Honour guard from the three military services carry a coffin as they take part in a rehearsal for the ceremonial funeral of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on the steps of St. Paul's Cathedral in the city of London.
LONDON: Hundreds of British troops solemnly processed through the streets of London at dawn on Monday in a full military rehearsal for Margaret Thatcher's funeral.
Soldiers, sailors and airmen practised their roles in Wednesday's ceremonial funeral for the former British prime minister as a handful of early-morning commuters looked on.
More than 700 troops took part as a coffin draped in the British flag was carried on a horse-drawn gun carriage to St Paul's Cathedral.
Thatcher, one of the giant figures in post-war politics, died last Monday aged 87 following a stroke.
Statesmen past and present from across the globe are expected to attend her funeral.
Major Andrew Chatburn, in charge of choreographing the ceremonial procession, said the pre-sunrise rehearsal "went very well".
"Timings are most important," said Chatburn, ceremonial staff officer for the Household Division, who also ran the procession for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011 and last year's diamond jubilee parade.
"These are sailors, soldiers and airmen who have come in to do this specific task from their routine duties, so it's new to them.
"They need to see the ground as well so they can get a feel for how it's going to go and they can perform their duties with confidence on the day."
The procession band played the funeral marches of Chopin, Beethoven and Mendelssohn as it made its way along the deserted streets.
The troops marching alongside the coffin wore combat fatigues, but they will be in ceremonial uniform on Wednesday.
The coffin was carried into the cathedral by troops from all three armed services, drawn from units which fought in the 1982 Falklands War, the conflict which defined Thatcher's foreign policy.
Chatburn said the thousands of people expected to line the streets would create conditions that could not be replicated in the rehearsal.
"That creates an atmosphere and for the horses in particular that is another challenge for them," he said.
"But they will handle that because the horses themselves are used to doing duties in central London with lots of crowds around."
Afterwards, Nigel Evans, deputy speaker of parliament's lower House of Commons, said: "I think it is going to be done in the right way but pomp and ceremony is something we do awfully well.
"We are talking about marking the passing of the first woman prime minister in this country and indeed of the Western world," he told ITV television.
The coffin will spend Tuesday night at a chapel in the Houses of Parliament.
On Wednesday it will be driven in a hearse past Downing Street, where Thatcher lived and held office from 1979 to 1990, and through Trafalgar Square.
At St Clement Danes, the church of the Royal Air Force, it will be transferred to a gun carriage before crossing the historic City of London boundary.
It will pass the Royal Courts of Justice and the chambers where Thatcher worked as a lawyer in the 1950s before entering parliament and along Fleet Street, once the heartland of the British press, before climbing Ludgate Hill to St Paul's. (AFP)
