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Former British PM Margaret Thatcher will be given a funeral ceremony with full military honors before a private cremation on Wednesday, April 17.

Officials and politicians from around the world will be in London to pay their last respects to Britain’s first female prime minister.

Margaret Thatcher died at Ritz Hotel in London on Monday, April 8, after suffering a massive stroke at the age of 87.

The former prime minister will be honored with a ceremonial service with full military honors, with politicians, former world leaders and cultural figures in the congregation.

Although not officially a state funeral, in accordance with Margaret Thatcher’s wishes when making her funeral plans, the announcement of the lavish state-funded ceremony has brought a fierce backlash.

When:

The ceremony will take place on Wednesday April 17, with the service due to start at 11 a.m.

Where:

The service is being held at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, at Margaret Thatcher’s request. Attendance is by invitation only. It will be followed by a private cremation in Mortlake, south west London.

A funeral procession will travel through the streets of London, first in a hearse and then on a gun carriage, from the Chapel of St Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster to the cathedral just under two miles away, with members of the armed services lining the route.

Margaret Thatcher’s coffin will be taken by a hearse from the Palace of Westminster to the RAF Chapel, the church of St Clement Danes, in the Strand.

From there the coffin will be transferred to a gun carriage drawn by the King’s Troop Royal Artillery.

The impressive cortege will then proceed down the Strand, through Aldwych, then along the entire length of Fleet Street before rising up Ludgate Hill to the majestic St Paul’s Cathedral.

Margaret Thatcher will be given a funeral ceremony with full military honors before a private cremation on April 17

Margaret Thatcher will be given a funeral ceremony with full military honors before a private cremation on April 17

Will Margaret Thatcher’s funeral be broadcasted?

BBC1 will be showing live coverage from 9.15 a.m. to 12.15 p.m.

Who will be at St Paul’s Cathedral?

According to Downing Street, 2,000 invitations are being sent out, with guests including former prime ministers, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Lord Archer and Jeremy Clarkson.

Margaret Thatcher’s children, Carol and Mark, will lead the mourners.

Queen Elizabeth II will attend, accompanied by Prince Philip. It is the first time the Queen has attended the funeral of one of her former Prime Ministers since Sir Winston Churchill’s state funeral in 1965.

Hundreds of foreign dignitaries and top British politicians will be invited. Former PMs Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and their wives Cherie and Sarah have confirmed they will be attending, as has Margaret Thatcher’s successor in No. 10 Sir John Major.

Singers Dame Shirley Bassey and Katherine Jenkins, actor Michael Crawford, composer Lord Lloyd-Webber and lyricist Tim Rice are also due to attend the service.

Others on the guest list include Joan Collins, broadcasters Sir Terry Wogan, Sir Trevor McDonald and Sir David Frost, fashion designer Anya Hindmarch and sitcom queen June Whitfield.

Frederik Willem de Klerk, the last president of apartheid South Africa, will also be there as a guest of the family.

However, Neil Kinnock, the Labour leader defeated by Lady Thatcher at the 1987 election, has said he will not be attending.

Ten members of staff from the Ritz Hotel, where Margaret Thatcher died on Monday, have also been invited to her funeral as thanks for the care she received. She had been staying at the five-star hotel since Christmas.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has announced he will not attend the ceremony due to health problems. Former US First Lady Nancy Reagan, whose husband Ronald worked closely with Margaret Thatcher as the Cold War drew to an end, said she was “heartbroken” over Lady Thatcher’ death but could not attend due to her age.

How much is Margaret Thatcher’s funeral going to cost and who is going to pay?

The funeral is expected to cost up to £10 million (about $16 million) with the taxpayer bearing the brunt of the costs. It has been confirmed a “contribution” to the cost of the funeral will be made from Margaret Thatcher’s estate. The official cost to the public purse will be released after the service has taken place.

The security operation alone is set to cost £5 million ($8 million). Police across London have been ordered to cancel any leave they had planned for Operation True Blue on ­Wednesday.

There could be more than 4,000 officers and 2,000 troops lining the route. Hundreds of specialist police will be working on counter-terrorism measures, with others carefully monitoring CCTV cameras for trouble spots.

