Fifty years after Winston Churchill's death, Britain today paid tribute to its wartime prime minister, who remains a touchstone of political life and a reminder of a faded age of global influence.
London's Tower Bridge was raised and the HMS Belfast warship fired a gun salute as the boat that carried his coffin up the River Thames in 1965 retraced its procession, with music from bagpipers on board.
Family members cast a wreath in the water at Westminster and Prime Minister David Cameron attended a memorial ceremony in front of a statue of the cigar-chomping leader inside the Houses of Parliament.
"His enduring legacy and influence on political life and British culture is testament to his formidable strength of character and remarkable achievements," Cameron said.
To this day, British politicians often evoke Churchill to add weight to their arguments, tapping into a deep attachment felt by many who lived through World War II.
Cameron's Conservative colleague, London Mayor Boris Johnson, has just penned a biography entitled "The Churchill Factor: How One Man Made History".
"For many people he's not a historical figure - people continue to feel an emotional connection to him," said Richard Toye, a historian at the University of Exeter.
Before World War II, Churchill was seen as a maverick, discredited by the huge loss of life during the poorly-planned Gallipoli campaign of World War I, and with a reputation as a political opportunist for switching sides from the Conservatives to the Liberal Party and back.
But the image that endures of Churchill was forged in 1940, when he was appointed prime minister.
A charismatic figure in a bowler hat, bow tie, and fat cigar clamped in his mouth, he came to embody resistance to Nazi Germany's leader Adolf Hitler.
Chris Ryland, now 65, travelled to London aged 15 to see Churchill lying in state.
Black spots include his contempt for Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi, failure to send food to Bengal as a famine killed millions during World War II and brutality in Ireland on his watch at the War Office after World War I.
There was anger in Britain last year after an election candidate was arrested for quoting critical comments by Churchill about Islam, but historian Warren Dockter told AFP it is a "myth" that he was Islamophobic.
