blessing, which investigates how mental illness afflicted some of our most famous historical figures.

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Cometh the Finest Hour

In May 1940, Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlain as prime minister. But the great war leader’s rise to power was far from inevitable. Taylor Downing explains what a difference a day made.