Every corner of the route will be checked by sniffer dogs, with sewers and drains closed.

Military personnel from the RAF, Navy and Army will line the route from Westminster to St Paul’s. Margaret Thatcher’s coffin will travel part of the way by hearse before being transferred to a gun carriage at the Church of St Clement Danes, the RAF Chapel, on the Strand. The gun carriage will be drawn by the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery. Six horses will draw the carriage, three of them mounted, with a sergeant riding alongside, an officer riding in front and three dismounted troops on foot.

Margaret Thatcher’s funeral ceremony will have a Falklands theme.

A Bearer Party made up of all three services will walk alongside the coffin, and will include those from ships, units and stations notable for their service during the Falklands Campaign. Members will be taken from the Royal Navy/Royal Marines; the Scots Guards; the Welsh Guards; the Royal Artillery; the Royal Engineers; the Parachute Regiment; the Royal Gurkha Rifles; and the RAF.

Three military bands will play – their drums draped in black as a mark of respect.

A guard of Chelsea Pensioners, dressed in their traditional red tunics, will line the steps of St Paul’s as her coffin is carried in by bearers from units particularly associated with the Falklands War.

More than 700 Armed Forces personnel drawn from all three services will take part. Members of the Welsh Guards, the regiment that suffered some of the heaviest losses during the Falklands conflict, will be among the units involved, taking on roles including the coffin bearer party, lining the route the procession will take, and forming a Guard of Honour outside St Paul’s.

Guns will be fired from the Tower of London but there will be no fly-past – as Margaret Thatcher herself requested.

How will Margaret Thatcher’s funeral affect travel in London?

Motorists are being advised to avoid Westminster and the City of London on the day of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral on Wednesday, April 17.

On the same day a number of roads will be closed and some bus services will be diverted, Transport for London (TfL) said.

Blackfriars and Westminster bridges will be closed and some Barclays Cycle Hire docking stations will be suspended. But all Tube, London Overground and Docklands Light Railway services will run normally.

The bus diversions will begin from 6 a.m. and the road closures from around 7 a.m. Among roads that will be closed will be The Strand, Fleet Street, Ludgate Hill, Whitehall, Kingsway and The Mall.

What’s the dress code at Margaret Thatcher’s funeral?

Guests at the funeral will be asked to wear full day ceremonial dress without swords, morning dress with a black waistcoat and black tie or dark suit, day dress with hat. Medals and decorations may be worn.

What are the invitations like?

Invitations have been sent out on Friday, April 12. The white VIP invitations will see guests seated under the Cathedral’s famous dome. A red or green stripe will show whether they are to sit on the port or starboard side. Other invitations are color-coded relating to where guests are to be seated in the cathedral.

Margaret Thatcher’s funeral – more details

Flags will be flown at half mast on UK government buildings and British embassies from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on the day of the funeral.

The working title for the funeral’s operation plan is True Blue – which has drawn criticism from Labour’s Andy Burnham for politicising the event.

Margaret Thatcher requested there should not be a fly-past as she considered it a waste of money.

Baroness Thatcher’s family has asked that if people wish to pay their respects, they consider making a donation to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, rather than laying flowers.

Margaret Thatcher’s love of Edward Elgar’s classical music – especially Pomp and Circumstance – is expected to be reflected in the service.

Downing Street website will have a condolence page on which people will be able to write private messages for the Thatcher family.

The public will be unable to attend Margaret Thatcher’s funeral service itself but can line the route of the funeral procession from the RAF Church in the Strand to St Paul’s Cathedral.

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Downing Street has announced that well-known hymns and poems will mark next week’s funeral of former British PM Margaret Thatcher.

Latest details of the funeral ceremony have been published including the hymns To Be A Pilgrim, I Vow to Thee My Country and Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.

The programme features lines from William Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality and TS Eliot’s Little Gidding.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people took part in a demonstration condemning Margaret Thatcher in Trafalgar Square, London.

The protesters danced and sang around a large effigy of the late prime minister and chanted slogans.

Scotland Yard says nine people were arrested during Saturday’s protest – five of them for being drunk and disorderly.

Fourteen Chelsea Pensioners – aged from 65 to 90 – will line the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral on Wednesday, April 17, as the cortege and military escort draw up to the sound of a half-muffled bell.

Margaret Thatcher, who died at the age of 87 on April 8, had strong connections to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, home of the Pensioners, over the last 10 years. The Margaret Thatcher Infirmary opened there in 2009.

Downing Street has announced that well-known hymns and poems will mark next week's funeral of former British PM Margaret Thatcher

Downing Street has announced that well-known hymns and poems will mark next week’s funeral of former British PM Margaret Thatcher

The coffin will be carried into and out of the cathedral by bearers from military units closely associated with the Falklands campaign.

The processional band will be a band of the Royal Marines and there will be a gun salute at the Tower of London.

Senior politicians and foreign heads of state will take their seats under the dome of St Paul’s before members of the Thatcher family followed by Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh are escorted from the Great West Door.

In front of the coffin, the former prime minister’s grandchildren Michael and Amanda Thatcher will carry cushions bearing the insignia of two orders she was appointed to – the Order of the Garter and the Order of Merit – and lay them on the Dome Altar.

At the foot of the lectern there will be arrangements of white lilies and greenery.

Amanda Thatcher and PM David Cameron will deliver the two readings from the King James Bible.

Downing Street said Margaret Thatcher wanted the service to be “framed” by British music.

It will include compositions by Henry Purcell, Gustav Holst, John Ireland, Herbert Howells, Edward Elgar, Frank Bridge, Charles Stanford, Hubert Parry and Ralph Vaughan Williams – as well as Johannes Brahms, Gabriel Faure and Johann Sebastian Bach.

The Bishop of London Richard Chartres will preach, and the blessing will be given by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.

The ticket-only funeral will be followed by a private cremation. Margaret Thatcher’s family have asked well-wishers to consider making a donation to the Royal Hospital Chelsea, rather than giving flowers.

Downing Street says Margaret Thatcher’s estate has offered to will make a contribution to the costs of the funeral.

The former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott has criticized plans for taxpayers’ money to be used for funeral costs.

In his Sunday Mirror column, Lord Prescott writes: “Thatcher split this country…. This country paid enough thanks to that woman. So why the hell should we continue to pay now she’s dead?”

A ComRes online poll of 2,012 people on April 10-11 found that 60% of those asked opposed state funding for the funeral, while 25% supported it.

The poll was carried out for the Independent on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror.

Margaret Thatcher has been awarded a ceremonial funeral with military honors – one step down from a state funeral.

However, it has been reported that Lady Thatcher herself insisted she did not want her body to lie in state or money to be spent on a fly-past. But it was also her wish that the armed forces play a key part in the ceremony.

Downing Street said Margaret Thatcher had requested her body rest overnight in Parliament’s Chapel of St Mary Undercroft, and the Queen had given her consent.

About 100 people will be invited to a short service on Tuesday evening led by the Dean of Westminster, which will be attended by her family, MPs and peers.

On Wednesday, Margaret Thatcher’s coffin will travel by hearse to the Church of St Clement Danes – the Central Church of the Royal Air Force – on the Strand.

The coffin will then be transferred to a gun carriage drawn by the King’s Troop Royal Artillery and taken in procession from St Clement Danes to St Paul’s Cathedral. The route will be lined by military personnel from all three services.

The Metropolitan Police acknowledges the “potential for protest” but says it will want to ensure the wishes of those paying their respects will be upheld.

Meanwhile, a memorial service will be held later at Finkin Street Methodist Church in Margaret Thatcher’s home town of Grantham, Lincolnshire.

Margaret Thatcher’s father Alfred Roberts was a lay preacher at the church and she went to Sunday school there.

Later in the day the UK singles chart position of Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead, a song at the centre of an anti-Margaret Thatcher campaign, will also become known.

Sales of the song, from the 1939 musical film the Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland, have soared since Margaret Thatcher’s death.

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